The Conversation

Restoring tropical forests isn't meaningful if those forests only stand for 10 or 20 years

Written by Matthew Fagan, Assistant Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

A regenerating stand of rainforest in northern Costa Rica.Matthew Fagan, CC BY-ND

Tropical forests globally are being lost at a rate of 61,000 square miles a year. And despite conservation efforts, the global rate of loss is accelerating. In 2016 it reached a 15-year high, with 114,000 square miles cleared.

At the same time, many countries are...

Adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census would cost some states their congressional seats

Written by Dudley Poston, Professor of Sociology, Texas A&M University

An envelope containing a 2018 census letter mailed to a U.S. resident as part of the nation's only test run of the 2020 census.AP Photo/Michelle R. Smith

A partisan battle is brewing over the 2020 census.

In March 2018, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross instructed the U.S. Census Bureau to add a new question to the 2020 questionnaire, asking...

Automated control system caused Ethiopia crash, flight data suggests

Written by Timothy Takahashi, Professor of Practice for Aerospace Engineering, Arizona State University

Wreckage from Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 lies near the crash site outside Addis Ababa.AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene

Emerging evidence from the recent crash in Ethiopia suggests that malfunctioning automatic control systems overwhelmed the crew and doomed the flight. Based on my analysis, it appears that the Ethiopian Airlines crew followed the standard...

Editing genes shouldn't be too scary -- unless they are the ones that get passed to future generations

Written by Eleanor Feingold, Professor of Human Genetics, University of Pittsburgh

Gene editing a fertilized human embryo. Lightspring/Shutterstock.com

Gene editing is one of the scarier things in the science news, but not all gene editing is the same. It matters whether researchers edit “somatic” cells or “germline” cells.

Germline cells are the ones that propogate into an entire organism – either...

Marijuana is a lot more than just THC - a pharmacologist looks at the untapped healing compounds

Written by James David Adams, Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Southern California

Assorted cannabis bud strains.Roxana Gonzalez/Shutterstock.com

Medical marijuana is legal in 33 states as of November 2018. Yet the federal government still insists marijuana has no legal use and is easy to abuse. In the meantime, medical marijuana dispensaries have an increasing array of products available for pain, anxiety, sex and more.

The...

Why a college admissions racket would funnel bribes through a fake charity

Written by Sarah Webber, Associate Professor, Department of Accounting, University of Dayton

Many people aided by the campus admissions scheme wanted to attend the University of Southern California.AP Photo/Reed Saxon

Federal authorities are prosecuting dozens of suspects in the biggest college admissions scandal ever exposed. The joint FBI and IRS investigation, dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues,” uncovered millions of dollars...

Why rich parents are more likely to be unethical

Written by David M. Mayer, Professor of Management & Organizations, University of Michigan

William 'Rick' Singer founder of the Edge College & Career Network, pleaded guilty to charges in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal.AP Photo/Steven Senne

Federal attorneys have arrested 50 people in a college admission scam that allowed wealthy parents to buy their kids’ admission to elite universities. Prosecutors found...

5 ways the Syrian revolution continues

Written by Wendy Pearlman, Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University

A Syrian refugee child sits on the window of his family's trailer home painted by refugee artists in a camp near Mafraq, Jordan. AP/Raad Adayleh

Bashar al-Assad has “won” the war in Syria – or so many analysts tell us.

His regime has reconquered swaths of territory from rebel forces with starvation-and-surrender sieges, barrel...

Why meritocracy is a myth in college admissions

Written by Morgan Polikoff, Associate Professor of Education, University of Southern California

Clockwise from top left, Georgetown University, Stanford University, Yale University, and University of California, Los Angeles. AP

The most damaging myth in American higher education is that college admissions is about merit, and that merit is about striving for – and earning – academic excellence. This myth is often used as a weapon...

Jamaica leads in Richard Branson-backed plan for a Caribbean climate revolution

Written by Masaō Ashtine, Lecturer in Alternative Energy, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus

Turbines in Manchester Parish, Jamaica, the English-speaking Caribbean's first wind farm.Debbie Ann Powell

After hurricanes Irma and Maria tore through the Caribbean in 2017, devastating dozens of islands – including billionaire Richard Branson’s private isle, Necker Island – Branson called for a “Caribbean Marshall Plan.&rdq...