The taste of a piece of meat depends largely on how we feel about the way we believe the animal was raised. Northeastern psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett found that our feelings about “factory farms” vs. humane conditions can even change what we see on the plate.

David Kimbro, a marine and environmental science professor at Northeastern University, has solved the mystery of why reefs in Florida inlets were experiencing large numbers of oyster loss. Drought and subsequent high salt levels in water led to a population spike in one of the oysters’ main predators: conchs.

Humans favor speech as the primary means of linguistic communication. Spoken languages are so common many think language and speech are one and the same. But the prevalence of sign languages suggests otherwise. Not only can Deaf communities generate language using manual gestures, but their languages share some of their design and neural mechanisms with spoken languages. New research by Northeastern University’s Prof. Iris Berent further underscores the flexibility of…