The Conversation

Despite its disastrous effects, COVID-19 offers some gifts to medicine – an immunology expert explains what it can teach us about autoimmune disease

Written by Dario Ghersi, Associate Professor of Biomedical Informatics, University of Nebraska Omaha

Immunologists are studying how the SARS-CoV-2 virus interacts with antibodies in the immune system. Christoph Burgstedt/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

For all the misery that the pandemic has wrought, it has also opened up a vast storehouse of knowledge about medical issues beyond COVID-19. While it’s still too early to draw...

Does scaring people work when it comes to health messaging? A communication researcher explains how it's gone wrong during the COVID-19 pandemic

Written by James Dillard, Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences, Penn State

The film 'Don't Look Up' warns of the dangers of ignoring the findings of science.Marc Ward/Stocktrek Images via Getty Images

In the recent film “Don’t Look Up,” two astronomers learn that a comet is on track to collide with Earth and destroy human civilization. When they try to sound the alarm, all manner of obstacles get in...

Canadian trucker protests show how the loudest voices in the room distort democracy

Written by Matthew Jordan, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Penn State

What happens when the voices of a few drown out the views of the many?Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images

After Canadian truckers upset with vaccination mandates made their way to Ottawa, they parked their vehicles near Parliament and started making noise – lots of it – blasting their air horns day and night, disturbing the repose of citizens...

African wild dogs cope with human development using skills they rely on to compete with other carnivores

Written by Scott Creel, Professor of Conservation Biology & Ecology, Montana State University

Wild dogs are usually with their pack mates.Scott Creel, CC BY-ND

Large carnivores in Africa are important from ecological, economic and cultural perspectives, but human activities put them at risk. Increasingly, lions, hyenas and African wild dogs are restricted to protected areas like national parks. Within these limited areas, they must compete...

Why $73 million Sandy Hook settlement is unlikely to unleash a flood of lawsuits against gun-makers

Written by Timothy D. Lytton, Distinguished University Professor & Professor of Law, Georgia State University

Sandy Hook families aimed to hold the makers of the guns used in the shooting responsible. AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Families of the victims of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School reached a historic US$73 million settlement with gun-maker Remington Arms. The Feb. 15, 2022, deal marks the first time a firearms manufacturer has settled a...

What drives sea level rise? US report warns of 1-foot rise within three decades and more frequent flooding

Written by Jianjun Yin, Associate Professor of Geoscience, University of Arizona

Tidal flooding is creeping farther into coastal towns like Alexandria, Virginia.Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Sea levels are rising, and that will bring profound flood risks to large parts of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts over the next three decades.

A new report led by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric...

Appeal in Sarah Palin's libel loss could set up Supreme Court test of decades-old media freedom rule

Written by Bill Kovarik, Professor of Communication, Radford University

Sarah Palin speaks to the media. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

To the numerous challenges facing the U.S. media in recent years, add a libel case against The New York Times – lost by Sarah Palin, but now seemingly headed to appeal and perhaps on to the highest court in the land.

On Feb. 15, 2022, a jury rejected Palin’s claim. As it...

Old statues of Confederate generals are slowly disappearing – will monuments honoring people of color replace them?

Written by Frederick Gooding, Jr., Dr. Ronald E. Moore Professor of Humanities and African American Studies, Texas Christian University

The monument 'Rumors of War' depicts a young African American in urban streetwear sitting atop a horse.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

With most of the legal challenges resolved after the violent Unite the Right rally, and the statue of Robert E. Lee removed from its lofty pedestal in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, local lawmakers in December 2021...

Toshio Mori endured internment camps and overcame discrimination to become the first Japanese American to publish a book of fiction

Written by Alessandro Meregaglia, Assistant Professor and Archivist, Boise State University

In a 1949 photograph, Mori works in his family's nursery in San Leandro, Calif.Courtesy of Steven Y. Mori, CC BY-SA

Eighty years ago, on Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, which led to more than 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry living in the western United States being moved into internment camps.

At the...

How poisonous mercury gets from coal-fired power plants into the fish you eat

Written by Gabriel Filippelli, Chancellor's Professor of Earth Sciences and Executive Director, Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute, IUPUI

Coal-fired power plants are a source of mercury that people can ingest by eating fish.Mark Wilson/Getty Images

People fishing along the banks of the White River as it winds through Indianapolis sometimes pass by ominous signs warning about eating the fish they catch.

One of the risks they have faced is mercury poisoning.

Mercury is a neurotoxic...