The Conversation

Is that wildfire smoke plume hazardous? New satellite tech can map smoke plumes in 3D for better air quality alerts at neighborhood scale

Written by Jun Wang, Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, University of Iowa

Smoke from Canadian wildfires prompted air quality alerts in Chicago as it blanketed the city on June 5, 2025.Scott Olson/Getty Images

Canada is facing another dangerous wildfire season, with burning forests sending smoke plumes across the provinces and into the U.S. again. The pace of the 2025 fires is reminiscent of the record-breaking 2023...

Neanderthals likely ate fermented meat with a side of maggots

Written by Melanie Beasley, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Purdue University

Black soldier fly maggots can feed on decomposing animals. Melanie M. Beasley

Scientists long thought that Neanderthals were avid meat eaters. Based on chemical analysis of Neanderthal remains, it seemed like they’d been feasting on as much meat as apex predators such as lions and hyenas. But as a group, hominins – that’s...

The 3 worst things you can say after a pet dies, and what to say instead

Written by Brian N. Chin, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Trinity College

Loss of a pet falls into what researchers call disenfranchised grief in which the pain is often minimized or discounted.Claudia Luna/iStock via Getty Images Plus

I saw it firsthand after my cat Murphy died earlier this year. She’d been diagnosed with cancer just weeks before.

She was a small gray tabby with delicate paws who, even during...

Fears that falling birth rates in US could lead to population collapse are based on faulty assumptions

Written by Leslie Root, Assistant Professor of Research, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado Boulder

Unfortunately for demographers, birth rates are hard to predict far into the future.gremlin/E+ via Getty Images

Pronatalism – the belief that low birth rates are a problem that must be reversed – is having a moment in the U.S.

As birth rates decline in the U.S. and throughout the world, voices from Silicon Valley to the White House are...

Trump’s push for more deportations could boost demand for foreign farmworkers with ‘guest worker’ visas

Written by Scott Morgenstern, Professor of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh

Mexican farmworkers with H-2A visas weed a North Carolina tobacco field in 2016.Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

The U.S. has an important choice to make regarding agriculture.

It can import more people to pick crops and do other kinds of agricultural labor, it can raise wages enough to lure more U.S. citizens and immigrants with legal...

Deportation tactics from 4 US presidents have done little to reduce the undocumented immigrant population

Written by Kevin Johnson, Dean and Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o Studies, University of California, Davis

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents escort a detained immigrant into an elevator on June 17, 2025, in New York.AP Photo/Olga Fedorova

All modern U.S. presidents, both Republican and Democratic, have attempted to reduce the population of millions of undocumented immigrants. But their various strategies have not had significant results, with...

How bachata rose from Dominican Republic’s brothels and shantytowns to become a global sensation

Written by Wilfredo José Burgos Matos, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies, Lehman College, CUNY

Once viewed by elites with disdain, bachata has become popular worldwide.Erika Santelices/AFP via Getty Images

What began as songs about heartbreak in the brothels and barrios of the Dominican Republic in the 1960s has become a worldwide sensation.

Even the Bee Gees have gotten a bachata spin. Prince Royce’s bilingual take on the 1977 hit...

Columbia’s $200M deal with Trump administration sets a precedent for other universities to bend to the government’s will

Written by Brendan Cantwell, Associate Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University

Students at Columbia University in New York City on April 14, 2025. Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images

Columbia University agreed on July 23, 2025, to pay a US$200 million fine to the federal government and to settle allegations that it did not create a safe environment for Jewish students during Palestinian rights protests in 2024.

The deal...

We tracked illegal fishing in marine protected areas – satellites and AI show most bans are respected, and could help enforce future ones

Written by Jennifer Raynor, Assistant Professor of Natural Resource Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

A school of bigeye trevally swims near Bikar Atoll.Enric Sala/National Geographic Pristine Seas

Marine protected areas cover more than 8% of the world’s oceans today, but they can get a bad rap as being protected on paper only.

While the name invokes safe havens for fish, whales and other sea life, these areas can be hard to monitor....

Why 2025 became the summer of flash flooding in America

Written by Jeffrey Basara, Professor of Meteorology, UMass Lowell

Rescuers searched for survivors after a flash flood in Texas Hill Country on July 4, 2025, that killed more than 130 people. Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

The National Weather Service has already issued more than 3,600 flash flood warnings across the United States in 2025, and that number is increasing as torrential downpours continue in late July....