For more than two decades, Fermilab in Batavia, Ill., housed the world’s largest particle accelerator — the Tevatron Collider — which allowed scientists to study the most elementary units of matter. Last September, Fermilab shut down the Tevatron forever. International hopes of understanding some of the most fundamental mysteries of particle physics began to shift […]

By Casey Bayer This weekend we turn the clocks forward an hour for the return of daylight saving time, which means we lose an hour of sleep. We also have to do things an hour earlier than we did before relative to the natural light and dark cycles of the day and relative to our […]

As they drove through the Okavengo Delta in Botswana, a team of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) scientists and three Northeastern physics students encountered a wild elephant attempting to protect his home from the unlikely intruders.

By Angela Herring As they drove through the Okavengo Delta in Botswana, a team of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) scientists and three Northeastern physics students encountered a wild elephant attempting to protect his home from the unlikely intruders. Undeterred, the team ventured on to obtain a single GPS point along the East African Rift, which […]

By Casey Bayer Murray Gibson (center), dean of the College of Science, says that without a leap day every fourth year, summer would drift out of sync about one month every 100 years or so. Today is Feb. 29, the extra day we add to the calendar in leap years. But why do we need […]

By Matt Colette Graham Jones, chair of the chemistry and chemical biology department, says tough FDA standards and slim profit margins for certain pharmaceuticals mean drug shortages are likely, and the global market may worsen the problem. Photo by Mary Knox Merrill. Drug manufacturers and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) scrambled earlier this month to […]

By Greg St. Martin Northeastern hosted a lecture on Sunday on the physics of superheroes’ powers ahead of the American Physical Society’s annual meeting in Boston. Over the years, superhero stories have delighted millions of fans through movies, television shows and comic books. But these tales can also teach us a lesson in physics, according […]

By Jason Kornwitz Two weeks ago, boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. caused a stir by tweeting, “Jeremy Lin is a good player, but all the hype is because he’s Asian…” How much of the attention surrounding Lin stems from the fact that the first Asian-American NBA player of Chinese or Taiwanese descent has experienced a historic […]

by Matt Collette Northeastern University and the Flatley Discovery Lab, a Boston-based independent, nonprofit organization, are collaborating to develop a cure for cystic fibrosis, a devastating genetic disease often overlooked by major pharmaceutical companies. Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by mutations in the cystic fibrosis conductance regulator (CFTR) gene that cause thick, sticky mucus to […]

Distinguished Professor of Physics Albert-László Barabási discusses Network Science...

by Angela Herring “In reality, we rationalize. We deny, or we couldn’t go on living,” says Judah Rosenthal, the successful ophthalmologist whose perfect life begins to unravel in Woody Allen’s 1989 film, “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In order to go on living, Rosenthal must rationalize the series of risky and uncharacteristic decisions that nearly destroy him. Discussing […]

The naturally occurring antibiotic Actinomycin D (ActD) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a chemotherapy drug in 1964 and has been widely used for nearly 50 years to treat a variety of tumor types. Since then, scientists have discovered that ActD works by blocking DNA transcription, the process that transcribes DNA into RNA, a macromolecule that codes for the proteins necessary for cell survival.

Northeastern University Provides Input on Regulatory Standards The FDA recently released draft guidelines for the Biosimilar Approval Pathway, which will accelerate the approval process for biosimilars—the generic versions of biopharmaceuticals. These guidelines will give drug companies who are producing these generic drugs the opportunity to enter the market rapidly. Since 2009 Northeastern University has been […]