The Conversation

Take that chocolate milk survey with a grain of salt

Written by Lauren Griffin, Director of External Research for frank, College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida

And don't expect chocolate ice cream, either.Barney Moss, CC BY

It’s been all over the news lately: a survey by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy suggests that 7 percent of American adults believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows.

The takeaway of much of this reporting is that Americans are science illiterate as well as uninformed about...

New data set explores 90 years of natural disasters in the US

Written by Leah Platt Boustan, Professor of Economics, Princeton University

The sun rises behind the remains of a New Jersey roller coaster destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. AP Photo/Mel Evans

Every year, major earthquakes, floods and hurricanes occur. These natural disasters disrupt daily life and, in the worst cases, cause devastation. Events such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy killed thousands of people and generated...

Republican health care bills defy the party's own ideology

Written by Christy Ford Chapin, Visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University and Assistant Professor of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who announced June 27 that a vote on the Senate health care bill has been delayed until after the July 4 recess.Carolyn Kaster/AP

The Senate’s health care proposal made it clear that Republicans, despite their rhetoric, are not interested in market-based reform. Instead, they prefer pro-business,...

Macron and Trudeau shouldn't be so proud of appointing women to their Cabinets

Written by Malliga Och, Assistant Professor of Global Studies and Languages, Idaho State University

Appointing a gender-parity Cabinet seems to be the thing to do if you are a rising, progressive and male political star.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did it in 2015. French President Emmanuel Macron followed this May.

The internet loves it. Trudeau has been the darling of feminists everywhere, and Macron clearly wants to follow in his...

The Venezuelan government's newest opponent is a state-funded orchestra

Written by Yana Genchova Stainova, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dartmouth Society of Fellows, Dartmouth College

Musicians protesting against government while holding instruments in Caracas, Venezuela.AP/ Fernando Llano

On May 4, an 18-year-old violist named Armando Cañizales marched against the government in Venezuela.

A video shows him walking slowly, arms outstretched. Minutes later, he was shot dead. Despite a lack of evidence to determine who shot...

How the homeless create homes

Written by Susan Fraiman, Professor of English, University of Virginia

The number of people facing housing insecurity, already on the rise, began to climb more steeply as a result of the Great Recession. This upward trend will likely be exacerbated if President Trump’s proposed cuts to food stamps, Medicaid and housing subsidies are enacted, which will force even more to make a choice between food on the table...

New legislation may make free speech on campus less free

Written by Neal H. Hutchens, Professor of Higher Education, University of Mississippi

A crowd gathers near the University of California, Berkeley campus during a rally for free speech on April 27, 2017. Demonstrators gathered amid a strong police presence in anticipation of controversial speaker Ann Coulter.AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Around the country, state lawmakers have been talking about – and legislating – ways...

Why it's important to understand social media's dark history

Written by Nicholas Bowman, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, West Virginia University

www.shutterstock.com

It was in April 2016 that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media platform was providing its nearly two billion users the opportunity to livestream content. The move was viewed as a natural extension of the platform’s primary goal: providing a space for the average person to share their daily...

Behind Modi: The growing influence of the India lobby

Written by Ashok Sharma, Adjunct Faculty, University of New South Wales, Canberra at Australian Defence Force Academy

One has 32.9 million Twitter followers; the other has 31 million.

When U.S. President Donald Trump met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on June 26, Trump chose to draw attention to something the leaders have in common by saying “We are world leaders on social media.”

Prior to the June 26 meeting, news analysts...

Is energy 'dominance' the right goal for US policy?

Written by Daniel Raimi, Senior research associate (Resources for the Future), Lecturer (University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy), University of Michigan

The surge in U.S. oil and natural gas production has transformed the energy picture in the country, but the influence is muted globally. Pixabay

In recent weeks, a new energy buzzword has taken flight from Washington, D.C., making stops in Alaska, North Dakota, Texas, Utah and more: “American energy dominance.” Taking a cue from a 2016...