The Conversation

Migrants travel in groups for a simple reason: safety

Written by Karen Jacobsen, Henry J. Leir Chair in Global Migration, Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University

Central American migrants face extortion, robbery, assault, kidnapping, rape and murder on their weeks-long journey through Mexico. Some find safety in numbers.AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd

A caravan of Central American migrants traveling to the United States to seek asylum is now halfway through Mexico.

The caravan began on Oct. 13 in Honduras with 200...

First-generation college students earn less than graduates whose parents went to college

Written by Anna Manzoni, Associate professor, North Carolina State University

First-generation college students face uneven prospects well after college.Nirat.pix/www.shutterstock.com

When discussions take place about first-generation college students, often the focus is on how disadvantaged they are in comparison to their peers whose parents went to college.

Research we recently conducted shows that first-generation college...

Overhype and 'research laundering' are a self-inflicted wound for social science

Written by Christopher J. Ferguson, Professor of Psychology, Stetson University

Overselling slim results can get research findings into the hands of news consumers.durantelallera/Shutterstock.com

Earlier this fall, Dartmouth College researchers released a study claiming to link violent video games to aggression in kids. The logic of a meta-analytic study like this one is that by combining many individual studies, scientists...

Get a flu shot now – for your benefit and your neighbors'

Written by Dr. Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, Commissioner of Health and Hospitals of Rockland County, Fellows Ambassador New York Academy of Medicine, Adjunct Professor in the Institute of Public Health, New York Medical College, Certified Physician Executive, Assistan

A nurse in Atlanta reaches for a vial of vaccine to prepare for an injection. David Goldman/AP Photo

If you do nothing else the next few days, get a flu shot.

The best time to get a flu shot is by the end of October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises. Considering the severity of last year’s flu, it is especially important...

Yes, eating meat affects the environment, but cows are not killing the climate

Written by Frank M. Mitloehner, Professor of Animal Science and Air Quality Extension Specialist, University of California, Davis

Cattle grazing on public lands near Steens Mountain, Oregon.BLM/Greg Shine, CC BY

As the scale and impacts of climate change become increasingly alarming, meat is a popular target for action. Advocates urge the public to eat less meat to save the environment. Some activists have called for taxing meat to reduce consumption of it.

A key claim...

Spread of self-driving cars could cause more pollution – unless the electric grid transforms radically

Written by Peter Fox-Penner, Director, Institute for Sustainable Energy, and Professor of Practice, Questrom School of Business, Boston University

A cleaner future with autonomous vehicles is not a sure thing.AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

The world is on the cusp of dramatic changes in the ways people own, operate and power their means of transportation.

Known as the “three revolutions,” a term coined by UC Davis transportation professor Daniel Sperling, the new trends are: electric...

Foundations are making climate change a bigger priority

Written by Morten Wendelbo, Research Fellow, American University

When subsistence farmers become climate refugees, who will help them pay the cost of relocation? gregorioa/Shutterstock.com

Twenty-nine mostly U.S.-based philanthropic institutions, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation plan to spend an unpre...

Tanzanian president bluntly attacks contraception, saying high birth rates are good for economy

Written by Kristen Carey, PhD Candidate in History, Boston University

Tanzania was one of the first sub-Saharan African nations to embrace family planning as a national development priority.US Air Force, CC BY-SA

Tanzanian President John Magufuli has suspended advertising by family planning organizations until further review, raising outcry among human rights groups and causing unrest within Tanzania’s health...

Collaboration, not fighting, is what the rural West is really about

Written by Steven C. Beda, Instructor of History, University of Oregon

Harney County, Ore., sign.Wikimedia/Ken Lund, CC BY-SA

Dick Jenkins is a fourth-generation rancher living in Oregon’s most remote county. I wanted to know why he continues living in a rural community, even though life elsewhere might be easier.

“Taking care of [the land] is worth more than all the money in the world,” he told me....

My thoughts are my password, because my brain reactions are unique

Written by Wenyao Xu, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

A test subject entering a brain password.Wenyao Xu, et al., CC BY-ND

Your brain is an inexhaustible source of secure passwords – but you might not have to remember anything. Passwords and PINs with letters and numbers are relatively easily hacked, hard to remember and generally insecure. Biometrics are starting to take their place, with...