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

A brass sign mounted on a stone ledge on a grassy field says 'Hampshire College.'

Hampshire College’s demise is yet another blow to creative, outside-the-box options in higher education

Austin Sarat, Amherst College

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Who is Hungary’s Péter Magyar and how he overturned Viktor Orbán’s illiberal democracy

Gemma Ware, The Conversation

Ancient teeth reveal clues to the environment humans’ early ancestors evolved in millions of years ago

Zelalem Bedaso, University of Dayton

A jaw bone showing teeth from the bottom.

About half of young Americans can’t name a single Holocaust site, repeating a pattern of ignorance seen in postwar Germany

Daniela R. P. Weiner, Stevens Institute of Technology

A person, seen from the neck down, holds up a black and white photo, with two boys wearing Jewish stars on their jackets circled in black marker.

I’ve fired one of America’s most powerful lasers – here’s what a shot day looks like

Ahmed Helal, The University of Texas at Austin

A room with a long bench of equipment, including many pipes and valves, and one larger main pipe.

Trump’s coercive tactics in Latin America evoke era of gunboat diplomacy – and the rise of anti-imperialism it helped spur

Tony Wood, University of Colorado Boulder

Trump sidelined Congress’ authority over war on Iran – and lawmakers allowed it, extending a 75-year trend

Sarah Burns, Rochester Institute of Technology; Institute for Humane Studies and Robert Haswell, Carleton University

A large white building with a dome, fading behind clouds.

‘Right to race’ laws and the battle over America’s local racetracks

Joshua Vadeboncoeur, Gardner-Webb University

Racing fans post up on a lawn with chairs and grilling equipment behind a fence separating them from the race track.

How Islamophobic rhetoric leaves an impact on the mental health of Muslim Americans

Anisah Bagasra, Kennesaw State University

A woman wearing a headscarf stands with a child at a protest, holding a sign that reads, 'Muslims make this country strong.'

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A lighted display shows cannabis products for sale

Cannabis sales and use are high in Michigan – but federal law means research lags behind

Omayma Alshaarawy, Michigan State University

a small delta-wing aircraft flies against a blue sky

One-way attack drones: Low-cost, high-tech weapons ‘democratize’ precision warfare

Michael C. Horowitz, University of Pennsylvania and Lauren Kahn, Georgetown University

Students expect their university will mishandle sexual misconduct, if they ever report it

Heather Hensman Kettrey, Clemson University; Heidi Zinzow, Clemson University, and Megan Rebecca Fallon, Clemson University

A graphic shows a woman with black hair and hoop earrings with her mouth covered by a hand.

How Trump’s repeated efforts to fire Federal Reserve Chair Powell harm the economy – and make battling inflation harder

Ana Carolina Garriga, University of Essex and Cristina Bodea, Michigan State University

Two white men wearing hard hats examine a piece of paper in their hands at a construction site

Christian satellite TV has broadcast evangelical faith – and end-times prophecies – into Iran for decades

Febe Armanios, Middlebury College

An apartment building with three satellite dishes hanging out of windows, illuminated against the night sky.

Iran’s military forces combine state-of-the-art drones and hackers with out-of-date conventional weapons

Paul J. Springer, Air University

People stand under an unmanned aerial vehicle.

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Washington DC’s 240 million-gallon sewage spill is a symptom of nationwide trouble

Marccus D. Hendricks, University of Maryland

As renaissance fairs become big business, can they retain their counterculture roots?

Katrina Stack, University of Tennessee and Reagan Yessler, Pellissippi State Community College

A line of actors dressed in colorful 16th-century garb.

Motown girl group Martha and the Vandellas not only recorded an anthem for the civil rights era – they fought for fair pay and proudly called themselves divas

Austin McCoy, West Virginia University

Three female Motown singers from the 1960s pose for a photo

Health information delivered as a video game can bridge the communication gap between patients and providers

Elena Bertozzi, Quinnipiac University

A young woman and a young man sitting on chairs next to each other pointing to a digital tablet and smiling.

Seeing women govern encourages support for women in politics – with no apparent backlash among men

Vladimir Chlouba, University of Richmond

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Artemis II's historic journey

An astronaut inside a spacecraft holding a camera up to a window with a cloth covering. The lens is pushed through a hole in the covering.

