The Conversation

Is a ‘friend-apist’ what we really want from therapy?

Written by David E. Tolchinsky, Professor and Dean, The Media School, Indiana University

'Shrinking' portrays a tangled web of care and connection, where therapists and patients are enmeshed in one another's personal and professional lives.Apple TV+

When I read the recent New York Times article “Therapy Is Good. These Therapists Are Bad,” I couldn’t help but think of the Apple TV+ series “Shrinking.”

The...

Federal judge finds ‘probable cause’ to hold Trump administration in contempt – a legal scholar explains what this means

Written by Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University

A judge's opinion moves the nation closer to a collision between the executive branch and the courts.Xand, iStock / Getty Images Plus

A battle between the Trump administration and federal courts over the deportation of more than 100 immigrants to a prison in El Salvador intensified on April 16, 2025. U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg...

How single-stream recycling works − your choices can make it better

Written by Alex Jordan, Associate Professor of Plastics Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Stout

Successful recycling requires some care.Alejandra Villa Loarca/Newsday RM via Getty Images

Every week, millions of Americans toss their recyclables into a single bin, trusting that their plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard boxes will be given a new life.

But what really happens after the truck picks them up?

Single-stream recycling makes...

The sudden dismissal of public records staff at health agencies threatens government accountability

Written by Reshma Ramachandran, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Yale University

Mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services are continuing as the agency makes good on its intention, announced on March 27, 2025, to shrink its workforce by 20,000 people. Among workers dismissed in early April were several teams responsible for fulfilling requests for access to previously unreleased government data, information...

Wide variety of old-growth ecosystems across the US makes their conservation a complex challenge

Written by Reed Frederick Noss, Conservation Science Coordinator, University of Florida

In the longleaf pine savannas of the southeastern U.S., most of the biodiversity is found in the ground cover and depends on frequent fires.Reed Noss

In an old-growth longleaf pine savanna, the absurdly long pine needles sing in the wind. Once considered forests, these landscapes in the southeastern U.S. coastal plain are open-canopied and sunny,...

Railways were essential to carrying out the Holocaust – decades later, corporate reckoning continues

Written by Sarah Federman, Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution, Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego

Liliane Lelaidier-Marton stands in front of the kind of car her parents were forced into in Drancy, France, when deported to their deaths.Sarah Federman

The Holocaust could not have happened without the railways.

Preeminent Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg underscored that almost everyone murdered at a camp arrived by train, including Jews, political...

200 years ago, France extorted Haiti in one of history’s greatest heists – and Haitians want reparations

Written by Marlene L. Daut, Professor of French and African American Studies, Yale University

A French propaganda engraving from 1825 depicts King Charles X bestowing freedom on a Black man kneeling before him in chains.'S.M. Charles X, le bien-aimé, reconnaissant l’indépendance de St. Domingue,' 1825, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, CC BY-SA

In 2002, Haiti’s former president Jean-Bert...

Cory Booker’s long speech offers a strategy for Trump opponents in a fragmented media landscape

Written by Erik Johnson, Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies, Stetson University

Sen. Cory Booker speaks to reporters in the Senate Chamber after delivering a record-setting floor speech at the U.S. Capitol on April 1, 2025.Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Sen. Cory Booker’s record-breaking, 25-hour Senate floor speech, which began on March 31, 2025, and ended on April 1, momentarily snatched the national spotlight from...

Miami researchers are testing a textured seawall designed to hold back water and create a home for marine organisms

Written by Sara Pezeshk, Postdoctoral Fellow in Architecture, Florida International University

A rendering of BIOCAP tiles installed along a seawall at Morningside Park in Miami. Sara Pezeshk, CC BY-SA

Morningside Park, a beloved neighborhood park in Miami with sweeping views of Biscayne Bay, will soon pilot an innovative approach to coastal resilience.

BIOCAP tiles, a 3D-printed modular system designed to support marine life and reduce wave...

Dark energy may have once been ‘springier’ than it is today − DESI cosmologists explain what their collaboration’s new measurement says about the universe’s history

Written by David Weinberg, Professor of Astronomy, The Ohio State University

The Mayall 4-meter Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory houses the DESI instrument. KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/P. Marenfeld

Gravity pulls us to earth, a lesson you learn viscerally the first time you fall. Isaac Newton described gravity as a universal attractive force, one that holds the Moon in orbit around the Earth, the planets in orbit...