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The Conversation

How could an explosive Big Bang be the birth of our universe?

  • Written by Michael Lam, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Rochester Institute of Technology
No one knows what kicked off the Big Bang that eventually allowed the stars to begin forming.Adolf Schaller for STScI, CC BY

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

How can a Big Bang have been the start of the universe, since...

Read more: How could an explosive Big Bang be the birth of our universe?

How Apple and Google will let your phone warn you if you've been exposed to the coronavirus

  • Written by Johannes Becker, Doctoral student in Electrical & Computer Engineering, Boston University
Apps that warn about close contact with COVID-19 cases are key to relaxing social distancing rules.Walter Bibikow/Stone via Getty Images

On April 10, Apple and Google announced a coronavirus exposure notification system that will be built into their smartphone operating systems, iOS and Android. The system uses the ubiquitous Bluetooth short-range...

Read more: How Apple and Google will let your phone warn you if you've been exposed to the coronavirus

Masks and distancing make it tough for the hard-of-hearing, but here's how to help

  • Written by Nicole Marrone, Associate Professor in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona
An already tough situation is made worse for those with hearing loss. filadendron/Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that all Americans wear face coverings when in public. Hospitals across the country are assuming everyone who walks through the door is a potential COVID-19 case, so are requiring patients to...

Read more: Masks and distancing make it tough for the hard-of-hearing, but here's how to help

Can your community handle a natural disaster and coronavirus at the same time?

  • Written by Mark Abkowitz, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies, Vanderbilt University
When deadly tornadoes struck the Southeast in April, residents in Prentiss, Mississippi, struggled to keep up coronavirus precautions while salvaging what they could from their damaged properties.AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis

The tornadoes that swept across the Southeast this spring were a warning to communities nationwide: Disasters can happen at any...

Read more: Can your community handle a natural disaster and coronavirus at the same time?

Brazilian mystics say they're sent by aliens to 'jump-start human evolution' – but their vision for a more just society is not totally crazy

  • Written by Kelly E. Hayes, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, IUPUI
Valley of the Dawn members celebrate 'Day of the Indoctrinator' at their temple complex in Brazil on May 1. This year's event is postponed due to coronavirus.Márcia Alves, CC BY-SA

Every May 1, before sunrise, several thousand members of the religion known as the Valley of the Dawn gather in silence at a temple outside the Brazilian capital...

Read more: Brazilian mystics say they're sent by aliens to 'jump-start human evolution' – but their vision...

Endangered tigers face growing threats from an Asian road-building boom

  • Written by Neil Carter, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Conservation, University of Michigan
Female tiger crossing track, Bandavgarh National Park, India. David Tipling/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Tigers are one of the world’s most iconic wild species, but today they are endangered throughout Asia. They once roamed across much of this region, but widespread habitat loss, prey depletion and poaching have reduced their numbers...

Read more: Endangered tigers face growing threats from an Asian road-building boom

Archaeologists have a lot of dates wrong for North American indigenous history – but we're using new techniques to get it right

  • Written by Sturt Manning, Director of the Cornell Tree Ring Laboratory and Professor of Classical Archaeology, Cornell University
For centuries, indigenous history has been largely told through a European lens.John White, circa 1585-1593, © The Trustees of the British Museum, CC BY-NC-SA

Columbus famously reached the Americas in 1492. Other Europeans had made the journey before, but the century from then until 1609 marks the creation of the modern globalized world.

This...

Read more: Archaeologists have a lot of dates wrong for North American indigenous history – but we're using...

Empty pews take a financial toll on many US congregations

  • Written by David King, Assistant Professor of Philanthropic Studies, IUPUI
Remote worship is becoming the norm during the pandemicAP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

As some 350,000 American churches and other houses of worship scramble to meet the spiritual and – increasingly – material needs of their members remotely, they are doing so on a tighter budget than usual.

That’s because they’re missing out on...

Read more: Empty pews take a financial toll on many US congregations

I was a nurse on the front lines of Ebola, and I saw that nurses need support for the trauma and pain they experience

  • Written by Cheedy Jaja, Professor of Nursing, University of South Carolina
Nurse Cheedy Jaja in Sierre Leone in 2015, where he helped treat patients with Ebola during the West Africa outbreak. Rebecca E. Rollins/Partners in Health, CC BY-SA

The Conversation is running a series of dispatches from clinicians and researchers operating on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. You can find all of the stories here.

Since...

