The Conversation

Cuba expands rights but rejects radical change in updated constitution

Written by María Isabel Alfonso, Professor of Spanish, St. Joseph's College of New York

Cuba has rejected a proposal to legalize same-sex marriage in its new and revised constitution, a move that disappointed some gay rights activists.

An article that would have redefined marriage as a “union between two people” – rather than a “union between a man and a woman” – was eliminated from a proposed new...

Cultured meat seems gross? It's much better than animal agriculture

Written by Matti Wilks, Postdoctoral Research Associate in Psychology, Yale University

World's first lab-grown beef burger. Would you eat it?David Parry / PA Wire, CC BY-ND

The world is in the grips of a food-tech revolution. One of the most compelling new developments is cultured meat, also known as clean, cell-based or slaughter-free meat. It’s grown from stem cells taken from a live animal without the need for slaughter.

Propo...

Newly discovered cold-tolerant plants from Siberia could promote clean bioenergy

Written by Charles Pignon, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

A stand of _Miscanthus_ x _giganteus_ at the University of Illinois's Energy Farm. Brian Stauffer/University of Illinois, CC BY-SA

Climate change is an urgent threat to societies around the world, driven by carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels such as oil. One of the most effective ways to curb emissions is to replace these energy sources...

Robocalls are unstoppable – 3 questions answered about why your phone won't quit ringing

Written by Raymond Huahong Tu, Assistant Clinical Professor in Machine Learning, Cybersecurity, and Computer Science, University of Maryland

Caller ID won't always tell you it's a robot doing the dialing.LightField Studios/Shutterstock.com

Editor’s note: When your phone rings, there’s about a 50 percent chance it’s a spam robocall. That’s not probability – it’s what the U.S. government agency regulating telecommunications says. U.S. mobile phone users...

WTO offers Trump a solution to enforcing a trade deal with a China that breaks promises

Written by Amitrajeet A. Batabyal, Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics, Rochester Institute of Technology

Optimism is growing that China and the U.S. will be able reach a deal to end the year-old trade war, with President Donald Trump extending his March 2 deadline.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks between the two countries has been a lack of trust, a key to any successful negotiation. The Trump administration has insisted it will make a strong...

America can afford a Green New Deal – here's how

Written by Edward Barbier, Professor of Economics, Colorado State University

Critics say the U.S. can't afford a Green New Deal.AP Photo/Susan Walsh

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey are calling for a “Green New Deal” that would involve massive government spending to shift the U.S. economy away from its reliance on carbon.

Their congressional resolution goes into great detail about the harms...

A brief history of North Carolina's 9th District contested election – in 1898

Written by Gideon Cohn-Postar, Graduate Student in History, Northwestern University

Mark Harris, Republican candidate in North Carolina's 9th congressional race.Travis Long/The News & Observer via AP, Pool

North Carolina is redoing an election to decide who will represent its 9th Congressional District, after an investigation uncovered evidence of election fraud during the 2018 midterms.

According to a recently completed...

Amazon pullout from NYC shows the perils of partnerships between higher education and business

Written by Jason Owen-Smith, Professor of Sociology, Executive Director, Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS), University of Michigan

Amazon's plan to locate its second headquarters in New York City fell through.Mark Lennihan/AP

Amazon’s recent decision to pull out of plans to establish a new headquarters in New York City received a lot of attention. Much of it focused on whether the big tax breaks the company would have gotten as part of the deal were fair and reasonable.

No...

Is a gene-edited animal a drug?

Written by Alison Van Eenennaam, Researcher, Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis

Cows at the University of California, Davis beef research facility. Photo credit: Alison Van Eenennaam/ University of California, Davis, CC BY-NC-SA

We eat mutations every day. All the vegetables, grains, fruits and meat humans consume as part of their diet is jam-packed with DNA speckled with mutations and beneficial variations.

In 2017, the United...

I build mathematical programs that could discover the drugs of the future

Written by Guowei Wei, Professor of Mathematics, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University

How will each drug interact with the proteins in your body?Evlakhov Valeriy/shutterstock.com

Discovering and designing a new drug is one of the most challenging tasks in the biological sciences. It takes over 10 years and about US$2.6 billion to bring an average drug to market.

The essential idea behind making a new drug is to create a molecule that...