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When America had an open prison – the story of Kenyon Scudder and his 'prison without walls'

  • Written by Emily Nagisa Keehn, Associate Director, Human Rights Program, Harvard Law School, Harvard University
The institution's west dormitory is depicted in this 1942 photograph. Scudder demanded that no walls be erected on the prison grounds.AP Photo

In a country with mass incarceration, horrific prison conditions and a penal system suffused with racism, some American prison reform activists wistfully look to Scandinavian institutions as beacons of...

Read more: When America had an open prison – the story of Kenyon Scudder and his 'prison without walls'

Americans don't agree on whether the poor should chip in or do work in exchange for aid

  • Written by Anya Samek, Associate Professor (Research) of Economics, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Most adults under 49 without kids must work 20 hours a week to get food stamps.AP Photo/Julio Cortez

Americans don’t agree on how safety-net programs should work. For example, Republicans are pushing to strengthen work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps, and co-payments for Medica...

Read more: Americans don't agree on whether the poor should chip in or do work in exchange for aid

How an aid gusher helped and hurt Liberia

  • Written by Jessica Eise, Ross Fellow in the Brian Lamb School of Communication Doctoral Program, Purdue University

Two violent civil wars in Liberia killed a quarter million people between 1989 and 2003 and destroyed the West African country’s economy. A massive influx of foreign aid followed that turmoil, ushering in a period of relative peace and stability. Yet Liberia remains among the world’s poorest countries.

In 2017, one democratically...

Read more: How an aid gusher helped and hurt Liberia

Elder abuse increasing, without increased awareness

  • Written by Linda R. Phillips, Professor (Emeritus) of Gerontological Nursing, University of Arizona
Elder abuse is far more common than many believe, making an already challenging time of life harder for those who are victims of it.SpeedKingz/Shutterstock.com

About 16% of older adults are victims of some form of mistreatment and the number of reported cases of elder abuse is steadily increasing. Because of poor record-keeping, however, those of...

Read more: Elder abuse increasing, without increased awareness

Maryland has created a truth commission on lynchings – can it deliver?

  • Written by Kelebogile Zvobgo, Provost's Fellow in the Social Sciences and Ph.D. Candidate, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
More than 40 lynchings have been documented in Maryland.Shutterstock

Between 1850 and 1950, thousands of African American men, women and children were victims of lynchings: public torture and killings carried out by white mobs.

Lynchings were used to terrorize and control black people, notably in the South following the end of slavery.

Yet despite...

Read more: Maryland has created a truth commission on lynchings – can it deliver?

Seaweed and sea slugs rely on toxic bacteria to defend against predators

  • Written by Samantha Mascuch, Postdoctoral Fellow of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology
Coral reefs contain an intricate web of predators and prey.lisnic/Shutterstock.com

Plants, animals and even microbes that live on coral reefs have evolved a rich variety of defense strategies to protect themselves from predators. Some have physical defenses like spines and camouflage. Others have specialized behaviors – like a squid expelling...

Read more: Seaweed and sea slugs rely on toxic bacteria to defend against predators

European elections suggest US shouldn't be complacent in 2020

  • Written by Liisa Past, Next Generation Leader, McCain Institute for International Leadership, Arizona State University
The 2019 European Parliament elections were well defended against outside interference.AP Photo/Olivier Matthys

In many ways, the European Parliament elections in late May were calmer than expected. The more extreme political players, while gaining strength, did not do as well as many predicted. Cyber aggression and disinformation operations seem...

Read more: European elections suggest US shouldn't be complacent in 2020

Consumer genetic testing customers stretch their DNA data further with third-party interpretation websites

  • Written by Sarah Catherine Nelson, Research Scientist in Biostatistics, University of Washington
If you've got the raw data, why not mine it for more info?Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock.com

Back in 2016, Helen (a pseudonym) took three different direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests: AncestryDNA, 23andMe and FamilyTreeDNA. She saw genetic testing as a way to enhance her paper trail genealogy research, and it panned out when she matched with...

