The Conversation

NASA’s Pandora telescope will study stars in detail to learn about the exoplanets orbiting them

Written by Daniel Apai, Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences, University of Arizona

A new NASA mission will study exoplanets around distant stars. European Space Agency, CC BY-SA

On Jan. 11, 2026, I watched anxiously at the tightly controlled Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as an awe-inspiring SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried NASA’s new exoplanet telescope, Pandora, into orbit.

Exoplanets are worlds that orbit other...

Damn the torpedoes! Trump ditches a crucial climate treaty as he moves to dismantle America’s climate protections

Written by Gary W. Yohe, Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Wesleyan University

Severe storms triggered flooding across the central and eastern U.S. in April 2025, including in Kentucky's capital, Frankfort.Leandro Lozada/AFP via Getty Images

On Jan. 7, 2026, President Donald Trump declared that he would officially pull the United States out of the world’s most important global treaty for combating climate change. He...

George Washington’s foreign policy was built on respect for other nations and patient consideration of future burdens

Written by Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di Torino

George Washington believed restraint was the truest measure of American national interest.Elizabeth Fernandez/Getty Images

Foreign policy is usually discussed as a matter of national interests – oil flows, borders, treaties, fleets. But there is a problem: “national interest” is an inherently ambiguous phrase. Although it is often...

Why the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s closure exposes a growing threat to democracy

Written by Victor Pickard, C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy, University of Pennsylvania

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced it will shut down on May 3.AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced on Jan. 7, 2026, that it will cease all operations effective May 3. The daily newspaper, founded in 1786, has been the city’s paper of record for nearly a century and is one of the oldest newspapers in the country.

Bloc...

The 6-7 craze offered a brief window into the hidden world of children

Written by Rebekah Willett, Professor in the Information School, University of Wisconsin-Madison

There's a long history of children revising, adapting and remixing language and games.Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Many adults are breathing a sigh of relief as the 6-7 meme fades away as one of the biggest kid-led global fads of 2025.

In case you managed to miss it, 6-7 is a slang term – spoken aloud as “six...

Meth inflames and stimulates your brain through similar pathways – new research offers potential avenue to treat meth addiction

Written by Habibeh Khoshbouei, Professor of Neuroscience, University of Florida

Meth, also known as ice, is as addictive as it is damaging.FlashMovie/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Methamphetamine doesn’t just spike levels of the pleasure-inducing hormone dopamine in the reward pathways of the brain – it also provokes damaging brain inflammation through similar mechanisms.

Meth is addictive because it increases...

‘Shared decision-making’ for childhood vaccines sounds empowering – but it may mean less access for families already stretched thin

Written by Y. Tony Yang, Endowed Professor of Health Policy and Associate Dean, George Washington University

Pediatricians often spend at least 10 minutes of an already-short visit discussing vaccines. Heather Hazzan, SELF Magazine

When federal health officials announced on Jan. 5, 2026, that they were taking six out of 17 vaccines off the childhood immunization schedule, they argued that the move would give parents and caregivers more choice.

Instead of...

Live healthier in 2026 by breathing cleaner air at home

Written by Katelyn Richard, Ph.D. Candidate in Analytical Chemistry, Colorado State University

It's not hard to breathe easy at home.Milan Markovic/E+ via Getty Images

I have a health goal for the new year that doesn’t require me to get out of bed earlier or eat fewer cookies. I am an atmospheric chemist and will be committing to clean air at home.

People in the U.S. spend as much as 90% of their lives indoors. Overall, air pollution is...

Americans have had their mail-in ballots counted after Election Day for generations − a Supreme Court ruling could end the practice

Written by Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, Honorary Reader in MIgration and Politics, University of Kent

An active service member used this election war ballot cover to mail in a vote in the 1944 presidential election.National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution

What is an election and when is it completed?

That’s the legal question at the heart of Watson v. Republican National Committee, the mail-in ballot case the U.S. Supreme Court took up...

The 17th-century Pueblo leader who fought for independence from colonial rule – long before the American Revolution

Written by Peter C. Mancall, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Po'pay's statue in the U.S. Capitol, representing the state of New Mexico, was dedicated in 2005.Chris Maddaloni/Roll Call/Getty Images

The U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall Collection contains 100 sculptures: two luminaries from each state. They include many familiar figures, such as Helen Keller, Johnny Cash, Ronald Reagan and Amelia Earhart....