Artemis II crew brought a human eye and storytelling vision to the photos they took on their mission

Christye Sisson, Rochester Institute of Technology

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

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

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.

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

Marcos Fernandez Tous, University of North Dakota

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

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

U.S.-Iran war

Strait of Hormuz: Why the US and Iran are sailing in very different legal waters

Elizabeth Mendenhall, University of Rhode Island

The Islamabad talks were doomed to failure – and Hormuz blockade has thrown another obstacle to any Iran-US deal

Farah N. Jan, University of Pennsylvania

A man in a suit waves as he boards an airplane

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.

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

Donald Heflin, Tufts University

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

Ioana Emy Matesan, Wesleyan 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

An aerial view shows brown runoff coloring the edges of a river running through a forest.

Your local fishing hole is getting browner, changing which fish species thrive and which ones struggle

Allison M. Roth, University of Missouri-Columbia and Irene Gregory-Eaves, McGill University

What if Texas’ destructive Tax Day storm had centered on inner Houston instead? It’s why cities should plan for the improbable

James R. Elliott, Rice University; Dominic Boyer, Rice University, and Yilei Yu, Rice University

A man in a reflective jacket reaches for a woman's hand as they try to walk through waist-deep water. A car behind them is in water up to its windows.

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

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

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

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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

A medieval-looking illustration of a man in a tall hat placing a crown on a kneeling man's head, set against a red backdrop.

Trump’s clash with the pope reenacts a 1,000-year-old question: What happens when sacred and secular power collide?

Joëlle Rollo-Koster, University of Rhode Island

Why Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon prayer services challenge traditional notions of separation of church and state – but might be blessed by the Roberts Supreme Court

John E. Jones III, Dickinson College

A bible next to an American flag, each being pushed apart by a hand.

Trump’s exchange with Pope Leo reflects deep-rooted tensions between the Vatican and the United States: 4 essential reads

Kalpana Jain, The Conversation

Pope Leo speaks into a microphone flanked by two men in black suits.

A justice department opinion arguing the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional could revert the nation to a time when presidents freely burned their papers

Austin Sarat, Amherst College

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.

International

A demonstrator in a black veil walks down a street.

How debate about gender identity could undermine global efforts to protect victims of violence

Jenna Norosky, Binghamton University, State University of New York

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.

What Viktor Orbán’s election loss means for Putin, Trump and the rise of right-wing populism

Matthew Sussex, Australian National University

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.

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

Arie Perliger, UMass Lowell

New research in health and science

A large machine in the dark with bright optical lasers running through it

Using atomic nuclei could allow scientists to read time more precisely than ever – what this research could mean for future clocks

Eric R. Hudson, University of California, Los Angeles and Andrei Derevianko, University of Nevada, Reno

Ads for GLP-1 drugs are flooding the internet – here’s how to know if it’s safe to buy them online

Sujith Ramachandran, University of Mississippi and Liang-Yuan (Claire) Lin, University of Mississippi

Wegovy tablets with injectable prescription weight loss medicines, Ozempic, Victoza and Wegovy on a white background

Antibiotics can trigger bacteria to release bubbles of inflammation tinder, making it harder to treat infection

Panteha Torabian, Rochester Institute of Technology

Microscopy image of a cluster of pill-shaped blobs on a rugged surface against a black background

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.

Artificial intelligence

An open book with text in binary code, set against a red background.

Thousands of AI-written, edited or ‘polished’ books are being sold – an eerie echo of Orwell’s ‘novel-writing machines’

Laura Beers, American University

AI companions can give constant support – but distort ideas about what a relationship really is

Oluwaseun Damilola Sanwoolu, University of Kansas

A brunette man in a sweatshirt holds a bowl as he smiles, looking toward a woman's image projected on a screen.

AIs have ‘personalities’ – here’s how they affect you more deeply than you may realize

Tamilla Triantoro, Quinnipiac University

illustration of a woman sitting in front of a computer screen that has a large smiling face

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

Industries most exposed to AI are not only seeing productivity gains but jobs and wage growth too

Christos Makridis, Arizona State University; Institute for Humane Studies

a person holds a stylus against a tablet computer in front of a screen showing numbers in red and green

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