The Conversation

How cafes, bars, gyms, barbershops and other 'third places' create our social fabric

Written by Setha Low, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Geography and Psychology and Director of the Public Space Research Group, CUNY Graduate Center

Empty cafes with tipped chairs are a common sight worldwide during the coronavirus pandemic.Frank Rumpenhorst/picture alliance via Getty Images

Social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic implies many painful losses. Among them are so-called “third places” – the restaurants, bars, gyms, houses of worship, barber shops and other...

Why offering businesses immunity from coronavirus liability is a bad idea

Written by Timothy D. Lytton, Distinguished University Professor & Professor of Law, Georgia State University

Taking reasonable precautions such as wearing gloves can help businesses avoid civil liability.Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Governors around the country are attempting to restart the economy by easing restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The prospect of returning to “normal” amid a pandemic has businesses lobbying...

What are the 'reopen' protesters really saying?

Written by Diana Daly, Assistant Professor of Information, University of Arizona

Protesters in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on April 20 call for the governor to lift restrictions meant to help combat the spread of the coronavirus.AP Photo/Matt Slocum

The “anti-lockdown” and #Reopen protests in the U.S. have powerful and secretive backers, but there are real Americans on the streets expressing their opinions.

As an ethno...

Your guide to the 2020 census questionnaire

Written by Aviva Rutkin, Data Editor

GettyImages

So, you’ve likely received your census questionnaire in the mail by now. But you might be wondering: Why these questions? Who came up with this list?

The questionnaire has changed a lot over time. In the first census, in 1790, U.S. marshals posed just a handful of questions to each head of household: their name; the number of free...

The impulse to garden in hard times has deep roots

Written by Jennifer Atkinson, Senior Lecturer, Environmental Studies, University of Washington

During coronavirus lockdowns, gardens have served as an escape from feelings of alienation.Richard Bord/Getty Images

The coronavirus pandemic has set off a global gardening boom.

In the early days of lockdown, seed suppliers were depleted of inventory and reported “unprecedented” demand. Within the U.S., the trend has been compared to...

Why the WHO, often under fire, has a tough balance to strike in its efforts to address health emergencies

Written by Andrew Lakoff, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, right, has his temperature taken as he arrives at Ruhenda airport in Butembo in eastern Congo, June 15, 2019. AP Photo/Al-hadji Kudra Maliro

The Trump administration recently declared, in the midst of the coronavirus emergency, that it would suspend the United...

Spring signals female bees to lay the next generation of pollinators

Written by Lila Westreich, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Environment and Forest Sciences, University of Washington

Northern amber bumble bee queen (_Bombus borealis_) on a dandelion flower.Sarah A. Johnson, CC BY-ND

The first days of spring – brighter and warmer – are a biological trigger for female bees to wake up from hibernation and begin to build future colonies.

These enormous bees, sometimes two to three times larger than a worker bee, are...

The 'first scientist's 800-year-old tonic for what ails us: The truth

Written by Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University

English scientist Roger Bacon believed everyone has a responsibility to think for themselves. Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de santé, CC BY

It seems that science has been taking a beating lately. From decades of denial by the tobacco industry that smoking causes cancer to more recent attempts to use the COVID-19 pandemic to score pol...

Why are kids asking such big questions during the pandemic?

Written by Jana Mohr Lone, Director of the Center for Philosophy for Children; Affiliate Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Washington

All children harbor intense curiosity.Erdark/Getty Images

Why do people have to die?

Are mistakes always bad?

Can you be happy and sad at the same time?

Kids often ask questions like these that are hard if not impossible to answer. When children raise uncomfortable questions or questions that seem to have no answers, adults tend to respond with...

We found and tested 47 old drugs that might treat the coronavirus: Results show promising leads and a whole new way to fight COVID-19

Written by Nevan Krogan, Professor and Director of Quantitative Biosciences Institute & Senior Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, University of California, San Francisco

Testing in cells is an important and exciting first step.elkor/E+ via Getty Images

The more researchers know about how the coronavirus attaches, invades and hijacks human cells, the more effective the search for drugs to fight it. That was the idea my colleagues and I hoped to be true when we began building a map of the coronavirus two months ago....