The Conversation

How lifting children out of poverty today will help them tomorrow

Written by Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Professor of Education and Social Policy; Director of the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University

Keeping kids above the poverty line contributes to their stability in adulthood.Maskot/DigitalVision via Getty Images

As part of the latest COVID-19 relief package, the federal government has expanded the child tax credit and made it available to all families with children except those with the highest incomes. Families will get US$3,000 per kid...

How Biden's request for more education funding would shift more power to the federal government

Written by Nicholas Tampio, Professor of Political Science, Fordham University

The new budget aims to financially assist school districts with high percentages of low-income students. Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty Images

The president has called on Congress to make a “historic investment” in the Title I grant program. The program provides financial assistance to school districts that have high...

US landmarks bearing racist and Colonial references are renamed to reflect Indigenous values

Written by Sarah Dees, Assistant Professor of American Religions, Iowa State University

In Ames, Iowa, a creek previously named after an offensive term for Native American women is now called Ioway Creek.Sarah Dees, CC BY-NC-ND

A creek running through the city of Ames in central Iowa was officially renamed from Squaw Creek to Ioway Creek in February 2021, after a yearlong process that involved local and federal agencies. The previous...

Restart of the Johnson Johnson COVID-19 vaccine: A doctor explains why benefits far outweigh risks

Written by William Petri, Professor of Medicine, University of Virginia

A dose of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is prepared at a vaccination event at Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in South Los Angeles on March 11, 2021.Mario Tama/Getty Images

Editor’s Note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration lifted the pause on the Johnson & Johnson...

Warp drives: Physicists give chances of faster-than-light space travel a boost

Written by Mario Borunda, Associate Professor of Physics, Oklahoma State University

Faster than light travel is the only way humans could ever get to other stars in a reasonable amount of time. Les Bossinas/NASA/Wikimedia Commons

The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It is about 4.25 light-years away, or about 25 trillion miles (40 trillion km). The fastest ever spacecraft, the now- in-space Parker Solar Probe will reach...

This supermoon has a twist – expect flooding, but a lunar cycle is masking effects of sea level rise

Written by Brian McNoldy, Senior Research Associate, University of Miami

April's super full moon was known as the pink moon because it heralds the arrival of spring flowers.Mark Rightmire/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

Another “super full moon” is coming May 26, 2021, and coastal cities like Miami know that means one thing: a heightened risk of tidal flooding.

Exceptionally high tides...

How Richard Nixon's obsession with Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers sowed the seeds for the president's downfall

Written by Christian Appy, Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Daniel Ellsberg appears before the press on June 28, 1971.Bettmann via Getty Images

When Richard Nixon picked up the Sunday New York Times on June 13, 1971, he must have lingered on the smiling image of himself escorting Tricia – his “ethereal blond daughter,” as the paper described her – to her wedding in the White...

Asian American young adults are the only racial group with suicide as their leading cause of death, so why is no one talking about this?

Written by Amelia Noor-Oshiro, Ph.D. Candidate, Public Health: Social & Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University

Death by suicide is the number one cause of death for young adult Asian Americans. Kelvin Murray/Getty Images

Racially motivated violence looks like the mass shootings that killed Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Chung Park, Hyun Grant and Suncha Kim in Atlanta on March 16, 2021. Racially motivated violence also looks like suicide, which is defined as a...

GPS tracking could help tigers and traffic coexist in Asia

Written by Neil Carter, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Conservation, University of Michigan

A tiger crosses a road in India's Ranthambore National Park.Aditya Singh/AFP via Getty Images

More than 100,000 tigers ranged across Asia a century ago, from the Indian subcontinent to the Russian Far East. Today they are endangered, with only about 4,000 tigers left in the wild. The greatest threats they face are habitat loss and degradation,...

For Vladimir Putin and other autocrats, ruthlessly repressing the opposition is often a winning way to stay in power

Written by Shelley Inglis, Executive Director, University of Dayton Human Rights Center, University of Dayton

Police arrest a protester at a Moscow rally in support of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who fell ill while in prison and is now hospitalized.Alexander Demianchuk\TASS via Getty Images

Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most important opposition leader, is emaciated, hospitalized and reportedly nearing death after developing a fever and cough in the...