The Conversation

Trump's reference to Wounded Knee evokes the dark history of suppression of indigenous religions

Written by Rosalyn R. LaPier, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, The University of Montana

Wounded Knee Memorial at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.AP Photo/Russell Contreras

President Trump evoked the Wounded Knee massacre in a recent tweet. He was reacting to an Instagram video that Sen. Elizabeth Warren posted on New Year’s Eve.

There’s been considerable criticism of the president’s inaccurate portrayal of Native American...

Leaders always 'manufacture' crises, in politics and business

Written by Bert Spector, Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy at the D'Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University

Trump recently called the border a crisis during a televised address. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

“This is a humanitarian crisis, a crisis of the heart and a crisis of the soul.”

That’s how President Donald Trump framed his demand for funds to build a “border wall” and end the partial government shutdown. That declaration...

Toward a circular economy: Tackling the plastics recycling problem

Written by Margaret Sobkowicz, Associate Professor of Plastics Engineering, University of Massachusetts Lowell

An escalator with a pile of plastic bottles at the factory for processing and recycling. Alba_alioth/Shutterstock.com

Why has the world continued to increase consumption of plastic materials when at the same time, environmental and human health concerns over their use have grown?

One answer is they are immensely useful to humankind, and despite...

Many painful returns: Coping with crummy gifts

Written by Deborah Y. Cohn, Associate Professor of Marketing, New York Institute of Technology

Gee, you shouldn't have.Happy Stock Photo/Shutterstock.com

What happens to the gifts you get? I’m not talking about the ones that you really adore. I mean the rest of them – the ones you can’t or don’t want to use, or even hate.

The problem doesn’t end when you’ve awkwardly thanked someone and thrown away the...

Offices are too hot or too cold – is there a better way to control room temperature?

Written by Carol Menassa, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan

Someone's too hot and someone's too cold.Collage by The Conversation, combining images by Monika Wisniewska and Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND

In any office, home or other shared space, there’s almost always someone who’s too cold, someone who’s too hot – and someone who doesn’t know what the fuss around...

Guatemala in crisis after president bans corruption investigation into his government

Written by Rachel E. Bowen, Associate Professor of Political Science, The Ohio State University

Guatemalans overwhelmingly support the United Nations-backed corruption investigation known as CICIG. President Jimmy Morales is trying to ban prosecutors from the country.AP Photo/Moises Castillo

For months, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales has been trying to stop a United Nations-backed anti-corruption investigation into his government.

Morales,...

The shutdown will harm the health and safety of Americans, even after it's long over

Written by Morten Wendelbo, Research Fellow, American University

With the U.S. federal government shutdown now the longest in history, it’s important to understand what a shutdown means for the health and safety of Americans.

The good news is that in the short run, the consequences are relatively few. But, as a researcher who studies natural disaster planning, I believe that Americans should be worried...

How to train the body's own cells to combat antibiotic resistance

Written by Zahidul Alam, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Pennsylvania

Antibiotic-resistant germs can thrive in the presence of these drugs.Lightspring/Shutterstock.com

Drug-resistant superbugs have threatened human health for decades. The situation is getting worse because of the shortage of new antibiotics. But what if we changed the way we aim to treat them, and trained our cells to kill these invaders instead of...

Why do Muslim women wear a hijab?

Written by Caitlin Killian, Professor of Sociology, Drew University

For many Muslim women, a hijab is a way of expressing resistance.AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty

Nazma Khan, who immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh at age 11, faced years of shaming over wearing a headscarf in New York.

So, in 2013, she started World Hijab Day – a day for both Muslim and non-Muslim women to experience wearing a...

To preserve US national parks in a warming world, reconnect fragmented public lands

Written by Stephen Nash, Visiting Senior Research Scholar, University of Richmond

Rising temperatures and more frequent wildfires in Alaskan national parks could affect caribou's habitat and winter food sources.Zak Richter/NPS

The Trump administration’s decision to keep many U.S. national parks open during the current federal government shutdown, with few or no staff, spotlights how popular and how vulnerable these unique...