The Conversation

Is the 'lesser of two evils' an ethical choice for voters?

Written by Travis N. Rieder, Research Scholar at the Berman Institute of Bioethics, Johns Hopkins University

Every election cycle, there are citizens who don’t like either of the candidates nominated by the two major political parties.

And so, a familiar debate begins: Is a vote for a third party a principled stand – or wasteful naiveté?

This year, party discord has swelled the numbers of dissatisfied citizens, and the debate is even...

Setting robots in motion, quickly and efficiently

Written by Daniel Sorin, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University

How can this robot know where to move safely, and where it will collide with something else?Humanrobo, CC BY-SA

How can a drone get from one place to another in a forest, without colliding with any trees? How can a robot pick up a bolt and insert it into a casing, without smashing into any of the other moving objects in a crowded factory? Our...

How adult learners are not getting 21st-century skills

Written by Iris Feinberg, Assistant Director of the Adult Literacy Research Center., Georgia State University

Who are adult learners and what takes them back to school?COD Newsroom, CC BY

More and more adults are going back to school to learn new skills. The National Center for Education Statistics data show a 7 percent growth in college enrollment for adults over the age of 24 between 2005 and 2015. This is projected to increase to 12 percent by 2019.

A...

Why you shouldn't want to always be happy

Written by Frank T. McAndrew, Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology, Knox College

In life, happiness can seem fleeting and elusive, something just out of reach.Steve Corey/flickr, CC BY-ND

In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness squarely at the center of psychology research and theory. It continued a trend that began in the 1960s with human...

Trump's and Clinton's economy plans: eight essential reads

Written by Bryan Keogh, Editor, Economics and Business, The Conversation

Clinton and Trump.

Editor’s note: The following is a roundup of stories related to this week’s presidential campaign.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump gave dueling economic addresses this week, offering contrasting visions of where we are now and where each candidate would like to take us.

Speaking in Warren, Michigan on Aug. 11, Clinton...

Most students borrow for college, but are they financially literate?

Written by Catherine Montalto, Associate Professor of Consumer Sciences, The Ohio State University

What do students know when they are taking out loans?Tulane Public Relations, CC BY

August is here, and many families are preparing their children for the next academic challenge – a college education.

By and large, a college degree is viewed as an important credential for gainful employment and professional success. At the same time, college...

Turkey's coup and the call to prayer: Sounds of violence meet Islamic devotionals

Written by Denise Gill, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, Washington University in St Louis

The sounds of the recent military coup will long be remembered by people in Turkey.

Yet as Turks in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and other urban centers strained to differentiate the sounds of explosive devices from the sonic booms of F-16s on July 15, 2016, they were most shocked by another sound, at once familiar and deeply startling: the Islamic call...

When disaster-response apps fail

Written by Nicholas Kman, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, The Ohio State University

The scene in Nice the morning after the July 14 terror attack – during which an emergency-warning app failed to give timely notice.Michel Abada, CC BY-SA

When a terrorist struck Nice, France, on July 14, a new French government app designed to alert people failed. Three hours passed before SAIP, as the app is called, warned people in and...

Uber's Didi deal dispels Chinese 'El Dorado' myth once and for all

Written by Erik Gordon, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

Plenty of gold but little growth.Golden dragons via www.shutterstock.com

Didi, the Chinese ride-sharing service, did more than run the American ride service, Uber, out of China. In my view, it destroyed the China El Dorado myth.

The El Dorado (“the golden one”) myth referred to a supposed city of gold somewhere in Latin America. Spanish...

What can a 1.7-million-year-old hominid fossil teach us about cancer?

Written by Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University

Volume rendered image of the external morphology of the foot bone shows the extent of expansion of the primary bone cancer beyond the surface of the bone.Patrick Randolph-Quinney (UCLAN)

In late July, an international team of researchers announced that they had identified evidence of cancer in the fossilized remains of a biological relative of...