The Conversation

Can we rely on DIY air pollution sensors?

Written by Richard E. Peltier, Associate Professor of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Dr. Kofi Amegah of the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, installing a small air sensing unit built by the University of MassachusettsKofi Amegah

Until recently, measuring air pollution was a task that could be performed only by trained scientists using very sophisticated – and very expensive – equipment. That has changed with the rapid...

How majority voting betrayed voters again in 2016

Written by Michel Balinski, Applied Mathematician and Mathematical Economist, "Directeur de recherche de classe exceptionnelle" (emeritus) of the C.N.R.S., École Polytechnique – Université Paris-Saclay

What if this was our choice on Election Day?AP Photos/Gary Landers and Paul Sancya

The system for electing the U.S. president went woefully wrong from the very beginning of 2016.

First, the two most disliked candidates ever nominated – Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald J. Trump – emerged victors from their parties’ primaries, but...

Religion shapes Cuba despite Castro's influence

Written by Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Miami

On Nov. 25, when I heard the news of Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s death, I did not feel any sense of sadness, relief or joy. Instead, as a daughter of Cuban exiles, I experienced a mix of all those emotions.

Children of Cuban exiles – the diaspora community of Cubans that left the island after Castro’s 1959 revolution – have...

After decades of research, why is AIDS still rampant?

Written by Maureen Miller, Professor, Columbia University Medical Center

AIDS march in Los Angeles. Carlos Delgado/AP

Today is World AIDS Day. More than three decades after the virus was first discovered, 5,753 people will become HIV infected today.

About the same number will become infected tomorrow, and the same number the day after that. While it is true that two-thirds of people living with HIV are in sub-Saharan...

Circadian rhythms and the microbiome: Disrupting daily routine of gut microbes can be bad news for whole body

Written by Richard G. "Bugs" Stevens, Professor, School of Medicine, University of Connecticut

Micro changes have macro results.Darryl Leja, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, CC BY-NC

We’ve known that bacteria live in our intestines as far back as the 1680s, when Leeuwenhoek first looked through his microscope. Yogurt companies use that information in the sales pitch for their product, claiming it...

Trump’s Carrier coup reveals credibility gap between Twitter rhetoric and economic reality

Written by Wesley Widmaier, Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Griffith University

In a political coup, President-elect Donald Trump says that his transition team has struck a deal with Carrier’s Indianapolis plant to keep 1,000 jobs in the state.

Big day on Thursday for Indiana and the great workers of that wonderful state.We will keep our companies and jobs in the U.S. Thanks Carrier
— Donald J. Trump...

Eyes in the sky: Cutting NASA Earth observations would be a costly mistake

Written by David Titley, Professor of Practice in Meteorology & Director Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for New American Security, Pennsylvania State University

NASA Earth Science Division operating missions, including systems managed by NOAA and USGSNASA Earth Observing System

Donald Trump’s election is generating much speculation about how his administration may or may not reshape the federal government. On space issues, a senior Trump advisor, former Pennsylvania Rep. Bob Walker, has called for...

Neuroscience hasn't been weaponized – it's been a tool of war from the start

Written by Alison Howell, Assistant Professor of International Relations, Rutgers University Newark

A discipline neither good nor evil.Saturday Evening Post/Harris A. Ewing

What could once only be imagined in science fiction is now increasingly coming to fruition: Drones can be flown by human brains’ thoughts. Pharmaceuticals can help soldiers forget traumatic experiences or produce feelings of trust to encourage confession in interrogation....

What cyber charter schools are and why their growth should worry us

Written by Bryan Mann, Ph.D. Candidate, Pennsylvania State University

What President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican sweep of government will mean for K-12 education priorities over the next four years is not entirely clear yet. However, policy statements and administration selections so far indicate “school choice” will top the agenda.

Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, has...

Donald Trump is no Mussolini, but liberal democracy could still be in danger

Written by Kimber Quinney, Assistant Professor, History Department; Campus Coordinator for the American Democracy Project, California State University San Marcos

Observers continue to draw parallels between President-elect Donald Trump and the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. But the similarities – narcissism, opportunism, authoritarianism – coexist with sharp differences. One came from a working-class, socialistic background and saw himself as an intellectual and an ideologue. The...