On March 25, European Union leaders celebrate the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty, a central pillar of the structure set up in the aftermath of World War II to solidify peace, prosperity and partnership in Europe.
Over the last 60 years, the EU (and its predecessors) has served as an essential U.S. partner: for example, by enhancing...
FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers at hearing on allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.AP Photo/Manuel Balce CenetaAs an anthropologist, I know that all groups of people use informal practices of social control in day-to-day interactions. Controlling disruptive...
Tuberculosis should be a specter of the past, something only our great-grandparents feared and died of. Alas, although almost all cases of TB today are both preventable and treatable, several different strains and manifestations of the disease still sicken and kill millions of people every year.
Global tuberculosis interventions are usually tied...
Read more: Want to end TB? Diagnose and treat all forms of the disease
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...
Read more: What the Heaven's Gate suicides say about American culture
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...
Read more: London attack: Terrorism expert explains three threats of jihadism in the West
Artist's impression of a quasar shining through a galaxy's 'super halo' of hydrogen gas.A. Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF), CC BY-NDHow 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...
Developing lizard embryo beneath placental tissues.Oliver Griffith, CC BY-NDConsidering 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...
Read more: Using the placenta to understand how complex organs evolve
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/APThe public relies on scientists to report their findings accurately and completely, but that does not always happen. Too often, researchers...
Read more: How a study about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was doctored, adding to pain and stigma
Research shows that regular ethics training helps.O'Riordan Images, CC BY-NCEarlier 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...
Where are the people really going?kewl/flickr, CC BYI 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...
Read more: Why polls seem to struggle to get it right – on elections and everything else