Smartphone apps may be the key to getting people out of their cars and onto mass transit.

An interesting study of commuters in Boston and San Francisco found people are more willing to ride the bus or train when they have tools to manage their commutes effectively. The study asked 18 people to surrender their cars for one week. The participants found that any autonomy lost by handing over their keys could be regained through apps providing real-time information about transit schedules, delays and shops and services along the routes.

Though the sample size is small, the researchers dug deep into...

1869: Neurosurgery pioneer Harvey Cushing is born. His achievements in medicine and the telling of its history will become legendary.

After undergraduate work at Yale, Cushing entered Harvard Medical School, following his great-grandfather, grandfather, father and elder brother into the profession. His stern father warned him on this occasion not to indulge in “smoking, drinking, boating, baseball and other forms of intemperance.”

Cushing excelled at Harvard. While still a student in 1894, he watched a patient die in
surgery from the effects of ether. Cushing and his colleague Ernest Codman...