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US ceasefire with Iran: What’s next? A former diplomat explains 3 possible scenarios

Donald Heflin, Tufts University

An astronaut looking out a window from below. The Earth is taking up most of the view outside the window.

Artemis II crew used modern photography to tell the visual story of their lunar journey – and update some classic Apollo images

Jennifer Levasseur, Smithsonian Institution

Artemis II moonshot reflects a spacefaring vision present in Jules Verne’s 19th-century novel

Anastasia Klimchynskaya, Illinois Wesleyan University

The Earth, partially shadowed, visible beyond the lunar horizon.

After ceasefire, negotiating a lasting deal with Iran would require overcoming regional rivalries and strategic incoherence

Ioana Emy Matesan, Wesleyan University

4 ways the war in Iran has weakened the United States in the great power game

Jeffrey Taliaferro, Tufts University

A zoom lens captures a man at a lectern during a press conference.

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jumble of disparate images like question marks, supreme court building, two silhouettes kissing and smiley faces

Tobacco is still one of the world’s top killers – here are the key obstacles to enacting generational smoking bans

Marie Helweg-Larsen, Dickinson College

A wall of packed shelves displays an array of cigarette brands, along with other products containing nicotine.

80 years later, scholarship is breaking silence on women’s suffering and strength at Treblinka – including their role in its uprising

Chad S.A. Gibbs, College of Charleston

A large stone monument stands in grass, with people standing on the edge of the grass and woods in the distance.

Health care sticker shock has become the norm, but talking to your doctor about costs can help you rein it in

Helen Colby, Indiana University and Deidre Popovich, Texas Tech University

A doctor wearing a white medical coat talks with a patient in a striped sweater.

The pseudoscientific attractiveness scale that grew out of incel forums and is now making money for looksmaxxing influencers

Gemma Ware, The Conversation

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Young man looking at himself in the mirror.

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Clinician talking to patient in a clinical exam room

Doctors can refuse to treat LGBTQ+ patients in several states – these religious exemption laws lead to drops in HIV testing

Nathaniel M. Tran, University of Illinois Chicago and Periwinkle Seljord-Solberg, University of Illinois Chicago

A long exposure photo of meteors streaking across the sky. Each meteor looks like a line crossing the sky

I found a new meteor shower, and it comes from an asteroid getting broken down by the Sun

Patrick M. Shober, NASA

What declining vaccination rates mean for families in Allegheny County – where 1 in 3 kindergarten classrooms lack herd immunity for measles

Kar-Hai Chu, University of Pittsburgh and Maggie Slavin, University of Pittsburgh

Child in blue shirt receives vaccine from older nurse.

As a philosopher, I’m convinced that Trump isn’t lying − he’s doing something worse

Robert B. Talisse, Vanderbilt University

A group of people making thumbs-down hands sign.

It’s OK to love all the bees (the honey bees, too)

Christina Grozinger, Penn State; Andony Melathopoulos, Oregon State University; Clare Rittschof, University of Kentucky; Harland Patch, Penn State, and Jay Evans, Agricultural Research Service, USDA

A bee with floppy-looking antennae flies toward the camera.

Psilocybin mushrooms are going mainstream, but scientific research and regulation lag behind

Hollis Karoly, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Kent Hutchison, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Wooden bowl filled with dried, hallucinogenic mushrooms.

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Diners sit around tables in a restaurant.

What a Chinese crackdown on corruption meant for Beijing’s high-end restaurant market

Rui Du, Oklahoma State University

In his efforts to remake federal architecture, Trump repudiates the ‘republican ideals’ that have long informed it

Kevin D. Murphy, Vanderbilt University

Yellow vehicles work on construction grounds to the right of a stately, white residence.

Trump administration’s lawsuits against Harvard and UCLA have roots in a decades-old fight over civil rights law

Ryan Creps, University at Buffalo

Five adults stand near each other outside a brick building with a stone slate that has writing on it

Pope Leo XIV’s Africa journey: How each stop reflects his message of peace

Mathew Schmalz, College of the Holy Cross

A man in white robes with embroidery holds up a bunch of green leaves as he stands outside.

AI can design and run thousands of lab experiments without human hands. Humanity isn’t ready for the new risks this brings to biology

Stephen D. Turner, University of Virginia

Orange robotic arm holding a syringe filled with neon green fluid between its claws

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Artemis II's historic journey

A small crew capsule floating in the ocean, with three parachutes attached to it falling down towards the water.

