The Conversation U.S. - News written by researchers and scientists to help you understand

A man with a beard holds a green white and red flag.

Arming a Kurdish insurgency would be a risky endeavor – for both the US and Iran’s minority Kurds

John Calabrese, American University

War in Middle East brings uncertainty and higher energy costs to already weakening US economy

Michael Klein, Tufts University

an obscured skyline can be seen as smoke rises

China’s muted response over war in Iran reflects Beijing’s delicate calculus as a concerned onlooker

John Calabrese, American University

A young Venezuelan miner works in an open pit gold mine in Bolivar State, Venezuela, in 2023.

Venezuela’s fragile environment faces rising risks as US pushes for oil and critical minerals and illegal gold mining spreads

Antonio Machado Allison, Wesleyan University

Persian Gulf desalination plants could become military targets in regional war

Michael Christopher Low, University of Utah

Two people stand on a large concrete platform overlooking a wide swath of flowing water.

Today’s obsession with authenticity isn’t new – being true to yourself has troubled philosophers for centuries

Kenneth Andrew Andres Leonardo, Hamilton College

A young Asian woman looks up into a beam of light as she holds a smartphone.

How Instagram addictiveness lawsuit could reshape social media – platform design meets product liability

Carolina Rossini, UMass Amherst

a teen girl weaing pajamas looks at a phone while sitting on a bed in a dark room

Measuring poverty on a spectrum instead of an arbitrary line conveys a more accurate picture of inequality

Olivier Sterck, University of Oxford

A hand draws steps that ascend, ending with a big dollar sign.

Public health needs steady budgets – and federal funding uncertainty causes real harms, even if the money is later restored

Max Crowley, Penn State

A health care worker with the South Carolina Department of Public Health talks to a patient outside a mobile clinic offering free measles vaccinations in February 2026.

When Washington and the states are in conflict, the ultimate winner is not always certain

Kenneth Michael White, Kennesaw State University

A group of students block access to a building under a banned that reads, "ICE off campus."

Trump offered a restrictive deal to universities that almost all rejected – but the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education may not be entirely dead

Fred L. Pincus, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

A cartoon image shows a person looking inside a bird cage that has books in it

Family-friendly workplaces are great − but ‘families of 1’ get ignored

Peter McGraw, University of Colorado Boulder

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Smoke rises after an airstrike in Tehran.

How dangerous has the conflict in Iran become? Expert Q&A

Scott Lucas, University College Dublin

GLP-1 drugs may fight addiction across every major substance, according to a study of 600,000 people

Ziyad Al-Aly, Washington University in St. Louis

Pill bottle of Wegovy pills sitting atop a package of Wegovy and Ozempic injectables.

Billions of dollars, decades of progress spent eliminating devastating diseases may be lost with undoing of USAID

Sarah Greene, Washington University in St. Louis and Philip Budge, Washington University in St. Louis

Patient sitting in chair while two people in white coats hunch over a table of medical and research supplies

Why are some stars always visible while others come and go with the seasons?

Vahe Peroomian, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Petroglyphs carved into a rock, with a long exposure of stars circling one point in the background.

How Denver’s Northeast Park Hill community reduced youth violence by 75%

Beverly Kingston, University of Colorado Boulder

Young women walk toward a sunlit neighborhood street.

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The New York City skyline with the Empire State Building and an orange sky.

2025 was hotter than it should have been – 5 influences and a dirty surprise offer clues to what’s ahead

Michael Wysession, Washington University in St. Louis

Nearly a third of Pennsylvania gamblers are at risk of problem gambling − but few seek treatment

Gillian Russell, Penn State and Glenn Sterner, University of Kentucky

Young adult male wearing sweatshirt and headphones sits in front of computer screen with playing cards on display

We designed an AI tutor that helps college students reason rather than give them answers

Saharnaz Babaei-Balderlou, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and Shishir Shakya, Appalachian State University

A person is seen working at a laptop with images projecting that show a brain and say AI

When unpaid cooking, cleaning and child care get a dollar value, income inequality in the US shrinks – but the gap has grown since 1965

Leila Gautham, University of Leeds and Nancy Folbre, UMass Amherst

Woman looks at a messy living room on a sunny day.

