The Conversation

What does the NASA administrator do? The agency’s leader reaches for the stars while navigating budgets and politics back on Earth

Written by Wendy Whitman Cobb, Professor of Strategy and Security Studies, Air University

The head of NASA represents the agency to Congress and on the global stage. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

Leaders of NASA sit in an awkward position. While they are the head of a widely recognized organization, they’re often not the most famous individual in the agency. More people probably know the names of Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, the...

Trump attacks diversity, but a fellow New Yorker − US Rep. Vito Marcantonio − worked to represent all Americans in a multiracial democracy

Written by Sandhya Shukla, Associate Professor of English and American Studies, University of Virginia

Vito Marcantonio appears in front of his office on First Avenue in New York City in 1948.The New York Public Library Digital Collections

Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign presented a dark vision of America that painted migrants as threats to the nation.

Yet his hometown, New York City, is also the birthplace of an alternative...

What is Salt Typhoon? A security expert explains the Chinese hackers and their attack on US telecommunications networks

Written by Richard Forno, Principal Lecturer, CSEE & Assistant Director, UMBC Cybersecurity Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

The U.S. says Chinese hackers have penetrated America's phone networks – and are still inside them.Anton Petrus/Moment via Getty Images

Cyberattacks linked to the Chinese government that compromised large portions of the American telecommunications network have the U.S. government sounding the alarm. The chair of the Senate Intelligence...

Extraterrestrial life may look nothing like life on Earth − so astrobiologists are coming up with a framework to study how complex systems evolve

Written by Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona

Evolution, the process of change, governs life on Earth − and potentially different forms of life in other places. Just_Super/E+ via Getty Images

We have only one example of biology forming in the universe – life on Earth. But what if life can form in other ways? How do you look for alien life when you don’t know what alien life...

Protests, sectarian violence and a growing spat with India: Bangladesh’s new leaders are beset with challenges to its democracy

Written by Manoj Misra, Associate Professor of Sociology, Western Connecticut State University

When student-led, anti-government protests in Bangladesh snowballed into the ouster of Sheikh Hasina’s 15-year-long autocratic rule in August 2024, many in the South Asian nation hoped it signaled better times ahead.

Four months on, things are not going to plan. The initial surge of public jubilation has given way to pessimism. The interim...

What is the ‘way of the warrior’? Students investigate the arts of war and peace in this course about virtue and the ethics of violence

Written by Kenneth Andrew Andres Leonardo, Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor of Government, Hamilton College

A painting by Yoshifusa Utagawa shows the famous samurai Miyamoto Musashi, left, fighting Sasaki Kojiro.Artelino via Wikimedia Commons

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

Title of course:

The Way of the Warrior

What prompted the idea for the course?

I am a lifelong...

Love it or hate it, nonliteral ‘literally’ is here to stay: Here’s why English will survive

Written by Valerie M. Fridland, Professor of Linguistics, University of Nevada, Reno

Did your head literally explode? No, but you can say it did.John Lund/Stone via Getty Images

Few words so rile language purists as the use of the adverb “literally” in a figurative sense, as in, “That movie literally blew my mind.”

But as a linguist who studies how English has changed over the centuries, I can promise...

Adults grow new brain cells – and these neurons are key to learning by listening

Written by Aswathy Ammothumkandy, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, University of Southern California

Regenerating neurons may be one way to improve cognition.stanislavgusev/RooM via Getty Images

Your brain can still make new neurons when you’re an adult. But how does the rare birth of these new neurons contribute to cognitive function?

Neurons are the cells that govern brain function, and you are born with most of the neurons you will ever...

White and Black activists worked strategically in parallel in Detroit 50 years ago, fighting for civil rights

Written by Say Burgin, Assistant Professor of History, Dickinson College

A member of the Michigan National Guard stands at the ready as firemen battle a blaze in Detroit in July 1967. AP Photo

Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, some white people have been wondering how they can work with Black people to fight racial inequality.

As a history professor who studies social movements, I know this is not a new...

What is a self-coup? South Korea president’s attempt ended in failure − a notable exception in a growing global trend

Written by John Joseph Chin, Assistant Teaching Professor of Strategy and Technology, Carnegie Mellon University

South Korean soldiers try to get into the National Assembly in Seoul on Dec. 3, 2024.Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images

Something unexpected – but hardly unprecedented – happened in South Korea on Dec. 3, 2024. With little warning, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared emergency martial law, citing the threat from “pro-North Korean anti-state...