A recent report by The Education Trust, a nonprofit working on educational justice, reveals that while there has been an improvement in graduation rates at four-year public institutions for all students, the improvement is smaller for black students.

According to the report, the gaps in graduation rates between black and white students have either...

Even though most people don’t know much about chemicals in general or poisons in particular, virtually everyone knows that arsenic is bad. In the first century, arsenic was already known to be a deadly poison . However, it was the Borgias in the 14th and 15th centuries who perfected...

This week marks the centennial of the Easter Rising – the armed insurrection that would trigger nationalist Ireland’s final battle for independence from Great Britain.

The first of July will mark another centennial, that of the Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest battles in human history, in which over 3,500 Irish soldiers were...

Luis is an upper-middle-class American-born Latino.

When I interviewed him in 2008, he told me he had spent long hours, and a substantial amount of money, restoring a classic Chevy truck. One day, clad in grease-stained work clothes, Luis decided to take the truck for a test drive around his affluent neighborhood. As he cruised past his neighbors'...

Last Thursday, the world was shocked by the untimely death of Prince, the highly prolific, Grammy-winning music icon who not only transformed music and the record industry but also provoked questions about race, gender and sexuality.

Apart from his songs, musical genius and virtuosic skills, the “Purple Rain” singer is also widely...

The largest nuclear disaster in history occurred 30 years ago at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in what was then the Soviet Union. The meltdown, explosions and nuclear fire that burned for 10 days injected enormous quantities of radioactivity into the atmosphere and contaminated vast areas of Europe and Eurasia. The International Atomic Energy...

The 1986 Chernobyl and 2011 Fukushima nuclear power plant accidents both share the notorious distinction of attaining the highest accident rating on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) scale of nuclear accidents. No other reactor incident has ever received this Level 7 “major accident” designation in the history of nuclear...

Uber, the popular ride-hailing app, just announced it has settled two class action lawsuits in California and Massachusetts in which drivers sought classification as employees and entitlement to overtime pay and more transparent handling of tips.

Under the terms of the settlement, which you may read here, Uber will pay US$84 million to be...

Recently a friend of mine on Facebook posted a link whose headline quoted a scientist saying “Most cancer research is largely a fraud.” The quote is both out of context and many decades old. But its appearance still makes a strong point: the general public has a growi...

We now have dozens of smart devices in our houses and even on our bodies. They improve our lives in so many ways – from lowering energy consumption in our homes to egging us on to be active.

But these smart devices respond to whatever commands they are...