Telehealth is widely used by older adults insured by Medicare, new research shows

Terrence Liu, University of Utah

Older adults photographed from the back, holding up a phone with a doctor doing a video call

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U.S.-Iran war

Flames at an oil facility in the UAE after Iranian drone attack.

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The Gulf’s delicate balancing act between the US and Iran is now in flames

Gemma Ware, The Conversation

Operational secrecy kept the US from making evacuation plans – and that means Americans in the Mideast could wait days

Donald Heflin, Tufts University

An electronic billboard with a list of cancelled flights to the Middle East.

CIA agents successfully executed a plan for regime change in Iran in 1953 – but Trump hasn’t revealed any signs of a plan

Gregory F. Treverton, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Several men walk amid the rubble of a building.

‘Destruction is not the same as political success’: US bombing of Iran shows little evidence of endgame strategy

Farah N. Jan, University of Pennsylvania

Iran’s targeting of airport, ports and hotels in reaction to US strikes has forced Gulf nations onto front lines of a war they want no part in

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University

a white yacht sails forward in the open water as dark smoke billows in the skyline in the background

Iran’s missile mayhem show the limits of Middle East defences

Michael J. Armstrong, Brock University

A large black plume of smoke spewing from a warehouse in an industrial area.

Iran will respond to US-Israeli strikes as existential threats to the regime – because they are

Javed Ali, University of Michigan

The US is using repurposed Iranian drone technology to attack Iran – a military expert explains why

Arun Dawson, King's College London

The Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone in flight.

Welcome to the ‘gray zone’ − home to nefarious international acts that fall short of outright conflict

Andrew Latham, Macalester College

Philosophy and ethics

Graphic of a fish confronting a fish-shaped school of much smaller fishes

‘Learning to be humble meant taming my need to stand out from the group’ – a humility scholar explains how he became more grounded

Barret Michalec, Arizona State University

I’m a philosopher who tries to see the best in others – but I know there are limits

Mark Schroeder, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Two cartoon faces with hollow heads, and a spool of thread or yarn running between them.

Meekness isn’t weakness – once considered positive, it’s one of the ‘undersung virtues’ that deserve defense today

Timothy J. Pawl, University of St. Thomas

A bearded man seems to speak gently as he holds an upset, angry-looking toddler.

How business students learn to make ethical decisions by studying a soup kitchen in one of America’s toughest neighborhoods

Tim Swift, St. Joseph's University

Large group of people gather outside a building with a religious mural

More than a feeling – thinking about love as a virtue can change how we respond to hate

Tucker J. Gregor, University of Iowa

The word 'love' is written in a red heart shape, surrounded by the word 'hate' written many times.

Extreme weather and natural disasters

Making sense of a chaotic planet: How understanding weather and climate risks depends on supercomputers like NCAR’s

Antonios Mamalakis, University of Virginia

Warming winters are disrupting the hidden world of fungi – the result can shift mountain grasslands to scrub

Stephanie Kivlin, University of Tennessee; Aimee Classen, University of Michigan, and Lara A. Souza, University of Oklahoma

An outdoor view of a lake, snow on trees and mountains in the background

Tahoe avalanche: What causes snow slopes to collapse? A physicist and skier explains, with tips for surviving

Nathalie Vriend, University of Colorado Boulder

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.

Data centers told to pitch in as storms and cold weather boost power demand

Nikki Luke, University of Tennessee and Conor Harrison, University of South Carolina

A downed tree blocks a snowy road and touches power lines.

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ICE and immigration

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

Stephanie Lessing, UMass Boston

When ICE sweeps a community, public health pays a price – and recovery will likely take years

Nicole L. Novak, University of Iowa and William D. Lopez, University of Michigan

People in winter hats hold signs protesting against ICE in Minneapolis.

How the 9/11 terrorist attacks shaped ICE’s immigration strategy

Pawan Dhingra, Amherst College

A man dressed in military gear and holding a rifle is surrounded by tear gas.

A terrorism label that comes before the facts can turn ‘domestic terrorism’ into a useless designation

Brian O'Neill, Georgia Institute of Technology

A woman speaks in front of a podium as an image of a gun appears on a video screen behind her.

Why the ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ have echoed with public support – unlike the campus of Kent State in 1970

Gregory P. Magarian, Washington University in St. Louis

A line of men in military uniforms, wearing gas masks and holding guns.

