The Conversation

If humans went extinct, what would the Earth look like one year later?

Written by Carlton Basmajian, Associate Professor of Community and Regional Planning, Urban Design, Iowa State University

A glimpse of a post-apocalyptic world.Bulgar/E+ via Getty Images

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

If humans went extinct, what would the Earth look like one year later? – Essie, age 11, Michigan

Have you ever wondered...

Are you part robot? A linguistic anthropologist explains how humans are like ChatGPT – both recycle language

Written by Brendan H. O'Connor, Associate Professor, School of Transborder Studies, Arizona State University

Are we as different as we'd like to believe?Ledi Nuge/iStock via Getty Images

ChatGPT is a hot topic at my university, where faculty members are deeply concerned about academic integrity, while administrators urge us to “embrace the benefits” of this “new frontier.” It’s a classic example of what my colleague Punya...

'If you want to die in jail, keep talking' – two national security law experts discuss the special treatment for Trump and offer him some advice

Written by Thomas A. Durkin, Distinguished Practitioner in Residence, Loyola University Chicago

Former President Donald Trump on his airplane on June 10, 2023, two days after his federal indictment.Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Lawyer Thomas A. Durkin has spent much of his career working in national security law, representing clients in a variety of national security and domestic terrorism matters. Joseph Ferguson was a...

Trump indictment unsealed – a criminal law scholar explains what the charges mean, and what prosecutors will now need to prove

Written by Gabriel J. Chin, Edward L. Barrett Jr. Chair & Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law, University of California, Davis

Special counsel Jack Smith prepares to talk to reporters on June 9, 2023, after the indictment of former President Donald Trump. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Federal prosecutors on June 9, 2023, unsealed the indictment that spells out the government’s case against former President Donald J. Trump, who is accused of violating national...

Trump charged under Espionage Act – which covers a lot more crimes than just spying

Written by Joseph Ferguson, Co-Director, National Security and Civil Rights Program, Loyola University Chicago

Former President Donald Trump was on the campaign trail in early June 2023, as an investigation continued that led to his indictment on federal charges.Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump’s indictment by a federal grand jury in Miami includes 31 counts of violating a part of the Espionage Act of 1917.

Th...

6 books that explain the history and meaning of Juneteenth

Written by Corey D. B. Walker, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities, Wake Forest University

A Juneteenth celebration in Prospect Park in New York City in 2022.Michael Nagle/Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images

After decades of being celebrated at mostly the local level, Juneteenth – the long-standing holiday that commemorates the arrival of news of emancipation and freedom to enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 –...

Supreme Court rules in favor of Black voters in Alabama and protects landmark Voting Rights Act

Written by Rodney Coates, Professor of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies, Miami University

Black marchers in Selma, Ala., demonstrate for voting rights protections on March 6, 2022. Brandon Bell/Getty Images

In a surprising ruling on June 8, 2023, the conservative leaning U.S. Supreme Court threw out Republican-drawn congressional districts in Alabama that a lower court had ruled discriminated against Black voters and violated Section 2...

The US has a child labor problem – recalling an embarrassing past that Americans may think they've left behind

Written by Beth Saunders, Curator and Head of Special Collections and Gallery, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Lewis Wickes Hine, 'A little spinner in a Georgia Cotton Mill, 1909.'Gelatin silver print, 5 x 7 in. The Photography Collections, University of Maryland, Baltimore County (P545), CC BY-SA

At the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s Special Collections, where I am head curator, we’ve recently completed a major digitization and...

'From Magic Mushrooms to Big Pharma' – a college course explores nature's medicine cabinet and different ways of healing

Written by Heather McIlvaine-Newsad, Professor of Anthropology, Western Illinois University

People for millennia have used what grows around them as medicine.LorenzoT81/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of course:

“From Magic Mushrooms to Big Pharma”

What prompted the idea for the course?

I’m from the...

Never mind Cleopatra – what about the forgotten queens of ancient Nubia?

Written by Yasmin Moll, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan

Jewelry of the kandake Amanishakheto from a pyramid at Meroe.Einsamer Schütze/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Jada Pinkett Smith’s new Netflix documentary series on Cleopatra aims to spotlight powerful African queens. “We don’t often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as...