Read more: I was a nurse on the front lines of Ebola, and I saw that nurses need support for the trauma and...

Wait times remain stubbornly long in hospital emergency rooms

  • Written by Paul Shafer, Assistant Professor, Health Law, Policy and Management, Boston University
How long will you wait?Getty Images

Each year, there are well over 100 million hospital emergency department visits in the U.S. In 2017, there were about 139 million, or 43 visits for every 100 Americans.

While wait times have declined in the last decade – now averaging about 40 minutes – they remain stubbornly long. Millions of patients...

Read more: Wait times remain stubbornly long in hospital emergency rooms

More Articles ...

  1. Top football recruits bring in big money for colleges – COVID-19 could threaten revenue
  2. Are we living in a dystopia?
  3. What does 'survival of the fittest' mean in the coronavirus pandemic? Look to the immune system
  4. As states weigh human lives versus the economy, history suggests the economy often wins
  5. Scientist at work: Trapping urban coyotes to see if they can be 'hazed' away from human neighborhoods
  6. Very good dogs don't necessarily make very good co-workers
  7. Climate change threatens drinking water quality across the Great Lakes
  8. Why are white supremacists protesting to 'reopen' the US economy?
  9. Kids have a right to a basic education, according to a new legal milestone
  10. COVID-19 is a dress rehearsal for entrepreneurial approaches to climate change
  11. How the Trump administration accidentally insured over 200,000 through Obamacare
  12. 3 volunteering guidelines to heed during the coronavirus pandemic
  13. 3 crisis-leadership lessons from Abraham Lincoln
  14. Measuring maternal grief in Africa
  15. Who's at risk of not being counted in the 2020 census: 6 essential reads
  16. Scientists at work: Uncovering the mystery of when and where sharks give birth
  17. Coronavirus impact: Meat processing plants weigh risks of prosecution if they're blamed for spreading infection
  18. Welcome to your sensory revolution, thanks to the pandemic
  19. Failure to count COVID-19 nursing home deaths could dramatically skew US numbers
  20. Lethargic global response to COVID-19: How the human brain's failure to assess abstract threats cost us dearly
  21. 5 things college students should include in a plan for their wellness
  22. How the US military could help fight the coronavirus outbreak
  23. 5 lessons from the coronavirus about inequality in America
  24. A global mask shortage may leave farmers and farm workers exposed to toxic pesticides
  25. From pews to patients – churches have long served as hospitals, particularly in times of crisis
  26. Jewish history explains why some ultra-Orthodox communities defy coronavirus restrictions
  27. Coronavirus bailouts will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars – unlike past corporate rescues that actually made money for the US Treasury
  28. The coronavirus genome is like a shipping label that lets epidemiologists track where it's been
  29. Are people with pets less likely to die if they catch the coronavirus?
  30. How to listen to your loved ones with empathy when you yourself are feeling the strain of social distancing
  31. Tomanowos, the meteorite that survived mega-floods and human folly
  32. Coronavirus drifts through the air in microscopic droplets – here's the science of infectious aerosols
  33. How the Hubble Space Telescope opened our eyes to the first galaxies of the universe
  34. As the coronavirus interrupts global supply chains, people have an alternative – make it at home
  35. Mass graves for coronavirus victims shouldn't come as a shock – it's how the poor have been buried for centuries
  36. 6 tips for parents who home-school
  37. 'Reopen' protest movement created, boosted by fake grassroots tactics
  38. #TyphoidMary – now a hashtag – was a maligned immigrant who got a bum rap
  39. Deaths and desperation mount in Ecuador, epicenter of coronavirus pandemic in Latin America
  40. Price controls don't work – but mask rationing is the exception that proves the rule
  41. Diary of Samuel Pepys shows how life under the bubonic plague mirrored today's pandemic
  42. Coronavirus is spreading through rural South’s high-risk population – reopening economies will make it worse
  43. What is a brain freeze?
  44. How to score an internship during the COVID-19 pandemic
  45. BP paid a steep price for the Gulf oil spill but for the US a decade later, it's business as usual
  46. Scientists are working to protect invaluable living collections during coronavirus lockdowns
  47. Renters still left out in the cold despite temporary coronavirus protection
  48. Hajj cancellation wouldn't be the first – plague, war and politics disrupted pilgrimages long before coronavirus
  49. Why farmers are dumping milk down the drain and letting produce rot in fields
  50. Why there isn’t a one-size-fits-all plan for states to reopen their economies