The Conversation

¿Por qué los abogados representan a los immigrantes de manera gratuita?

Written by Eduardo Capulong, Associate Dean for Clinical and Experiential Education; Professor of Law, The University of Montana

Una madre hondureña y su hijo con un agente de la Patrulla Fronteriza. AP/David J. Phillip

Muchos abogados, asistentes legales y estudiantes de derecho se ofrecen como voluntarios para ayudar a familias inmigrantes que se encuentran en el punto de mira de la propuesta de la administración Trump de reducir drásticamente el...

Short-term health plans: A junk solution to a real problem

Written by Simon F. Haeder, Assistant Professor of Political Science, West Virginia University

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.-S.C., left, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pictured Sept. 26, 2017 before the vote on Graham's bill to gut Obamacare. Like others before it, the bill failed.Andrew Harnik/AP

After failing to overturn most of the Affordable Care Act in a very public fight, President Donald Trump has been steadily working behind...

A Texas city discovered a mass grave of prison laborers. What should it do with the bodies?

Written by Andrea Roberts, Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University

After the Civil War, Texas's sugar cane plantations were still farmed by unpaid black laborers – prisoners forced to work for free in a system called 'convict leasing.' Author provided

When archaeologists discovered the intact skeletons of 15,000 free and enslaved Africans at a construction site in lower Manhattan in 1991, the federal...

Keeping the electricity grid running – 4 essential reads

Written by Jeff Inglis, Science + Technology Editor, The Conversation US

A man reads the newspaper by flashlight during the Northeast Blackout in August 2003.AP Photo/Joe Kohen

On Aug. 14, 2003, a software bug contributed to a blackout that left 50 million people across nine U.S. northeastern states and a Canadian province without power. The outage lasted for as long as four days, with rolling blackouts in some areas...

What Harvard can learn from Texas: A solution to the controversy over affirmative action

Written by David Orentlicher, Professor of Law and Co-Director, Health Law Program, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Top 10 percent policies could help universities such as Harvard achieve diversity.f11photo/www.shutterstock.com

When it comes to the use of race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions, no one seems to be happy with the way it’s playing out.

Opponents charge that taking into account an applicant’s race or ethnicity amounts to...

From slag to swag: The story of Earl Tupper's fantastic plastics

Written by Marsha Bryant, Professor of English & Distinguished Teaching Scholar, University of Florida

A postcard from the 1950s advertises a variety Tupperware products.Thomas Hawk, CC BY-NC

When “American Horror Story,” the Museum of Modern Art and “Napoleon Dynamite” pay homage to an invention, you know it’s made a cultural impact in a big way.

Tupperware has a staying power that most plastic products don’t. So...

Why Native Americans struggle to protect their sacred places

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

People protest the shrinking of Bears Ears National Monument.AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

Forty years ago the U.S. Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act so that Native Americans could practice their faith freely and that access to their sacred sites would be protected. This came after a 500-year-long history of conquest and coercive...

How the media falls short in reporting epidemics

Written by Yotam Ophir, Postdoctoral Fellow in Science Communication at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of Pennsylvania

Lethal infectious diseases are making headlines again, with 17 confirmed new Ebola cases reported in Congo as of August 8. The news brings back the memories of Americans’ unjustified fear during the 2014 outbreak.

In any outbreak or public health crisis, health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention need to...

Wildfires are inevitable – increasing home losses, fatalities and costs are not

Written by Max Moritz, Cooperative Extension Wildfire Specialist at the University of California Forest Research and Outreach; Adjunct Professor Bren School of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara

Cal Fire Division Chief Mark Higgins directs helicopters dropping water in Lakeport, California. AP Photo/Noah Berger

Wildfire has been an integral part of California ecosystems for centuries. Now, however, nearly a third of homes in California are in wildland urban interface areas where houses intermingling with wildlands and fire is a natural...

We are guinea pigs in a worldwide experiment on microplastics

Written by John Meeker, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan

Microplastics in the Mediterranean Sea.By Dirk Wahn/shutterstock.com

One of the main problems with plastics is that although we may only need them fleetingly – seconds in the case of microbeads in personal care products, or minutes as in plastic grocery bags – they stick around for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, much of this plastic...