Category: Other Publications

‘A Faustian bargain’: on the value of the humanities

November 15, 2010 at 2:07 pm

Perhaps my own background will interest you. I started out as a classics major. I’m now Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry. Of all the courses I took in college and graduate school, the ones that have benefited me the most in my career as a scientist are the courses in classics, art history, sociology, and [...]

By CAS Core Curriculum | Also posted in In the News, Quotes | Tagged | Comments (0)

Core student authors first Bhutanese cookbook

November 11, 2010 at 11:21 am

This summer, Core student Erik Nagamatsu (Core ’11, CAS ‘13) released Foods of the Kingdom of Bhutan. This book, which Erik co-authored with his father, is the first cookbook ever devoted to the cuisine the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan.  Core student employees John McCargar and Tom Farndon sat down with Erik to talk about the [...]

By CAS Core Curriculum | Also posted in Core Authors, Culinary Arts, Great Personalities | Tagged | Comments (0)

An essay on the color of the canon

September 24, 2010 at 11:42 am

A prominent feature of the discussion about great books is the predominance of male authors, and of European ones. The Core at BU has since its inception included texts from the Eastern as well as the Western tradition — the epic of Gilgamesh, the Analects of Lao-Tzu, the Bhagavad-Gita — in the scope of its [...]

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Physical constants seem to vary, in SpaceDaily

September 15, 2010 at 4:46 pm

In a challenge to the meaning of the concept “physical constant” as it is taught in CC105, a team of astrophysicists, led by John Webb in the University of New South Wales, Australia are claiming they have discovered a kind of variability in a fundamental constant of nature (via SpaceDaily): New research suggests that the [...]

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The value of happiness

September 10, 2010 at 11:17 am

Alumni of CC204 will take special interest in this piece at Huffington Post, where Leah Finnegan looks at a new study suggesting a measurable price on day-to-day happiness: Not having enough money causes emotional pain and unhappiness, the researchers found. But the happiness tipping point is about $75,000 – more money than that doesn’t make [...]

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Cognitive research on study habits, in the NYTimes

September 8, 2010 at 3:47 pm

In an article for the The New York Times, Benedict Carey examines the recent research that suggests that some of the received wisdom on study habits may be counter-productive: In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying. [...] [...]

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