The Conversation

How Congress turns citizens' voices into data points

Written by Samantha McDonald, Ph.D. Candidate in Informatics, University of California, Irvine

Answering constituents in congressional offices often involves tabulating comments in a database.Office of Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. via AP

Big technology companies like Amazon, Facebook and Google aren’t the only ones facing huge political concerns about using citizen data: So is Congress. Reports by congressional researchers over the last...

3 countries where Trump is popular

Written by Monti Datta, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Richmond

President Donald Trump is one of the most controversial world leaders in modern times, igniting the ire of America’s staunchest allies.

Whether it’s the proposed Muslim ban, the U.S. border wall and immigration, or his praise of authoritarian leaders, Trump is deft at inciting deep divisions among the public.

In 2018, political...

There's a way for modern medicine to cure diseases even when the treatments aren't profitable

Written by James Leahy, Professor of Chemistry; Interim Chair of the Chemistry Department, University of South Florida

Millions of young children get malaria. These two got it in 2010.AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam

Strides in medicine have contributed to a dramatic increase in life expectancy over the last century. Diseases like HIV and cervical cancer that were essentially death sentences as recently as 30 years ago can now be managed with access to prescription...

Flavored e-cigarettes sweetly lure kids into vaping and also mislead them to dismiss danger, studies suggest

Written by Leah Ranney, Director of Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Vaping flavors in a store in Biddeford, Maine, Sept. 3, 2019. Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced Sept. 15, 2019 that he plans to pursue emergency regulations to quickly ban the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, making New York the second state to consider such a ban. Cuomo’s action came only days after the Trump...

British troops massacred Indians in Amritsar -- and a century later, there's been no official apology

Written by Sumit Ganguly, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations, Indiana University

Jallianwala Bagh, in Amritsar, India, where hundreds were killed on April 13, 1919, under British colonial rule.AP Photo/Prabhjot Gill

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby recently visited the site of a brutal massacre that happened in 1919 under the British colonial rule in India and offered his personal apologies. He expressed his...

At these colleges, students begin serious research their first year

Written by Nancy Stamp, Professor, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Akibo Watson, Corinne Fischer, Ashley Berlot and Jarrett Sannerud, second-year neuroscience students at Binghamton University, preparing reagents for team’s Parkinson disease projectJonathan Cohen/Binghamton University

Rat brains to understand Parkinson’s disease. Drones to detect plastic landmines. Social media to predict acts of...

The Senate filibuster explained – and why it should be allowed to die

Written by Daniel Wirls, Professor of Politics, University of California, Santa Cruz

The filibuster is like a stoplight that's always red. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the latest Democrat to argue an arcane Senate rule governing debate stands in the way of passing a progressive agenda, such as meaningful gun control.

The procedure, known as the filibuster, allows a 41-vote minority in the Senate to block...

The bizarre social history of beds

Written by Brian Fagan, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara

For centuries, people thought nothing of crowding family members or friends into the same bed.miniwide/Shutterstock.com

Groucho Marx once joked, “Anything that can’t be done in bed isn’t worth doing at all.” You might think he was referring to sleeping and sex. But humans, at one time or another, have done just about...

Why Sikhs wear a turban and what it means to practice the faith in the United States

Written by Simran Jeet Singh, Henry R. Luce Post-Doctoral Fellow in Religion in International Affairs Post-Doctoral Fellow, New York University

People participate in a candlelight vigil near the White House to protest violence against Sikhs in 2012.AP Photo/Susan Walsh

An elderly Sikh gentleman in Northern California, 64-year-old Parmjit Singh, was recently stabbed to death while taking a walk in the evening. Authorities are still investigating the killer’s motive, but community...

Climate explained: why carbon dioxide has such outsized influence on Earth's climate

Written by Jason West, Professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory satellite makes precise measurements of Earth's carbon dioxide levels from space.NASA/JPLCC BY-ND

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.

If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer,...