News

For ideas about fighting pandemics, look to termites and ants

Social insects like termites and ants have evolved many methods to combat disease. What can we learn from them in fighting human pandemics? A lot, says Rebeca Rosengaus, an associate professor and behavioral ecologist at Northeastern. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
June 01, 2021

First-of-its-kind nanosensor could help diagnosis and treatment of neurological disease

Every movement in the human body—from lifting our arms to our beating hearts—is regulated in some way by signals from our brains. Until recently, scientists often tracked and understood that brain-body communication only after the fact, sort of like listening to a voicemail as opposed to being on a call. But researchers at Northeastern have […]
April 16, 2021

His parents wanted a better life for Max Bi: Their gamble paid off.

Max Bi was 14 years old when his parents moved from Beijing to New York to create more opportunities for their only child. “It was for me to get a better education,” says Bi, an assistant professor of physics at Northeastern. “The competition is fierce in China, and I wasn’t a top student in middle […]
April 07, 2021

Why kids hold the key to herd immunity

To win the battle against the pandemic, kids will be vital. The fight against COVID-19 has long been focused on adults – particularly older adults. But kids are becoming a more prominent part of the conversation. We likely won’t see an end to the pandemic, experts say, until children can get vaccinated. On Wednesday, Pfizer […]
April 01, 2021

What’s happening in your brain when you’re spacing out?

We all do it. One second you’re fully focused on the task in front of you, a conversation with a friend, or a professor’s lecture, and the next second your mind is wandering to your dinner plans. But how does that happen? “We spend so much of our daily lives engaged in things that are […]
March 23, 2021

These researchers are predicting COVID-19 trends weeks before standard surveillance

Imagine trying to avoid a car crash. Every split second you spend deliberating what to do, you waste precious time needed to alter your course. Any delay between your brain’s perception of danger and your foot’s contact with the brake could mean the difference between life or death. Members of Northeastern’s Laboratory for the Modeling […]
March 09, 2021

They’re Harnessing the Power of Big Data to Track COVID-19 and Other Diseases

Around this time last year, Samuel Scarpino, an assistant professor in Northeastern’s Network Science Institute, received a call from a senior producer at VICE News. VICE’s reporters had failed to get any useful data about COVID-19 cases from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Could he help? “Welcome to public health,” Scarpino told the […]
February 25, 2021

The Ribosome: Is it the Key to the Next Generation of Antibiotic Therapies?

This article highlights the research done by the Whitford lab that was recently published in the journal Nature. Using high-performance computer modeling, the research group identified a target location on the ribosome that elucidates a potential for antibiotic therapies.
January 20, 2021

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