On a recent afternoon, the Gazette sat down with Ronald Ferguson, an MIT-trained economist who has been teaching public policy for more than three decades at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), to talk about the new book he and journalist Tatsha Robertson have written on how parenting styles shape children’s success.More

Astronomers have taken the first ever image of a black hole, which is located in a distant galaxy. It measures 40 billion km across – three million times the size of the Earth – and has been described by scientists as «a monster». The black hole is 500 million trillion km away and was photographed by a network of eight telescopes across the world.More

Smosh, Jenna Marbles, Markiplier — the names may not mean much to you, but chances are your kids are on a first-name basis. These funny YouTube hosts, with their off-the-cuff commentary, silly antics and bewildering (to adults) subject matter, are some of the most influential personalities on young teens, garnering millions (and, in the case of disgraced Swedish gamer PewDiePie, billions) of views. More

Help your child develop empathy by fostering an emotionally intelligent environment. Does your child cry when you cry? Does she want to give a dollar to every homeless man with a cardboard sign? Or do you have the kid who noticed neither the tears nor the homeless person? More

Paying kids for chores has long been a debate in family households. Some caretakers prefer demonstrating that hard work means earning money. Others are in the camp of making sure kids know chores mean being an active member of the family, not a pay day.More

As an elementary school science teacher, I find this not easy to admit, but some of my students’ most rewarding and meaningful classes over the years have happened when I have taken a back seat and let my students “tinker.”More

Barbara Grosz has a fantasy that every time a computer scientist logs on to write an algorithm or build a system, a message will flash across the screen that asks, “Have you thought about the ethical implications of what you’re doing?”More

Parents who teach their children at home could have twice the impact on raising their child’s performance at school compared to a good nursery education, a new study suggests.More