The science behind splashdown − how NASA got the Artemis II crew safely back on Earth

Marcos Fernandez Tous, University of North Dakota

NASA’s Artemis II crewed mission to the Moon shows how US space strategy has changed since Apollo – and contrasts with China’s closed program

Michelle L.D. Hanlon, University of Mississippi

Artemis II’s long countdown – a space historian explains why it has taken over 50 years to return to the Moon

Emily A. Margolis, Smithsonian Institution

A conical module reading NASA in space, with the Earth and Moon visible in the distance.

Astronaut Victor Glover is the latest in a long line of Black American explorers − including York, the enslaved man who played a key role in the Lewis and Clark expedition

Craig Fehrman, Indiana University

Four astronauts wearing orange jumpsuits

Why is the US going back round the Moon with Artemis II? A space policy expert explains

Gemma Ware, The Conversation

The Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft.

U.S.-Iran war

Why the Persian Gulf has more oil and gas than anywhere else on Earth

Scott L. Montgomery, University of Washington

US and Iran: A brief history of how decades of mistrust and bad blood led to open warfare

Jeffrey Fields, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

A man walks past a large paining on a building.

Iran’s president appeals to Americans − but does his office still hold any real power?

Roxane Razavi, Princeton University

Why Iran targeted Amazon data centers and what that does – and doesn’t – change about warfare

Dennis Murphy, Georgia Institute of Technology

a large plume of black smoke rises in an industrial area

How will the Iran war change the Middle East? We asked 5 experts

Scott Lucas, University College Dublin; Andrew Thomas, Deakin University; Chris Ogden, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Jessica Genauer, UNSW Sydney, and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University

Philosophy and ethics

Hands type on a keyboard, as the words 'credit score' and a colored chart float above.

Moral metrics: Are corporate algorithms becoming our new moral authorities?

Beth DuFault, University of Portland

Paul Ehrlich, often called alarmist for dire warnings about human harms to the Earth, believed scientists had a responsibility to speak out

William J. (Bill) Kovarik, Radford University

A man in a chambray shirt and sun hat stands outdoors, feeding a bird from his hand.

What an ancient Chinese philosopher can teach us about Americans’ obsession with college rankings

Stephen Chen, Wellesley College

A girl in a red skirt looks up at a wall full of Chinese script in large characters, against a white background.

Iran war and other tough topics give K-12 teachers chance to teach students how, not what, to think

Boaz Dvir, Penn State

A large crowd of people stand in a street with red, white and green flags and a large billboard that shows a man wearing a robe, waving to people holding their arms up to him.

I was teaching virtue and knowledge while lying on the side

Katherine Moses, University of Mississippi

A woman drives a car at night with her eyes visible through the rearview mirror.

Extreme weather and natural disasters

A woman sits in a yard with xeriscaping, a landscaping practice that uses rocks and water efficient plants.

Water conservation works, but climate change is outpacing it: Phoenix, Denver and Las Vegas offer a glimpse of the future

Renee Obringer, Penn State and Dave White, Arizona State University

Winter’s alarmingly low snowpack reflects the changing rhythm of water in the western US

Imtiaz Rangwala, University of Colorado Boulder

A few across a mountain stream near Lake Tahoe and land covered in snow.

Can you survive inside a tornado? This scientist did by accident – he’s lucky to be alive

Perry Samson, University of Michigan

2026’s historic snow drought brings worries about water, wildfires and the future in the West

Alejandro N. Flores, Boise State University

Snowmaking is evident on ski slopes in the mountains, while much of the surrounding land is snow-free

Sixth year of drought in Texas and Oklahoma leaves ranchers facing wildfires and bracing for another tough year

Joel Lisonbee, University of Colorado Boulder and William Baule, Texas A&M University

A farmer walks toward cattle in a very dry landscape under a blue sky.

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ICE and immigration

Two people stand in doorway of church underneath an arch with stained-glass window

Philadelphia’s 40-year history of protecting undocumented immigrants began with churches hiding refugees from El Salvador

Menika Dirkson, Morgan State University

We teach at a Florida university that agreed to cooperate with ICE – and we worry that it is making our students feel less safe

Anindya Kundu, Florida International University and Ryan W. Pontier, Florida International University

People are seen in shorts and shirts and backpacks walking along a cobblestone path with trees around them.

US refugee policy for white South Africans is part of a century-long effort to keep some English-speaking nations white

John Broich, Case Western Reserve University

Dozens of people, some holding U.S. flags, listen to a man speak.