Trump administration

The rubble of a building destroyed in airstrikes.

Congress once fought to limit a president’s war powers − more than 50 years later, its successors are less willing to assert their authority

Sarah Burns, Rochester Institute of Technology; Institute for Humane Studies

Kansas revoked transgender people’s IDs overnight – researchers anticipate cascading health and social consequences

Jae A. Puckett, Michigan State University; L. Zachary DuBois, University of Oregon, and Noelle Martin, Michigan State University

Silhouette of person dressed as Statue of Liberty holding a transgender flag up against a blue sky, the Supreme Court looming in distance

Supreme Court rules against Trump’s emergency tariffs – but leaves key questions unanswered

Kent Jones, Babson College

A group of people carry umbrellas as they walk past a big white building.

TrumpRx, Trump Kennedy Center, Trump National Parks passes − government free speech allows the president to name things after himself

Jason Zenor, State University of New York Oswego

Workmen using lifts add Donald Trump's name to the facade of the Kennedy Center.

How poisonous mercury can get from coal-fired power plants into fish you eat – EPA just weakened rules meant to lower the risk

Gabriel Filippelli, Indiana University

A woman fishes with a power plant in the background.

International

Hezbollah − degraded, weakened but not yet disarmed − destabilizes Lebanon once again

Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College

Far from random, China’s global port network is clustering near the world’s riskiest trade routes

Dylan Spencer, Georgia Southern University; Gohar Petrossian, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Stephen Pires, Florida International University

The silhouettes of container cranes against a sunset

La Jefa: the wife of slain drug kingpin El Mencho and the women at the heart of the cartels

Adriana Marin, Coventry University

A stock image of a Latino woman putting a wad of US dollars in her pocket.

How to prevent elections from being stolen − lessons from around the world for the US

Shelley Inglis, Rutgers University

hands are seen holding a roll of i voted stickers in the left and a single one in the right

South Korea’s birth rate is rising – but the population is still shrinking

Gemma Ware, The Conversation

New research in health and science

Two female trauma team members and one male assess a patient in a hospital room.

Trauma patients recover faster when medical teams know each other well, new study finds

Linda Argote, Carnegie Mellon University and Jeremy M. Kahn, University of Pittsburgh

Free 10-minute online programs aimed at overcoming depression led to real improvements – new research

Benjamin Kaveladze, Dartmouth College

Cartoon of a middle-aged woman walking out of a cage that has rain clouds and lightning balloons into a blue, cloudy sky.

Coffee crops are dying from a fungus with species-jumping genes – researchers are ‘resurrecting’ their genomes to understand how and why

Lily Peck, University of California, Los Angeles

Close-up of person picking coffee berries

Probability underlies much of the modern world – an engineering professor explains how it actually works

Zachary del Rosario, Olin College of Engineering

FDA’s abrupt flip-flop on Moderna’s mRNA flu shot highlights growing risks to drug-makers of investing in vaccines

Ana Santos Rutschman, Villanova University

Artificial intelligence

in the foreground a red sign with skull and crossbones, in the background a person wearing protective gear coineeling in a field

Researchers are combining drones and AI to make removing land mines faster and safer

Sagar Lekhak, Rochester Institute of Technology

AI and 3D printing help researchers create heat- and pressure-resistant materials for aerospace and defense applications

Houlong Zhuang, Arizona State University and Vitor Rielli, UNSW Sydney

A small aircraft streaking across the sky, with a large plume of smoke coming from its exhaust.

Artists and writers are often hesitant to disclose they’ve collaborated with AI – and those fears may be justified

Joel Carnevale, Florida International University

Digital art piece displaying a human hand, an X-ray of a hand and a wire frame hand, all overlayed.

‘Probably’ doesn’t mean the same thing to your AI as it does to you

Mayank Kejriwal, University of Southern California

an illustration depicting a man in a business suit with hands on hips next to a humanoid robot that is pointing up to an arrow that is at the end of a jagged line that shifts upwards from left to right

The greatest risk of AI in higher education isn’t cheating – it’s the erosion of learning itself

Nir Eisikovits, UMass Boston and Jacob Burley, UMass Boston

Picture of university teacher in empty classroom.

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