The Conversation

Teenage depression: If a parent doesn't get treatment for a child, is that abuse?

Written by Michael Shapiro, Associate Professor, Psychiatry, University of Florida

Teenage depression is a serious and lonely illness, sometimes leading to suicide. fizkes/Shutterstock.com

Hospital visits for kids in the U.S. who have contemplated or thought about suicide have risen sharply.

As a child and adolescent psychiatrist, I am not surprised. For years, I ran a child psychiatric hospital, where we treat kids after they...

Why Puerto Rico’s death toll from Hurricane Maria is so much higher than officials thought

Written by Alexis R. Santos-Lozada, Assistant Teaching Professor in Sociology, Pennsylvania State University

Hurricane Maria’s destruction likely have led to thousands more deaths than originally estimated.Ramon Espinosa/AP

“If you don’t get away from those areas, you are going to die.” That statement concluded Puerto Rico Secretary of Public Safety Héctor Pesquera’s press conference before Hurricane Maria.

As of Dec....

Deportado dos veces, este hombre lucha para salvar a su familia

Written by Oscar Gil-Garcia, Assistant Professor, Binghamton University, State University of New York

La cerca de la frontera entre los Estados Unidos y México que separa Tijuana, México y San Diego, Calif.AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd

Durante más de una década documenté la deportación de un hombre, el impacto que tuvo en su familia y su eventual regreso a Estados Unidos.

Hice esto como parte de mis estudios de la...

Deportado dos veces, este hombre lucha para ayudar a la supervivencia de su familia

Written by Oscar Gil-Garcia, Assistant Professor, Binghamton University, State University of New York

La cerca de la frontera entre los Estados Unidos y México que separa Tijuana, México y San Diego, Calif.AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd

Durante más de una década documenté la deportación de un hombre, el impacto que tuvo en su familia y su eventual regreso a Estados Unidos.

Hice esto como parte de mis estudios de la...

Juul: Why a trendy e-cig is causing a social – and public health – commotion

Written by Amy Lauren Fairchild, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the School of Public Health, Associate Vice President for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Texas A&M Health Science Center, Professor of Health Policy & Management, Texas A&M Universit

A woman exhaling after taking a hit from a Juul. vaping360.com/juul/juul-vapor-review/, CC BY-SA

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched a campaign to discourage e-cigarette vaping. While it targeted all e-cigarette vaping, the campaign makes a powerful visual reference to Juul, a device that can be recharged in a computer...

Immigration agents X-raying migrants to determine age isn't just illegal, it's a misuse of science

Written by Elizabeth A. DiGangi, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Teeth and bones can tell something about age – but not someone's birthday.Journal of Forensic Dental Sciences, CC BY-NC-SA

A teenager’s father is murdered in Somalia, and the boy travels to the United States seeking asylum. Another teen’s father and brother are murdered by extremist groups in Afghanistan and he too makes his way...

Why poverty is rising faster in suburbs than in cities

Written by Scott W. Allard, Professor of Social Policy, University of Washington

An American suburb.jansgate/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

In the U.S., the geography of poverty is shifting.

According to a May report from the Pew Research Center, since 2000, suburban counties have experienced sharper increases in poverty than urban or rural counties.

This is consistent with research across the U.S. over the past decade – as well as my...

In praise of doing nothing

Written by Simon Gottschalk, Professor of Sociology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Modern life seems to encourage acceleration for the sake of acceleration – to what end?JoeyCheung/Shutterstock.com

In the 1950s, scholars worried that, thanks to technological innovations, Americans wouldn’t know what to do with all of their leisure time.

Yet today, as sociologist Juliet Schor notes, Americans are overworked, putting in...

How can criminals manipulate cryptocurrency markets?

Written by Nir Kshetri, Professor of Management, University of North Carolina – Greensboro

Now you see it, now you don't.Syda Productions/Shutterstock.com

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are based on systems that are supposed to be inherently protected from fraud. Yet the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into manipulation of bitcoin prices. How is that sort of activity even possible?

From researching blockchain...

Will Silicon Valley's new company towns end up as failed utopias?

Written by Grant Bollmer, Assistant Professor of Communication, North Carolina State University

A retail street in Facebook's proposed Willow Campus. Facebook

Willow Village is a community planned for a 59-acre site in California’s Silicon Valley, between Menlo Park and East Palo Alto.

It will have housing, offices, a grocery store, a pharmacy, and its developers say, maybe even its own cultural center.

There’s one notable thing...