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Firebrands: How to protect your home from wildfires' windblown flaming debris

  • Written by David Blunck, Associate Professor School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering, Oregon State University
imageA photographer stands in a rain of flaming embers during a fire in California in 2019.Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images

As firefighters tried to protect homes near Lake Tahoe from one of California’s largest fires on record, they battled, windblown embers that kept sparking new small fires, some well away from the fire line.

Those embers, also...

Read more: Firebrands: How to protect your home from wildfires' windblown flaming debris

18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic – a retrospective in 7 charts

  • Written by Katelyn Jetelina, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
imageSeptember 11, 2021 marks the 18 month anniversary of the WHO declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemicsummerphotos/Stock via Getty Images Plus

A year and a half into what the World Health Organization officially declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, it’s an understatement to say that Americans are exhausted.

I’m an epidemiologist and...

Read more: 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic – a retrospective in 7 charts

Firebrands and protecting homes from wildfires: What everyone needs to know about flaming windblown debris

  • Written by David Blunck, Associate Professor School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering, Oregon State University
imageA photographer stands in a rain of flaming embers during a fire in California in 2019.Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images

As firefighters tried to protect homes near Lake Tahoe from one of California’s largest fires on record, they battled, windblown embers that kept sparking new small fires, some well away from the fire line.

Those embers, also...

Read more: Firebrands and protecting homes from wildfires: What everyone needs to know about flaming...

Massive numbers of new COVID–19 infections, not vaccines, are the main driver of new coronavirus variants

  • Written by Vaughn Cooper, Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh

The rise of coronavirus variants has highlighted the huge influence evolutionary biology has on daily life. But how mutations, random chance and natural selection produce variants is a complicated process, and there has been a lot of confusion about how and why new variants emerge.

Until recently, the most famous example of rapid evolution was the...

Read more: Massive numbers of new COVID–19 infections, not vaccines, are the main driver of new coronavirus...

For engineers, asking for help at work is influenced by gender

  • Written by Cristina Poleacovschi, Assistant Professor of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, Iowa State University
imageFemale engineers were more likely to ask for help from their female than male colleagues.alvarez/E+ via Getty Images

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

In a study published in the Journal of Management in Engineering, we analyzed whether knowledge accessibility – defined as the time and effort that...

Read more: For engineers, asking for help at work is influenced by gender

Minerals, drugs and China: How the Taliban might finance their new Afghan government

  • Written by Hanif Sufizada, Education and Outreach Program Coordinator, University of Nebraska Omaha
imageAfghanistan relies on informal money changers more than banks. AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini

Now that the Taliban have reportedly taken full control of Afghanistan and begun forming a government, a looming challenge awaits: How will they keep their country and economy afloat financially?

For the past 20 years, the U.S. government and other countries hav...

Read more: Minerals, drugs and China: How the Taliban might finance their new Afghan government

How social media – aided by bots – amplifies Islamophobia online

  • Written by Saif Shahin, Assistant Professor in School of Communication and Faculty Affiliate with Antiracist Research and Policy Center, American University
imageIslamophobia has changed in the 20 years since Sept. 11. Now, much of it plays out on social media.Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

In August 2021, a Facebook ad campaign criticizing Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the United States’ first Muslim congresswomen, came under intense scrutiny. Critics charged that the ads linked the...

Read more: How social media – aided by bots – amplifies Islamophobia online

Buying groceries isn't a problem just for the poor – middle-class millennials like me with student debt have trouble too

  • Written by Cassandra M. Johnson, Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Foods, Texas State University
imageWhen people can't afford what they want to eat, they have to make a lot of calculations at the supermarket.oonal/E+ via Getty Images

When I teach undergraduate and graduate students about food insecurity, I sometimes mention that my perspective is based not only on professional expertise but also on my personal experience.

Food insecurity might...

Read more: Buying groceries isn't a problem just for the poor – middle-class millennials like me with student...

How to design a public play space where kids practice reading and STEM skills

  • Written by Brenna Hassinger-Das, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Pace University
imageA spinning wall puzzle helps kids develop spatial skills and understand how different objects relate to one another.Sahar Coston-Hardy Photography, CC BY-NC-ND

A park bench can be so much more than just a place to sit and wait. Perhaps it has a puzzle built into it, or weights that allow children to make measurements.

As researcherswho study the...

Read more: How to design a public play space where kids practice reading and STEM skills

On 50th anniversary of Attica uprising, 4 essential reads on prisoners' rights today

  • Written by Matt Williams, Breaking News Editor
imageSome of the demands by prisoners in 1971's Attica rebellion still resonate today.

