The Conversation

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...

¿Las noticias te estresan? Estas 4 técnicas de entrenamiento mental te ayudarán a calmar el cerebro

Written by Laurel Mellin, Associate Clinical Professor of Family & Community Medicine and Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco

El estrés existe para ayudarnos a escapar de una situación de peligro físico, no reaccionar mal al periódico cada mañana. Shutterstock

Desde la histeria provocada por la nominación de un candidato conservador a la Corte Suprema a las políticas anti-inmigrante de Donald Trump y el crecimiento de las...

¿Las noticias te estresan? Estas cuatro técnicas de entrenamiento mental te ayudarán a calmar el cerebro

Written by Laurel Mellin, Associate Clinical Professor of Family & Community Medicine and Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco

El estrés existe para ayudarnos a escapar de una situación de peligro físico, no reaccionar mal al periódico cada mañana. Shutterstock

Desde la histeria provocada por la nominación de un candidato conservador a la Corte Suprema a las políticas anti-inmigrante de Donald Trump y el crecimiento de las...