The Conversation

Blue dye from red beets – chemists devise a new pigment option

Written by Erick Leite Bastos, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Universidade de São Paulo

Through the wonders of chemistry, molecules can be rearranged to completely transform color.Erick Leite Bastos, CC BY-SA

What’s your favorite color? If you answered blue, you’re in good company. Blue outranks all other color preferences worldwide by a large margin.

No matter how much people enjoy looking at it, blue is a difficult color...

How high will unemployment go? During the Great Depression, 1 in 4 Americans were out of work

Written by Jay L. Zagorsky, Senior Lecturer, Questrom School of Business, Boston University

Unemployed people wait outside a government office in NYC in 1933. AP PhotoCC BY-ND

The U.S. unemployment rate climbed from a half-century low of 3.5% to 4.4% in March – and is expected to go a lot higher.

But could the rate, as some predict, surpass the 25% joblessness the U.S. experienced at the peak of the Great Depression?

As a macroeconom...

China's big donors are pitching in to deal with the new coronavirus – and not just in their own country

Written by Charles Sellen, Global Philanthropy Fellow, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Indiana University

Alibaba founder Jack Ma, left, is funding African entrepreneurs through his foundation.VCG/VCG via Getty Images

Less than a month after China confirmed the emergence of what soon became the new coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba pledged US$144 million in medical supplies for Hubei province and its capital city Wuhan.

Soon...

7 things public schools do besides teach kids academic basics

Written by Samantha Keppler, Assistant Professor of Technology and Operations, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan

Some schools have staff on hand to encourage students to get active during recess. Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

With schools closed due to COVID-19, communities are scrambling to provide students with meals and supplies and meet other needs. For education researcher Samantha Keppler, these closures offer a chance to reflect...

Social distancing works – just ask lobsters, ants and vampire bats

Written by Dana Hawley, Professor of Biological Sciences, Virginia Tech

Caribbean spiny lobsters normally live in groups, but healthy lobsters avoid members of their own species if they are infected with a deadly virus. Humberto Ramirez/Getty Images

Social distancing to combat COVID-19 is profoundly impacting society, leaving many people wondering whether it will actually work. As disease ecologists, we know that...

How coronavirus has ended centuries of hands-on campaigning for politicians

Written by Andrew Kettler, Ahmanson-Getty Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles

Bill Clinton displaying how not to social distance while campaigning in 1992.Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Opening a rally for Bernie Sanders in early March, Rep. Ilhan Omar turned to the audience and asked people to hold hands with those next to them in a show of solidarity.

But that was before the coronavirus...

We spoke to hundreds of prison gang members – here's what they said about life behind bars

Written by David Pyrooz, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Colorado Boulder

A ministry program student at a Texas prison. Some inmates cite religion to avoid gang recruitment.Robert Daemmrich Photography Inc/Corbis via Getty Images

The United States incarcerates a larger proportion of its citizens than any other developed country in the world, with around 1.5 million people serving time in prison. But to anyone who...

Census undercounts are normal, but demographers worry this year could be worse

Written by Rebecca Tippett, Director of Carolina Demography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Census Campaign executive director Victoria Kovari looks over a Detroit map showing city neighborhoods that were undercounted in the 2010 census.AP Photo/Corey Williams

Editor’s note: Researchers have long known that certain groups are vulnerable to being undercounted in the decennial census. But the 2020 census has raised a new set of...

How coronavirus threatens the seasonal farmworkers at the heart of the American food supply

Written by Michael Haedicke, Associate Professor of Sociology, Drake University

A farmworker picks lemons at an orchard in Mesa, California. Brent Stirton/Getty Images

Many Americans may find bare grocery store shelves the most worrying sign of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their food system.

But, for the most part, shortages of shelf-stable items like pasta, canned beans and peanut butter are temporary because the U.S....

A small trial finds that hydroxychloroquine is not effective for treating coronavirus

Written by Katherine Seley-Radtke, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and President-Elect of the International Society for Antiviral Research, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

A trial of an anti-malaria drug in France found different results from a similar study last month.Liliboas / Getty Images

On Saturday the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of two antimalarial drugs, hydroxychloroquine and a related medication, chloroquine, for emergency use to treat COVID-19. The drugs were touted by President Trump as...