ICE buys $87M warehouse in Pennsylvania − can local officials block a detention facility?

Aaron Walayat, University of Dayton

Black woman wearing a medical mask holds sign that reads, "ICE Out Of Pennsylvania."

Why ICE’s body camera policies make the videos unlikely to improve accountability and transparency

Stephanie Lessing, UMass Boston

Trump administration

When a president is unfit for office, here’s what the Constitution says can happen

Kirsten Matoy Carlson, Wayne State University

What is CREC and how does it shape Pete Hegseth’s religious rhetoric?

Samuel Perry, Baylor University

A man in a navy suit and purple tie gestures as he speaks at a lectern.

Supreme Court ruling on Colorado conversion therapy case is not a clear win for conservatives

Kevin Cope, University of Virginia

People stand in line on sunny day outside the U.S. Supreme Court building.

Pam Bondi’s extreme political loyalty to Trump wasn’t enough to save her job

Austin Sarat, Amherst College

A man dressed in suit and tie stands on a stage next to a woman dressed in a beige suit.

The Department of Justice is suing states for sensitive voter data − an election law scholar explains why federal efforts are facing resistance

John J. Martin, Quinnipiac University

An illustration of people voting, carrying flags, and the White House.

International

Israel’s death penalty law has little to do with criminal justice and everything to do with ethno-nationalism

Arie Perliger, UMass Lowell

Lebanon’s political elites are using displacement and humanitarian crisis to delay elections again

Jasmin Lilian Diab, Lebanese American University

A men in a suit gestures from his speaker's chair.

Handpumps bring water to rural African communities, but many are broken – study models how best to maintain them

Chengcheng Zhai, University of Notre Dame; Alfonso J. Pedraza Martinez, University of Notre Dame; Jorge Mejia, Indiana University; Kurt M. Bretthauer, Indiana University, and Rodney Parker, Indiana University

Five people stand with buckets near a tall water pump that is operated by pumping it by hand.

From youth bulges to graying societies: The demographic dynamics that are upending the world

John Rennie Short, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

An aerial shot of people and their shadows.

Oil price surge is hurting African economies: scholars in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa take stock

Stephen Onyeiwu, Allegheny College; Ibrahima Thiam, Université Iba Der Thiam de Thiès; Rod Crompton, University of the Witwatersrand; Tsegay Tekleselassie, Wellesley College, and XN Iraki, University of Nairobi

Women seated behind piles of fresh produce on the ground in a marketplace

New research in health and science

Mosquitoes carrying malaria are evolving more quickly than insecticides can kill them – researchers pinpoint how

Jacob A Tennessen, Harvard University

New study measures titanium in Apollo rock to uncover Moon’s early chemistry

Advik D. Vira, Georgia Institute of Technology and Emily First, Macalester College

A black and white photo of the lunar surface, with several large rocks and a ridge in the background.

Health insurance jargon can be frustrating and confusing – here’s how to navigate it

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, UMass Amherst and Michal Horný, UMass Amherst

Middle-aged man reviewing a financial document in front of his laptop.

Power outages in heat waves and storms can threaten the lives of medical device users – we looked at who is most at risk

Matthew D. Dean, University of California, Irvine and Katherine Asmussen, University of Tennessee

An older adult writes while using a machine with a face mask that assists with breathing.

Millions of CT scans are done every year – most leave important data behind

Peter Gunderman, Indiana University

Doctor running CT scan from the next room, with patient entering a CT scanner in the background.

Artificial intelligence

Young female biologist analyzes protein structures on molecular modelling software on a computer.

AI is reengineering drug discovery by speeding up testing and scanning petabytes of data for connections between diseases

Jeffrey Skolnick, Georgia Institute of Technology and Benjamin P. Brown, Vanderbilt University

SpaceX and OpenAI IPOs are unlikely to bring skyrocketing returns that Amazon and Apple did, as companies go public later in life and early investors cash out

Brad Badertscher, University of Notre Dame

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from a pad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida

Cameras have quietly appeared in thousands of US cities – now, their integration with AI is sounding alarms

Jess Reia, University of Virginia

A street light pole with a solar panel, pedestrian signals and a small, black camera affixed to it.

Ultralightweight sonar plus AI lets tiny drones navigate like bats

Nitin Sanket, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

How AI English and human English differ – and how to decide when to use artificial language

Laura Aull, University of Michigan

cartoon of a woman and a humanoid robot talking to each other

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