The Conversation

What the Heaven's Gate suicides say about American culture

Written by Ben Zeller, Associate Professor of Religion, Lake Forest College

Heaven’s Gate – also known as the “UFO cult” – burst into American consciousness 20 years ago this month, when, on March 26, 1997, law enforcement discovered 39 decomposing bodies in a San Diego, California mansion.

Each detail that emerged from the scene stunned a rapt public: Adherents had committed suicide in waves...

London attack: Terrorism expert explains three threats of jihadism in the West

Written by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Research Director of the Program on Extremism, George Washington University

Details about the man who attacked the British Parliament on March 22, identified by London police as British national Khalid Masood, are still emerging. With three victims confirmed dead, the attack is the worst in London since the July 7, 2005 bombings on the London transport system.

A day after the attack, the Islamic State media organization...

New powerful telescopes allow direct imaging of nascent galaxies 12 billion light years away

Written by J. Xavier Prochaska, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Artist's impression of a quasar shining through a galaxy's 'super halo' of hydrogen gas.A. Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF), CC BY-ND

How does a galaxy like our own Milky Way form? Until now there’s been a lot of inferring involved in answering that question.

The basic story is that gas collects toward the center of roughly spherical...

Using the placenta to understand how complex organs evolve

Written by Oliver Griffith, Postdoctoral Associate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University

Developing lizard embryo beneath placental tissues.Oliver Griffith, CC BY-ND

Considering how different they look from the outside, it might be surprising that all vertebrates – animals with a backbone – share the same, conserved set of organs. Chickens, fish, human beings – all have hearts, livers, brains, kidneys and so on. Each...

How a study about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was doctored, adding to pain and stigma

Written by Steven Lubet, Williams Memorial Professor of Law, Northwestern University

Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, who has worked with those who have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, spoke to an open committee at the Institute of Medicine in February 2015 about the biomedical nature of CFS. Susan Walsh/AP

The public relies on scientists to report their findings accurately and completely, but that does not always happen. Too often, researchers...

What's the point of an ethics course?

Written by Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University

Research shows that regular ethics training helps.O'Riordan Images, CC BY-NC

Earlier in March, news broke that the White House had declined to award a contract for an ethics course aimed at senior staffers, Cabinet nominees and others holding political appointments in the Trump administration.

The decision made news because the Trump administration...

Why polls seem to struggle to get it right – on elections and everything else

Written by Daniel Alexander, Professor of Mathematics, Drake University

Where are the people really going?kewl/flickr, CC BY

I am a professor of mathematics, so my ears perk up when I hear someone say that polls seem inaccurate.

The public understandably focuses on polling results and how much these results seem to vary. Take two presidential approval polls from March 21. Polling firm Rasmussen Reports reported that 50...

Immigrants deported under Obama share stories of terror and rights violations

Written by Tanya Golash-Boza, Professor, University of California, Merced

Marlene Mosqueda's father was arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February.AP Photo/Nick Ut, File

Although it is difficult to get exact numbers, some estimates show Immigration and Customs Enforcement home raids have never resulted in more than 30,000 apprehensions in any given year. At that rate, it could take 366 years for...

The age of hacking brings a return to the physical key

Written by Jungwoo Ryoo, Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Altoona campus, Pennsylvania State University

Have hackers driven us back to the age of the physical key?Bautsch

With all the news about Yahoo accounts being hacked and other breaches of digital security, it’s easy to wonder if there’s any real way to keep unauthorized users out of our email and social media accounts.

Everyone knows not to use the same username and password...

3-D printing turns nanomachines into life-size workers

Written by Chenfeng Ke, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Dartmouth College

Molecular machines are ready to join forces and take on real-world work.Chenfeng Ke, CC BY-ND

Nanomachines are tiny molecules – more than 10,000 lined up side by side would be narrower than the diameter of a human hair – that can move when they receive an external stimulus. They can already deliver medication within a body and serve as c...