Colorado movie theater shooter James Holmes. Sandy Hook school attacker Adam Lanza. And now Elliot Rodger. All were young loners with no criminal history who went on shooting sprees, leaving devastated families in their wake. Mass murderers tend to have a history of pent-up frustration and failures, are socially isolated and vengeful, blaming others for […]

MADRID — Outside City Hall late Saturday night, a man is on his knees, hands over his face, head pointed toward the sky as if in prayer. The screaming fans running past barely notice. They’ve got enough to think about. Real Madrid has won the championship in one of the most unexpected and anticipated contests […]

Thanks to a seven-minute YouTube video and a 141-page autobiographical tale of a troubled life, we have a fairly clear idea of why 22-year-old Elliot Rodger took to the streets of an ordinarily tranquil oceanside community in Southern California with enough guns and ammo to carry out a bloodbath. Even before the names of the six victims killed and […]

For students majoring in the liberal arts, with all of that degree’s vagary, the question is a common one: “What are you going to do with that degree?” Statistically speaking, it turns out the best answer would be to teach. That’s just one tiny finding in a sea of interesting data compiled by Northeastern University […]

Wary of threats to competition and the effects on consumers and patients, health economists and antitrust regulators are watching these market dynamics with a concerned eye. Last year, with Steve Pizer of Northeastern University and Roger Feldman of the University of Minnesota, in the journal Health Services Research, I published a study that directly related hospital-insurer integration with […]

Fresh from tentatively settling the class action lawsuit based on the concussions suffered by its players, the National Football League faces a new challenge that promises to cause the League migraines for years to come. Eight former NFL players — Richard Dent, Jim McMahon, Jeremy Newberry, Roy Green, J.D. Hill, Keith Van Horne, Ron Stone […]

I thoroughly enjoy Twitter. I enjoy its compression, its instant gratification, and the fact you can connect with just about anyone anywhere about anything in no time at all. (Plus, it’s helped start revolutions.) Not that we need a whole lot of new data to prove the global power of social media, but I spent […]

Northeastern University is starting a master of science in innovation.

One Boston startup has been offering customers “Don’t-Do-It-Yourself” storage since 2010, but it’s still managed to remain relatively unnoticed – ask someone if they’ve ever heard of Fetch Storage and there’s a good chance the answer will be no. Brij Patel, one of the company’s co-founders, told BostInno “word of mouth” and “Google searches” have thus far […]

EACH YEAR several million children either die or suffer irreparable developmental defects because of vitamin A deficiency. Countless others are harmed by malnutrition and starvation. Yet many of these deaths would be preventable if we addressed them head on and used the tools that exist to stop them. One of the key tools is the use […]

Already known for adopting some of the country’s toughest gun control laws, Massachusetts lawmakers may soon debate whether to restrict firearms access even further. Democrats in the Legislature are preparing to unveil a sweeping gun safety bill that’s expected to put new limits on gun licensing, restrict private sales, expand background checks for gun buyers […]

These are graduation days all over – college, community college, high school – and, for most, the very next agenda item is a job.  The years of the Great Recession were brutal for new grads.  And long.  What about now?  The Class of 2014 is reported to be the most optimistic in years about its […]