The Conversation

How did health insurance get so complicated? Here are some answers

Written by J.B. Silvers, Professor of Health Finance, Case Western Reserve University

Rep. Fred Upton, left, (R-Mich.) and Rep. Greg Waldon (R-Ore.) outside the White House on May 3, 2017, after meeting with Pres. Trump to discuss the heath care law. Susan Walsh/AP

With the passage of the Republicans’ health care act, the House of Representatives seems to be saying that coming up with a plan to insure Americans really...

The future is in interactive storytelling

Written by Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Professor of Computational Media, University of California, Santa Cruz

Seeking to make stories that surround us.'Screen,' by Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Robert Coover, Shawn Greenlee, Andrew McClain, and Ben "Sascha" Shine, CC BY-ND

Marvel’s new blockbuster, “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2,” carries audiences through a narrative carefully curated by the film’s creators. That’s also what...

How funding to house mentally ill, homeless is a financial gain, not drain

Written by Carol Caton, Professor of Sociomedical Sciences (Psychiatry and Public Health), Columbia University Medical Center

A director of a supportive housing center in Bronx, New York, talks with a resident and case worker in December 2015. Bebeto Matthews/AP

As Congress considers the federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2018 to reduce funding for services to poor and homeless Americans, programs with proven cost-effectiveness should not be on the chopping block....

Anti-terror rules are blocking aid to conflict zones

Written by Sabith Khan, Visiting Researcher, Georgetown University

Rules imposed after the 9/11 attacks can obstruct aid to Somalia's internally displaced people.Omar Abdisalan/AMISOM Photo

The famines looming in countries like war-torn Yemen and Somalia and the conflicts entrenched in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere are making it hard for aid workers to reach everyone who desperately needs help. However, U.S....

Heroes and American politics

Written by Bruce Peabody, Professor of American Politics, Fairleigh Dickinson University

www.shutterstock.com

Who counts as a hero in the 21st century?

How is heroism adapting to an age of nonstop news, hyper-partisanship and intense political scrutiny?

Research I recently conducted with my colleague Krista Jenkins focuses on the evolving profile and significance of U.S. heroism over the past century.

After examining decades of survey...

Helping student activists move past 'us vs. them'

Written by Steven Fesmire, Professor of Philosophy and Environmental Studies, Green Mountain College

High school and college students protested Trump's inauguration at Seattle Central College in January.AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

Protest turned violent on the Berkeley and Middlebury campuses; students shouted down speakers at MacMaster University and UCLA and blocked entry to a talk at Claremont McKenna: These are among the many recent incidents...

Macron and LePen are battling for France’s heart and soul in election runoff

Written by Richard Fogarty, Professor of History, University at Albany, State University of New York

On April 24, the day after her second-place finish in the first round of the French presidential elections, Marine Le Pen thundered against her opponent, Emmanuel Macron, declaring, “Nothing in Monsieur Macron’s plan, nor anything in his behavior indicates the least evidence of love for France.”

She went on to invoke his supposed...

Alphabet's new plan to track 10,000 people could take wearables to the next level

Written by Bennett Allan Landman, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, Radiology, Image Science, and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Vanderbilt University

What can your data tell us?www.shutterstock.com

Verily – the life sciences research arm of Google parent company Alphabet – wants to track the health of 10,000 people.

On April 19, the group announced that it was starting to recruit for Project Baseline, in partnership with Duke and Stanford. Over the course of four years, Project...

Why emojis –

Written by Florian Schaub, Assistant Professor of Information; Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan

An alternate choice for unlocking a smartphone.Lydia Kraus et al., 'On the Use of Emojis in Mobile Authentication,' 2017., CC BY-ND

Would you rather unlock your smartphone with a plain four-digit PIN or with a smiley-face emoji? Would it be easier and more pleasant to remember “🐱💦🎆🎌,” for example, or...

Why emojis –

Written by Florian Schaub, Assistant Professor of Information; Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan

An alternate choice for unlocking a smartphone.Lydia Kraus et al., 'On the Use of Emojis in Mobile Authentication,' 2017., CC BY-ND

Would you rather unlock your smartphone with a plain four-digit PIN or with a smiley-face emoji? Would it be easier and more pleasant to remember “🐱💦🎆🎌,” for example, or...