The anatomy of viral content and Internet outrage We all know that things go viral. Someone’s cat, or a dancing baby. Or that dress – the one that was either blue and black or white and gold. But where does a viral picture or meme start? What spreads one idea around the world and leaves another one dead on the screen? One researcher […]
Philly.com Hiring bias against the unemployed: Should there be a law? A White House report out last month on the nation’s shrinking labor participation rate said gloomy job prospects likely have driven some older workers into retirement. It also pointed to research that indicates the longer people are unemployed, the lower their odds of finding work. A big factor is that employers discriminate against job applicants […]
Governing Being unemployed makes it harder to get a job. Can states fix the problem? A White House report out last month on the nation’s shrinking labor participation rate said gloomy job prospects likely have driven some older workers into retirement. It also pointed to research that indicates the longer people are unemployed, the lower their odds of finding work. A big factor is that employers discriminate against job applicants […]
Politico The KKK is a terrorist organization This weekend, three people were killed in violent incidents outside Kansas City. From the earliest reports, the killings bore all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack. There is still no consensus over the definition, but terrorism usually denotes a nonstate actor attacking civilian targets to spread fear for some putative political goal. And here we […]
Are we finally ready to reduce racial bias in our courts? While trends in American criminal justice have come and gone over the last century, what has remained tiresomely — and implacably — consistent has been the role of race as a factor in decision-making by jurists, juries and prosecutors alike. Seemingly unrelated events over the last few weeks suggest that a serious pendulum swing is […]
National Geographic Climbing and Cycling Through the Colorado Rockies for Conservation Rob and Clint are ambitious college students at Northeastern University in Boston and avid climbers, cyclists and outdoorsmen. Not new to the world of adventure travel Clint and Rob set out to spend more than a month this past summer cycling over 600 miles around Colorado from climb to climb and included over 40,000 feet […]
Fall brings a burst of hot new titles “It looks really promising, and I think it’s going to be huge,” she says, likening it to the feminist cultural studies’ answer to “Lean In.” Also high on Cass’s list: Northeastern University literature professor Carla Kaplan’s social history, “Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance” (September), and Harvard historian Jill Lepore’s […]
Bulger deserves to be forgotten: Column One by one, the court clerk read aloud the verdicts on the multitude of charges against the former Boston mob boss, James Joseph Bulger, Jr. As expected, the 83-year-old defendant was found guilty of murder, extortion, racketeering, money laundering, drug trafficking and various weapons violations. For us here in Massachusetts, it will certainly be a relief to have this protracted saga over and done. No more news reports […]
Empathy With Dogs Stronger Than With Humans: Study People feel more empathy with dogs than they do their own species, a new study suggests. Children, however, remain about on par as with canines. The findings, presented at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, zeroed in on age as the biggest factor eliciting empathy. Marked by vulnerability and dependence, dogs are seen as […]
UPI People have more empathy for puppies, dogs than adult humans People have more empathy for puppies, full grown dogs and human children who are battered than they do for battered adult humans, U.S. researchers say. Study co-authors Jack Levin and Arnold Arluke, professors at Northeastern University, questioned 240 men and women, most of whom were white and ages 18-25, at a large northeastern university. Participants […]
Science Codex People have more empathy for battered dogs than human adult, but not child, victims People have more empathy for battered puppies and full grown dogs than they do for some humans — adults, but not children, finds new research to be presented at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. “Contrary to popular thinking, we are not necessarily more disturbed by animal rather than human suffering,” said […]
The Boston Tragedy Reveals the Need for Community-Based Counterterrorism Strategies As part of the Boston community, we share the sadness of last week’s Boston Marathon bombings. Thanks to excellent police work and public cooperation, Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev were identified as the perpetrators and are reportedly unaffiliated with any larger terrorist network. But going forward, how can law enforcement increase its ability to identify would-be terrorists operating […]