The Conversation

A Barbie dollhouse and a field trip led me to become an architect − now I lead a program that teaches architecture to mostly young women in South Central Los Angeles

Written by Lauren Matchison, Associate Professor of Practice, University of Southern California

Do dollhouses possess the potential to inspire young girls to design and build?Kosamtu via Getty Images

As a kid growing up in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, in the ’80s, my sister and I spent a lot of time playing with Barbie in the basement of our single-family home. I loved dressing her and imagining her life. But the best part about...

I watched Hungary’s democracy dissolve into authoritarianism as a member of parliament − and I see troubling parallels in Trumpism and its appeal to workers

Written by Gábor Scheiring, Fellow, Harvard University

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán during a meeting in the Oval Office on May 13, 2019, in Washington, D.C. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Hungarian leader and strongman Viktor Orbán, who presided over the radical decline of democracy in his country, is scheduled to meet with former President...

Titanosaurs were the biggest land animals Earth’s ever seen − these plant-powered dinos combined reptile and mammal traits

Written by Kristi Curry Rogers, Professor of Biology and Geology, Macalester College

A replica fossil of the titanosaur _Patagotitan_, one of the largest dinosaurs ever discovered. It would have weighed about 70 tons (63.5 metric tons.)Spencer Platt/Getty Images News via Getty Images

You’re probably familiar with classic sauropod dinosaurs – the four-legged herbivores famous for their long necks and tails. Animals such...

High-energy laser weapons: A defense expert explains how they work and what they are used for

Written by Iain Boyd, Director, Center for National Security Initiatives, and Professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder

The USS Portland test-fires a laser weapon. The photo captured infrared light to make the beam visible.Staff Sgt. Donald Holbert/Marine Corps via AP

Nations around the world are rapidly developing high-energy laser weapons for military missions on land and sea, and in the air and space. Visions of swarms of small, inexpensive drones filling the...

Cherry blossoms – celebrated in Japan for centuries and gifted to Americans – are an appreciation of impermanence and spring

Written by Małgorzata (Gosia) K. Citko-DuPlantis, Assistant Professor in Japanese Literature and Culture, University of Tennessee

Families relax under lush cherry trees in the Shinjuku Gyoen in Tokyo.shankar s./Flickr, CC BY

Cherry blossoms mark the beginning of spring. Various festivals are regularly organized in California, Colorado, Georgia, Tennessee and Washington, D.C., to celebrate the bloom of cherry trees.

The blossoms, however, are short-lived and usually fall...

How Florida’s home insurance market became so dysfunctional, so fast

Written by Latisha Nixon-Jones, Associate Professor of Law, Jacksonville University

Imagine saving for years to buy your dream house, only to have surging property insurance costs keep homeownership forever out of reach.

This is a common problem in Florida, where average insurance premiums cost homeowners an eye-watering US$6,000 a year. That’s more than triple the national average and about three times what Floridians paid...

SEC approves first US climate disclosure rules: Why the requirements are much weaker than planned and what they mean for companies

Written by Sehoon Kim, Assistant Professor of Finance, University of Florida

Companies face new rules for disclosing their climate-related risks.halbergman/E+ via Getty Images

After two years of intense public debate, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the nation’s first national climate disclosure rules on March 6, 2024, setting out requirements for publicly listed companies to report their...

Sharks, turtles and other sea creatures face greater risk from industrial fishing than previously thought − we estimated added pressure from ‘dark’ fishing vessels

Written by Heather Welch, Researcher in Ecosystem Dynamics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Seabirds like this sooty shearwater can drown when they become tangled in drift nets and other fishing gear. Roy Lowe, USFWS/Flickr, CC BY

My colleagues and I mapped activity in the northeast Pacific of “dark” fishing vessels – boats that turn off their location devices or lose signal for technical reasons. In our new study, we...

Emotion-tracking AI on the job: Workers fear being watched – and misunderstood

Written by Nazanin Andalibi, Assistant Professor of Information, University of Michigan

How would you feel if your workplace was tracking how you feel?nadia_bormotova/iStock via Getty Images

Emotion artificial intelligence uses biological signals such as vocal tone, facial expressions and data from wearable devices as well as text and how people use their computers, promising to detect and predict how someone is feeling. It is used in...

Oppenheimer feared nuclear annihilation – and only a chance pause by a Soviet submariner kept it from happening in 1962

Written by Mark Robert Rank, Professor of Social Welfare, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis

Onlookers at a Key West, Fla., beach where the Army's Hawk anti-aircraft missiles were positioned during the Cuban missile crisis. Underwood Archives/Getty Images

History has often been shaped by chance and luck.

One of the blockbuster films of the past year, “Oppenheimer,” tells the dramatic story of the development of the atomic bomb...