On Sept. 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 incarcerated men at Attica Correctional Facility in New York state took control of the facility, prompting a multiday standoff with authorities that ended in a massacre.

The incident resulted in the deaths of 43 people, many of them...

Read more: On 50th anniversary of Attica uprising, 4 essential reads on prisoners' rights today

More Articles ...

  1. ¿Por qué se fortaleció la tormenta Ida en el Noreste tan rápido después de haberse debilitado?
  2. Government and charitable actions likely kept millions of Americans out of food insecurity during the pandemic
  3. Black Lives Matter: How far has the movement come?
  4. Packaging generates a lot of waste – now Maine and Oregon want manufacturers to foot the bill for getting rid of it
  5. What schools teach about 9/11 and the war on terror
  6. The science of product placements – and why some work better than others
  7. Data science education lacks a much-needed focus on ethics
  8. How threats of hellfire helped keep 'immodest' women in their place – from the ancient world to 'My Unorthodox Life'
  9. Who is Mullah Hasan Akhund? What does the Taliban's choice of interim prime minister mean for Afghanistan?
  10. Wildfire burn scars can intensify and even create thunderstorms that lead to catastrophic flooding – here's how it works
  11. How someone becomes a torturer
  12. Wildfire burn scars can intensify and even trigger thunderstorms, leading to catastrophic flooding – here's how
  13. Removing urban highways can improve neighborhoods blighted by decades of racist policies
  14. Why are planets round?
  15. Elon Musk’s Tesla Bot raises serious concerns – but probably not the ones you think
  16. Women face motherhood penalty in STEM careers long before they actually become mothers
  17. Netflix’s 'My Unorthodox Life' spurred ultra-Orthodox Jewish women to talk publicly about their lives
  18. When does life begin? There’s more than one religious view
  19. Medicine is an imperfect science – but you can still trust its process
  20. What young kids say worked -- and didn't work -- for them during virtual learning
  21. The women who appear in Dante's 'Divine Comedy' are finally getting their due, 700 years later
  22. The next attack on the Affordable Care Act may cost you free preventive health care
  23. Pandemic hardship is about to get a lot worse for millions of out-of-work Americans
  24. Can burying power lines protect storm-wracked electric grids? Not always
  25. At the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, ancient Greece and Rome can tell us a lot about the links between collective trauma and going to war
  26. How memories of Japanese American imprisonment during WWII guided the US response to 9/11
  27. Tattoos have a long history going back to the ancient world – and also to colonialism
  28. Slavery was the ultimate labor distortion – empowering workers today would be a form of reparations
  29. Al-Qaida, Islamic State group struggle for recruits
  30. Will having so many disasters happening at the same time affect donations? We asked an expert
  31. 5 reasons video games should be more widely used in school
  32. Dance and movement therapy holds promise for treating anxiety and depression, as well as deeper psychological wounds
  33. A subway flood expert explains what needs to be done to stop underground station deluges
  34. Hurricane Ida: 2 reasons for its record-shattering rainfall in NYC and the Northeast long after the winds weakened
  35. 'Get out now' – inside the White House on 9/11, according to the staffers who were there
  36. How Arctic warming can trigger extreme cold waves like the Texas freeze – a new study makes the connection
  37. Bitcoin will soon be 'legal tender' in El Salvador – here's what that means
  38. Bitcoin is now 'legal tender' in El Salvador – here's what that means
  39. Researchers trained mice to control seemingly random bursts of dopamine in their brains, challenging theories of reward and learning
  40. 'Work with hope' – a poet and classics scholar on facing the flood of bad news
  41. An entire generation of Americans has no idea how easy air travel used to be
  42. As Texas ban on abortion goes into effect, a religion scholar explains that pre-modern Christian attitudes on marriage and reproductive rights were quite different
  43. Education debates are rife with references to war – but have they gone too far?
  44. At my hospital, over 95% of COVID-19 patients share one thing in common: They’re unvaccinated
  45. When human life begins is a question of politics – not biology
  46. How the Purdue opioid settlement could help the public understand the roots of the drug crisis
  47. 20 years of 'forever' wars have left a toll on US veterans returning to the question: 'Did you kill?'
  48. Feds are increasing use of facial recognition systems – despite calls for a moratorium
  49. Zinc-infused proteins are the secret that allows scorpions, spiders and ants to puncture tough skin
  50. What's on the agenda when Ukraine president meets Biden?