April 16, 2010 at 3:58 pm
You’d think that networks that are linked to other networks would be more stable because they’d multiply their redundancy. Wrong. New research by BU physicists, published in the latest Nature magazine and discussed in Wired, shows just the opposite. In fact, networked networks are more susceptible to swift, catastrophic collapse than are independent networks, said […]
April 16, 2010 at 1:59 pm
The SEC alleges Goldman Sachs defrauded investors by marketing an investment backed by sub-prime loans without telling them that a big hedge fund was on the other side betting that it would fail — which it did. Law Professors Cornelius Hurley, a former counsel to the Fed Board of Governors, and Elizabeth Nowicki, a former SEC […]
April 15, 2010 at 11:34 am
For the first time, tests of an artificial pancreas system developed by BU researchers have successfully maintained near-normal glucose levels in patients without causing hypoglycemia. The tests, conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital, were the first of an artificial pancreas using both insulin and the blood-sugar-raising hormone glucagon. Department of Biomedical Engineering Prof. Edward Damiano, who co-led […]
April 15, 2010 at 11:05 am
Widening the insider-trading probe involving Galleon hedge-fund founder Raj Rajaratnam, federal prosecutors reportedly now are examining if a Goldman Sachs board member gave inside information about the Wall Street firm during the height of the financial crisis. Law Professor Tamar Frankel, an authority on securities law and author of “Trust and Honesty: America’s Business Culture […]
April 14, 2010 at 4:28 pm
President Obama says he wants more regulatory control over the trading of derivatives, the financial products that helped crash the economy, and says the Democrats’ efforts to re-regulate Wall Street will not lead to another taxpayer bailout. Former Federal Reserve Bank examiner Mark Williams, who teaches finance at the BU School of Management and is […]
April 14, 2010 at 11:18 am
The International Monetary Fund recently endorsed the use of capital controls by governments to avoid asset bubbles. Now it’s backing off a bit, saying such policies could cause distortions in domestic and international markets. International Relations Professor Kevin Gallagher, a specialist in globalization and development who has written about the IMF and capital controls in Foreign Policy […]
April 14, 2010 at 10:11 am
In the wake of the plane crash that killed its president and 95 others, Poland will be staging a presidential election on June 20th. Though protests are growing over where the late president Lech Kaczynski will be buried, international relations Professor Igor Lukes, a specialist in Eastern European politics, says in a BU Today interview […]
April 13, 2010 at 1:29 pm
President Obama says nuclear terrorism is among the greatest threats to global security and that world leaders must destroy or secure stockpiles of nuclear materials. Verification expert Philip O’Neill, who teaches national security law at BU Law and is author of the just-published book “Verification in an Age of Insecurity,” says the verification process must […]
April 12, 2010 at 3:30 pm
PDA pioneer Palm, creator of the Pre smartphone, reportedly is shopping itself and has hired Goldman Sachs to help find a buyer. School of Management Professor N. Venkat Venkatraman, head of the Information Systems Department, says a sale was inevitable as Palm has not been able to gain much traction with it’s Pre beyond a small […]
April 9, 2010 at 12:44 pm
Former executives from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the goverment agencies whose mortage-loans holdings helped sink the economy, testified before the Congressional commission looking into the financial meltdown. Mark Williams, who teaches finance at the BU School of Management and is author of “Uncontrolled Risk” about the fall of Lehman Brothers, says both agencies may have outlived […]