Read more: Consumer genetic testing customers stretch their DNA data further with third-party interpretation...

What does the Trump administration want from Iran?

  • Written by Noah Weisbord, Associate Professor of law, Queen's University, Ontario

Two oil tankers were attacked on June 13 off the coast of Oman, forcing the crew members of one burning ship to flee.

It was the latest in a series of assaults on tankers transporting oil through the Gulf. In May, Saudi, Norwegian and Emirati oil tankers were attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, causing damage but no casualties. The...

Read more: What does the Trump administration want from Iran?

More Articles ...

  1. For some, self-tracking means more than self-help
  2. How to handle raccoons, snakes and other critters in your yard (hint: not with a thermos)
  3. 'I still get tweets to go back in the kitchen' – the enduring power of sexism in sports media
  4. Rapid DNA analysis helps diagnose mystery diseases
  5. Fed’s dilemma: Inflation is healthy for the economy – but too much can trigger a recession
  6. Inflation is healthy for the economy – but too much can trigger a recession
  7. Food label nutrition facts matter to you, but don't tell you much about your gut microbes
  8. What the ban on gene-edited babies means for family planning
  9. What Orwell's '1984' tells us about today's world, 70 years after it was published
  10. Companies' self-regulation doesn't have to be bad for the public
  11. Could a weakening US economy imperil Trump's trade war against China?
  12. A growing source of Canadian asylum-seekers: US citizens whose parents were born elsewhere
  13. The Defense Department is worried about climate change – and also a huge carbon emitter
  14. The 25th Amendment wouldn’t work to dump Trump
  15. Artificial intelligence-enhanced journalism offers a glimpse of the future of the knowledge economy
  16. E-cig companies use cartoon characters as logos, and new study shows it works
  17. 23% of young black women now identify as bisexual
  18. Minorities face more obstacles to a lifesaving organ transplant
  19. Why Sudan's deadly crackdown on protesters could escalate in coming weeks
  20. Migrants will pay the price of Mexico's tariff deal with Trump
  21. Investigating the investigative reporters: Bad news from Down Under
  22. The struggle to find silence in the ancient monastic world – and now
  23. What advice articles miss about 'summer loss'
  24. The most unpopular presidential election winner ever could win again in 2020
  25. Driverless cars are going to disrupt the airline industry
  26. Trophies made from human skulls hint at regional conflicts around the time of Maya civilization's mysterious collapse
  27. A concise history of the US abortion debate
  28. May jobs report suggests a slowing economy – and possibly an imminent interest rate cut
  29. Climate change alters what's possible in restoring Florida's Everglades
  30. Forget lower jobs growth, the number of people who've stopped looking for work is much more worrisome
  31. Are brain games mostly BS?
  32. School vouchers expand despite evidence of negative effects
  33. How the 'good guy with a gun' became a deadly American fantasy
  34. Convicts are returning to farming – anti-immigrant policies are the reason
  35. Privacy concerns don't stop people from putting their DNA on the internet to help solve crimes
  36. Does hitting the snooze button really help you feel better?
  37. What would happen to Congress if Washington, DC became the 51st state?
  38. What the US could learn about vaccination from Nigeria
  39. The tell-tale clue to how meteorites were made, at the birth of the solar system
  40. No, Americans shouldn't fear traveling abroad
  41. Women have been the heart of the Christian right for decades
  42. The debate over what ails philanthropy heats up
  43. My students see giving money away as a good thing but they're getting leery of billionaire donors
  44. As more developing countries reject plastic waste exports, wealthy nations seek solutions at home
  45. Spider glue's sticky secret revealed by new genetic research
  46. Antibiotic resistance is not new – it existed long before people used drugs to kill bacteria
  47. Brazilian universities fear Bolsonaro plan to eliminate humanities and slash public education budgets
  48. Will children in your state get the support they need? It depends on the 2020 census
  49. Trump's Mexico tariffs don't make sense, but Americans will pay a steep price anyway if they go into effect
  50. Hackers seek ransoms from Baltimore and communities across the US