Archaeologists at the University of New Hampshire along with a historian at Northeastern University believe they have unearthed the long-lost homestead of King Pompey, an enslaved African who won his freedom and later became one of the first Black property owners in colonial New England. “We are thrilled,” said Meghan Howey, professor of anthropology and...
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America’s Ally Problem
Why does Washington indulge its allies to a fault? Editor’s Note: Why don’t small, seemingly vulnerable allies listen to the United States when it makes demands on them? Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations tries to explain this puzzle, arguing that effective lobbying, the U.S. desire for leadership, and the U.S. focus on credibility all...
New Study Explores How Local Firms Should Adopt Market and Nonmarket Strategies in the Face of Foreign Direct Investment
Studies have shown how inward foreign direct investment (FDI) increases the productivity or innovation of local firms in emerging markets, but little research has explored how local firms have to strategically cope with this competition. Upon exploring these connections, a new article in the Global Strategy Journal recommends that local firms adopt a balanced approach to contend with these...
Is Coffee Good for You or Bad for You?
Coffee drinking is a heritable habit, and one that carries a certain amount of genetic baggage. Caffeinated coffee is a psychoactive substance, notes Sandra Sanchez-Roige, Ph.D., an associate professor in the University of California San Diego School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. She is one of an international group of researchers that compared coffee-consumption characteristics...
Luxury Sales Are Flattening Amid a Self-Inflicted Creativity Crisis and Price Hikes
The post-pandemic surge in global sales of luxury handbags, shoes and apparel is set to stall this year amid a creativity crisis and price hikes as brands shift focus to the biggest spending customers, a new study by the Bain consultancy said Tuesday. Bain is forecasting flat worldwide luxury sales in 2024 following a slight...
The Responsibility and Power of Platforms to Tackle Inauthentic Content
Lawmakers have yet to pursue an effective way to diminish the creation and spread of inauthentic content—mandating that platforms use prosocial interventions. For a brief moment, Taylor Swift captured the attention of hundreds of lawmakers, when a Telegram group formed for the purpose of sharing “abusive images of women,” broadly disseminated fake, sexualized images of Swift online. The rapid...
The Hidden Stories of China’s Past
A review of Ian Johnson, “Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and Their Battle for Their Future” (Oxford University Press, 2023) “To destroy a country’s people, start with destroying their history,” Gong Zizhen (1792-1841), a famous Chinese poet and intellectual from the Qing dynasty, wrote over a hundred years before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rose to...
Hybrid Work Is a “Win-Win-Win” for Companies, Workers
It is one of the most hotly debated topics in today’s workplace: Is allowing employees to log in from home a few days a week good for their productivity, careers, and job satisfaction? Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economist and one of the foremost researchers on work-from-home policies, has uncovered compelling evidence that hybrid schedules are...
Origin and Spread of Malaria
Scientists reconstruct ancient genomes of the two most deadly malaria parasites, Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum In a new study, an international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, reconstructed the evolutionary history and global spread of malaria over the past 5,500 years, identifying trade, warfare, and colonialism as major catalysts...
Ritual Sacrifice at Chichén Itzá
Ancient Maya genomes reveal the practice of male twin sacrifice and the enduring genetic legacy of colonial-era epidemics Rising to power in the wake of the Classic Maya collapse, Chichén Itzá was among the largest and most influential cities of the ancient Maya, but much about its political connections and ritual life remain poorly understood....