The Conversation

Turkey will stop sending imams to German mosques – here’s why this matters

Written by Brian Van Wyck, Assistant Professor of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The imam of the Khadija Mosque, in the Pankow district of Berlin, talks to visitors.Fabian Sommer/picture alliance via Getty Images

For decades, the Turkish government has sent imams to work in mosques across Germany. But the German Ministry of the Interior recently announced that it had reached an agreement with the Turkish government to put an...

For graffiti artists, abandoned skyscrapers in Miami and Los Angeles become a canvas for regular people to be seen and heard

Written by Colette Gaiter, Professor of Art and Design, University of Delaware

Construction of Oceanwide Plaza in downtown Los Angeles stalled in 2019 after the China-based developer ran out of funding.Mario Tama/Getty Images

The three qualities that matter most in real estate also matter the most to graffiti artists: location, location, location.

In Miami and Los Angeles, cities that contain some of the most expensive real...

‘It is hijacking my brain’ – a team of experts found ways to help young people addicted to social media to cut the craving

Written by Annie Margaret, Teaching Assistant Professor of Creative Technology & Design, ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado Boulder

Some young people spend hours a day on social media.ViewApart/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Many people have compared the addictive nature of social media to cigarettes. Checking your likes, they say, is the new smoke break. Others say the unease over social media is just the next round of moral panic about new technologies.

We are a pair of...

Nitazenes are a powerful class of street drugs emerging across the US

Written by Christopher P. Holstege, Professor of Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics, University of Virginia

Nitazenes, like this powder sample, are a class of synthetic opioids more potent than morphine and fentanyl.Joe Lamberti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Two deaths in Boulder County, Colorado, in 2023 are the latest in the U.S. to be blamed on the powerful class of synthetic opioids called nitazenes. Most health systems cannot detect...

Gold, silver and lithium mining on federal land doesn’t bring in any royalties to the US Treasury – because of an 1872 law

Written by Sam Kalen, Associate Dean and Professor of Law, University of Wyoming

Aerial view of the Pinto Valley copper mine, located on private and U.S. national forest lands in Gila County, Ariz.Wild Horizon/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

When Congress opened U.S. public lands for mining in 1872, the nation was less than a century old. Miners used picks, shovels and pressurized water hoses to pry loose valuable...

Several companies are testing brain implants – why is there so much attention swirling around Neuralink? Two professors unpack the ethical issues

Written by Nancy S. Jecker, Professor of Bioethics and Humanities, School of Medicine, University of Washington

Brain-computer interfaces have the potential to transform some people's lives, but they raise a host of ethical issues, too.Andriy Onufriyenko/Moment via Getty Images

Putting a computer inside someone’s brain used to feel like the edge of science fiction. Today, it’s a reality. Academic and commercial groups are testing...

Don’t let ‘FDA-approved’ or ‘patented’ in ads give you a false sense of security

Written by Michael Mattioli, Professor of Law and Louis F. Niezer Faculty Fellow, Indiana University

Is that really a stamp of approval?iStock/Getty Images Plus

If you’ve ever reached for a bottle of moisturizer labeled “patented” or “FDA approved,” you might want to think twice. In a recent study of hundreds of advertisements, I found that supplements and beauty products often misleadingly use these terms to suggest...

We designed wormlike, limbless robots that navigate obstacle courses − they could be used for search and rescue one day

Written by Tianyu Wang, Ph.D. Student in Robotics, Georgia Institute of Technology

Limbless robots may not need lots of complex algorithms when they have mechanical intelligence. Tianyu Wang

Scientists have been trying to build snakelike, limbless robots for decades. These robots could come in handy in search-and-rescue situations, where they could navigate collapsed buildings to find and assist survivors.

With slender, flexible...

Bringing AI up to speed – autonomous auto racing promises safer driverless cars on the road

Written by Madhur Behl, Associate Professor of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, University of Virginia

An autonomous race car built by the Technical University of Munich prepares to pass the University of Virginia's entrant.Cavalier Autonomous Racing, University of Virginia, CC BY-ND

The excitement of auto racing comes from split-second decisions and daring passes by fearless drivers. Imagine that scene, but without the driver – the car alone,...

Real-world experiments in messaging show that getting low-income people the help they need is more effective when stigma is reduced

Written by Jessica Lasky-Fink, Research Director of the People Lab, Harvard Kennedy School

Stigma tied to poverty can create a barrier to the very help people need. @felipepelaquim for Unsplash.com, CC BY-SA

There are pervasive stereotypes that Americans who are low income and access government assistance are lazy, lack a work ethic and are even morally inferior. This stigma has been shown to have many negative consequences.

But until...