CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Political scientists have long wondered whether city governments in the U.S. are really responsive to their voters. Aren’t local governments simply mired in machine politics, or under the sway of local big-money interests? Does ideology matter? Now a uniquely comprehensive study co-authored by an MIT political scientist has produced a pair of distinctive […]
The disastrous March 22 landslide that killed 43 people in the rural Washington state community of Oso involved the “remobilization” of a 2006 landslide on the same hillside, a new federally sponsored geological study concludes. The research indicates the landslide, the deadliest in U.S. history, happened in two major stages. The first stage remobilized the 2006 slide, […]
An international team of researchers has found new evidence that our prehistoric ancestors had a detailed understanding of plants long before the development of agriculture. By extracting chemical compounds and microfossils from dental calculus (calcified dental plaque) from ancient teeth, the researchers were able to provide an entirely new perspective on our ancestors’ diets. Their […]
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Most research examining growing income inequality in the United States has focused on economic causes, for seemingly obvious reasons. But a new study suggests that a different cause – the politically induced decline in the strength of worker unions – may play a much more pivotal role than previously understood. In fact, […]