The Conversation

How fairy tales shape fighting spirit: Ukraine's children hear bedtime stories of underdog heroes, while Russian children hear tales of magical success

Written by Mia Bloom, Professor and Fellow at Evidence Based Cyber Security Program, Georgia State University

A Ukrainian soldier wanders down a railway past the bodies of dead Russian soldiers on the outskirts of Irpin, Ukraine, March 1, 2022. Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

At the outset of Russia’s invasion, almost no one in the West expected that Ukraine would be able to offer Russia any kind of serious opposition to its unprovoked...

Tornadoes, climate change and why Dixie is the new Tornado Alley

Written by Ernest Agee, Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science, Purdue University

The heart of U.S. tornado activity, once Tornado Alley, has shifted eastward.Brent Koops/NOAA Weather in Focus Photo Contest 2015, CC BY-ND

Tornadoes tore up homes in New Orleans and its suburbs and were reported in communities from Texas to Mississippi and Alabama as severe storms swept across the South in late March 2022. We asked tornado...

Why the future of the world's largest religion is female – and African

Written by Gina Zurlo, Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

Nigerian women greet each other at St. Charles Catholic Church in Ngurore, Nigeria, on Feb. 17, 2019. AP Photo/Sunday Alamba

At the start of 2019, Bill and Melinda Gates released a list of facts that had surprised them the previous year. Number four on their list: “Data can be sexist.”

“There are huge gaps in the global data about...

An emphasis on brilliance creates a toxic, dog-eat-dog workplace atmosphere that discourages women

Written by Andrea Vial, Assistant Professor of Psychology, New York University Abu Dhabi

Zero-sum competitive environments that set up winners and losers may be less appealing to women.Photo and Co/The Image Bank via Getty Images

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Workplaces that emphasize brilliance are perceived to have a masculine work culture that undermines gender diversity, according to...

Ketanji Brown Jackson’s path to Supreme Court nomination was paved by trailblazing Black women judges

Written by Sharon D. Wright Austin, Professor of Political Science, University of Florida

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks at her Senate confirmation hearing.AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Just five women and two African Americans, both men, are among the 115 people who have served on the United States’ highest court over more than two centuries. Both of those numbers may change in 2022, with President Joe Biden’s nomination of...

Biden's plain speaking on Ukraine inspires support without sparking a wider war – an echo of the Truman Doctrine, 75 years ago

Written by Denise M. Bostdorff, Professor and Chair of Communication Studies, The College of Wooster

U.K. politician Winston Churchill with U.S. President Harry Truman on March 3, 1946, leaving for Missouri, where Churchill would make a speech warning about the dangers of the Iron Curtain. Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

President Joe Biden faces an aggressive Russia waging war to expand its borders. He has rallied...

Colleges routinely fail to ask about new hires' history of sexual harassment

Written by Susan Fortney, University Professor and Professor of Law, Texas A&M University

Sexual harassment affects almost one out of every two college students. Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

When three graduate students sued Harvard University in early 2022 for sexual harassment by a tenured professor, they claimed the school hired the professor despite knowing that he allegedly harassed students at the...

Food pantries that give away stuff people can't or won't cook have an 'acorn squash problem'

Written by Diana Cuy Castellanos, Assistant Professor of Dietetics and Nutrition, University of Dayton

Not everyone's up for converting this vegetable into a side or main dish.duckycards/E+ via Getty Images

A major problem with how food donation currently works in the United States is that a lot of the calories in those boxes and bags come from items that aren’t particularly healthy, such as packaged snacks.

This arrangement is troubling in...

Putin's control over Ukraine war news is not total - it's challenged by online news and risk-taking journalists

Written by Sarah Oates, Professor and Senior Scholar, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland

A woman looks at a computer screen as Russian state news editor Marina Ovsyannikova protests the Ukraine war during a news segment.AFP via Getty Images

The Russian media is a powerful propaganda machine. Russian media outlets have been closely controlled by the government over the past several decades, and since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24,...

In ‘Licorice Pizza’ a 15-year-old and 25-year-old fall for each other – here's what's known about these types of relationships

Written by Jeni Loftus, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Memphis

Nominated for Academy Awards for best picture, best director and best original screenplay, “Licorice Pizza” is also garnering attention – and raising eyebrows – for the relationship at the center of the film.

Set in 1970s California, it tells the story of 15-year-old Gary, who falls for a 25-year-old woman named Alana. As...