Back pain story, because estimates say about two-thirds of adults in the United States will suffer from back or neck pain during their lifetimes. Many instances of back pain are caused by damage or degeneration of the intervertebral disks—the squishy little hockey pucks that sit between vertebrae, helping our spinal columns move and absorb shocks.... Continue Reading →

While inmates at maximum security prisons in the U.S. are guaranteed at least 2 hours of outdoor time a day, half of children worldwide spend less than an hour outside, reports TreeHugger.com. A survey of 12,000 parents in 10 countries found that one-third of children (ages 5 to 12) spend less than 30 minutes outside each... Continue Reading →

RRoute 9 skims by Boston and cuts clear across Massachusetts to Pittsfield, a city of roughly 50,000, the largest in Berkshire County. Well east of Pittsfield, Route 9 becomes Worcester Road, named for a city that in earlier times was the nation’s largest manufacturer of wire—barbed wire, electrical wire, telephone wire and the wire used... Continue Reading →

Since the first airplane took flight over 100 years ago, virtually every aircraft in the sky has flown with the help of moving parts such as propellers, turbine blades, and fans, which are powered by the combustion of fossil fuels or by battery packs that produce a persistent, whining buzz. Now MIT engineers have built... Continue Reading →

The 2008 financial crisis is proving to have been an important marker in the 21st century because of the lingering effects it’s had on the global economy, particularly in North America and most of Europe. It set the stage for a wide revival of populist politics not seen since the 1930s, and has caused many... Continue Reading →

News anchors are beneficial to society in many ways. It’s nice to have someone read you the news, as opposed to having to read it yourself. News anchors also look very pleasant, with faces that are often close to symmetrical as well as very good teeth. But they do have their downsides. They’re expensive; noted... Continue Reading →

On Tuesday, the United States should be celebrating its 95th Armistice Day, pausing as a nation to think about the terrible costs of war – including the loss of so many lives. Unfortunately, we replaced it with a very different holiday. On 1 June 1954, less than a year after America exited the Korean War in defeat,... Continue Reading →

A UK hospital is probing the cause of a patient's death after the UK's first robot-assisted heart valve surgery. Was it the surgeon's lack of training? His supervisors' early departure? Poor communication? Or…the robot itself? The pioneering robot-assisted mitral valve repair ended in catastrophe, with a cascade of failures resulting in the death of retired... Continue Reading →

There was a huge amount of excitement when the Higgs boson was first spotted back in 2012—a discovery that bagged the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013. The particle completed the so-called standard model, our current best theory of understanding nature at the level of particles. Now scientists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at... Continue Reading →

Approximately 15 years ago, the St. Boniface church in San Francisco started opening its doors for homeless people in need of shelter. Father Louis Vitale of the church along with community activist Shelly Roder, started the effort, which is known as The Gubbio Project in 2004. Hundreds of people every day pass through this church,... Continue Reading →