The Conversation

A billion-dollar drug was found in Easter Island soil – what scientists and companies owe the Indigenous people they studied

Written by Ted Powers, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California, Davis

The Rapa Nui people are mostly invisible in the origin story of rapamycin.Posnov/Moment via Getty Images

An antibiotic discovered on Easter Island in 1964 sparked a billion-dollar pharmaceutical success story. Yet the history told about this “miracle drug” has completely left out the people and politics that made its discovery possible.

N...

How to identify animal tracks, burrows and other signs of wildlife in your neighborhood

Written by Steven Sullivan, Director of the Hefner Museum of Natural History, Miami University

A paw print in baked mud at Joshua Tree National Park, likely from a coyote.Brad Sutton/National Park Service

Your neighborhood is home to all sorts of amazing animals, from racoons, squirrels and skunks to birds, bugs and snails. Even if you don’t see them, most of these creatures are leaving evidence of their activities all around you.

Paw...

A staircase in a small, decorative arts museum tells a harrowing story of terror, abuse and enslavement

Written by Susanna Ashton, Professor of English, Clemson University

A monument to survival and perseverance has survived, by happenstance, to share its stories today. Courtesy of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) at Old Salem

From the ages of 12 to about 22, Harriet Jacobs lived under the watch of her enslaver, a wealthy physician named James Norcom Sr. During that decade, as Jacobs grew from a...

Serbia’s Aleksandar Vučić clings to power – but protests highlight the danger of stubborn leadership

Written by Keith Brown, Professor of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University

In Serbia, there is a word for a form of stubbornness that sees someone act out of spite or defiance rather than yield to the will of others: “inat.”

It’s something Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić is showing remarkable levels of right now.

For almost a year, anti-government protests have roiled the Balkan nation. They...

Why a study claiming vaccines cause chronic illness is severely flawed – a biostatistician explains the biases and unsupported conclusions

Written by Jeffrey Morris, Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

Biases in designing a study can weaken how well the evidence supports the conclusion.FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images

At a Senate hearing on Sept. 9, 2025, on the corruption of science, witnesses presented an unpublished study that made a big assertion.

They claimed that the study, soon to be featured in a highly publicized film called “An...

Tibetan Buddhist nuns are getting advanced degrees − and the Dalai Lama played a major role in that shift

Written by Darcie Price-Wallace, Visiting Scholar in Religious Studies, Northwestern University

Tibetan nuns study during the winter examination period at the Dolma Ling Nunnery in Dharamshala, India, in 2022.Rebecca Conway/Getty Images

In August 2025, 161 Tibetan Buddhist nuns from religious institutions across India and Nepal – a record number – gathered at the Dolma Ling Nunnery in northern India to take various levels of the...

Charlie Kirk and the making of an AI-generated martyr

Written by Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton

A makeshift memorial for Charlie Kirk outside the headquarters of Turning Point USA in Phoenix.Joe Raedle/Getty Images

An AI-generated image of Charlie Kirk embracing Jesus. Another of Kirk posing with angel wings and halo. Then there’s the one of Kirk standing with George Floyd at the gates of heaven.

When prominent political or cultural...

How sea star wasting disease transformed the West Coast’s ecology and economy

Written by Rebecca Vega Thurber, Professor of Ecology Evolution and Marine Biology; Director of the Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara

A sunflower sea star may be about to snack on some sea urchins in California.Brent Durand/Moment via Getty Images

Before 2013, divers on North America’s west coast rarely saw purple sea urchins. The spiky animals, which are voracious kelp eaters,- were a favorite food of the coast’s iconic sunflower sea stars. The giant sea stars,...

Why aren’t companies speeding up investment? A new theory offers an answer to an economic paradox

Written by David Ikenberry, Professor of Finance, Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder

For years, I’ve puzzled over a question that seems to defy common sense: If stock markets are hitting records and tech innovation seems endless, why aren’t companies pouring money back into new projects?

Yes, they’re still investing – but the pace of business spending is slower than you’d expect, especially outside of...

Calling in the animal drug detectives − helping veterinarians help beluga whales, goats and all creatures big and small

Written by Sherry Cox, Clinical Professor of Biomedical and Diagnostic Sciences, University of Tennessee

How do you measure the concentration of a drug in a tortoise shell?Thirawatana Phaisalratana/iStock via Getty Images Plus

In my work as a veterinary pharmacologist, I never know exactly what I’m going to get when I open my email. It could be a request from a veterinarian asking my team to determine the concentration of a drug to treat the...