Topic: Cambridge

Top galleries, list articles, quizzes

3 new novels grapple with questions of mortality

Three new works of fiction address themes of mortality, including a ghost – in an Anne Tyler novel.
Tax tips: Top 5 reasons to hire a tax pro

Tax tips can take you only so far if you're filling out your own returns. Sometimes, you need a tax pro. Most taxpayers, to the tune of 60 percent, opt to go with a tax professional. That share has climbed steadily: Just 41 percent used a professional preparer 30 years ago. Although a growing swath of the population – about 20 percent – is using tax-preparation software to complete returns, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), it seems that software isn't displacing accountants as much as it's simply becoming the mode of choice for do-it-yourself filers. As the Tuesday, April 17, tax filing deadline nears, here are five cases in which it might be wise to consider bringing a pro aboard:
15 spring 2012 novels we think you'll like

A preview of new novels coming this spring.
World rankings: top 10 universities around the globe

Britain's leading higher education publication, The Times Higher Education, today released its 2012 reputation rankings for universities worldwide. Here is a list of the top 10.
In Pictures: Send us your Halloween 2011 Jack-o-lanterns

All Content

Motorists are advised to seek alternatives

When deciding on alternate vs. alternative, what choice do you have?
Antarctic ice melting from below, reveals satellite (+video)

Antarctica's ice shelves are being melted away by warm ocean currents underneath, shows data collected from a NASA satellite.
3 new novels grapple with questions of mortality

Three new works of fiction address themes of mortality, including a ghost – in an Anne Tyler novel.
Tax tips: Top 5 reasons to hire a tax pro

Tax tips can take you only so far if you're filling out your own returns. Sometimes, you need a tax pro. Most taxpayers, to the tune of 60 percent, opt to go with a tax professional. That share has climbed steadily: Just 41 percent used a professional preparer 30 years ago. Although a growing swath of the population – about 20 percent – is using tax-preparation software to complete returns, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), it seems that software isn't displacing accountants as much as it's simply becoming the mode of choice for do-it-yourself filers. As the Tuesday, April 17, tax filing deadline nears, here are five cases in which it might be wise to consider bringing a pro aboard:
Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn say will challenge case in prostitution scandal

Strauss-Kahn's French lawyers called a news conference in response to news he had been formally placed under investigation into allegations he illegally participated in a prostitution scandal, in the northern city of Lille on counts that could expose their client to up to 20 years in jail.
Strange features on Mercury upend thinking about 'first rock from sun'

New results from NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft show Mercury to have features unlike anything scientists have seen elsewhere in the solar system. Here's one: a huge core for a planet this size.
15 spring 2012 novels we think you'll like

A preview of new novels coming this spring.
World rankings: top 10 universities around the globe

Britain's leading higher education publication, The Times Higher Education, today released its 2012 reputation rankings for universities worldwide. Here is a list of the top 10.
Charlotte au Chocolat

Her parents' restaurant was celebrated, but Charlotte Silver's childhood as a rich little poor girl was less glamorous than it looked.
NASA probe shoots video of the dark side of the moon (+video)

One of NASA's twin Grail probes circling the moon has captured a video of the side that perpetually faces away from Earth.
Can a spider web hold clues for better buildings? Science takes a step.

A research team has discovered how spider silk responds to stress. The results of the spider web study appear in the Thursday issue of the journal Nature.
Scientists find 'lost' Darwin fossils in gloomy corner of British Geological Survey

Using a flashlight to peer into drawers at the British Geological Survey, a paleontologist saw one of the first specimens he had picked up was labeled 'C. Darwin Esq.'
Cover Story
In India, the challenge of building 50,000 colleges

To become an economic powerhouse, India needs to educate as many as 100 million young people over the next 10 years – something never done before.
Murder at Queen Elizabeth's country estate in England?

Call Sherlock Holmes? A woman's body was found on the rural estate where Queen Elizabeth II and the British royal family celebrated New Year's eve.
In Pictures: Send us your Halloween 2011 Jack-o-lanterns
A Voice in the Box: My Life in Radio

In an unusually candid and insightful memoir, popular radio host Bob Edwards explores his own career.
Grand Pursuit: The Story of Economic Genius

How much should the government intervene in the economy of a free society? Sylvia Nasar traces a century of debate.
The world's top universities in 2011

British higher education consulting company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) today released its annual ranking of the world's top universities, one of the most influential university rankings worldwide.
Compact cars: More are on the way

Compact cars will be built in greater numbers this year as automakers cater to penny-pinching consumers. Companies also hope to eat into sales of Toyota, Honda compact cars.
Difference Maker
Walter Lewin is 'hands on' helping students grasp physics

Whether it's swinging on a pendulum or riding a rocket tricycle, the former MIT professor, now on YouTube, finds different ways to assist students as they study the laws of physics.
Chapter & Verse
Unfinished Jane Austen manuscript goes up for auction

The only surviving copy of Jane Austen's unfinished novel, 'The Watsons,' goes up for auction at Sotheby's on Thursday.
Worried about jobs, college women go 'geek'

A rising share of computer science majors at top schools are women. High-tech jobs offer stability in an uncertain economy.
Mysterious humming noise bedevils tiny English village

Residents of Woodland, Country Durham, England, have been complaining of a low hum that lasts between midnight and 4 a.m. every night.
Is Obama following in Nixon's footsteps by going after WikiLeaks?

Julian Assange faces a US grand jury investigation for his releases of information through WikiLeaks. Are there parallels between RIchard Nixon's legal action against The New York Times for publishing the Pentagon Papers?
Chapter & Verse
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein: secular humanist with a soul

Philosopher and novelist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein is a humanist whose life and work have been shaped by religion.