The Conversation

Mandatory labels with simple disclosures reduced fears of GE foods in Vermont

Written by Jane Kolodinsky, Professor and Chair Community Development and Applied Economics, University of Vermont

Vermont has had food labels that indicate food has been 'partially produced with genetic engineering.'Sally McCay, UVM Photo, CC BY-NC-ND

There has been substantial debate over whether mandated labels for genetically engineered foods might increase or decrease consumer aversion toward genetic engineering.

This question is particularly relevant now...

Crop insurance is good for farmers, but not always for the environment

Written by Don Fullerton, Gutsgell Professor of Finance, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Crop insurance is designed to help farmers weather disasters such as Hurricane Irma, which devastated many Florida citrus farms in 2017.AP Photo/Tamara Lush

Congress is currently debating the 2018 Farm Bill, a massive piece of legislation enacted about every five years. One of its key elements is crop insurance, which helps protect farmer income in...

Inventing the future in Chinese labs: How does China do science today?

Written by Richard P. Suttmeier, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Oregon

China's political system sets the course for the science in universities, government labs and industry.Vmenkov, CC BY-SA

Genetic engineering, the search for dark matter, quantum computing and communications, artificial intelligence, brain science – the list of potentially disruptive research goes on. Each has significant implications for...

Why is suicide on the rise in the US – but falling in most of Europe?

Written by Steven Stack, Professor of Criminal Justice, Wayne State University

The US suicide rate rose 30.4 percent between 1999 and 2015. hikrcn/shutterstock

Suicide now ranks in the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S.

In 2015, 44,193 Americans died by their own hand. That was more than the number killed in motor vehicle accidents (37,757) and over twice the number who died through homicide (17,793).

The number of...

Blockchain-based property registries may help lift poor people out of poverty

Written by Nir Kshetri, Professor of Management, University of North Carolina – Greensboro

Many rural farmers in India lack clear ownership of the land they work and live on.AP Photo/Anupam Nath

Many developing countries don’t have a working system of tracking property rights, and what they do have can be fragile and incomplete. In Haiti, for instance, a large earthquake in 2010 destroyed all the municipal buildings that stored...

Teachers' activism will survive the Janus Supreme Court ruling

Written by Sherman Dorn, Professor of Education, Arizona State University

Plaintiff Mark Janus, right, speaks outside the Supreme Court AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Janus v. AFSCME 31 will hurt public employee unions in both membership and funding.

The majority opinion, written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, said that requiring public employees who are not union members to pay fees...

Janus decision extends First Amendment 'right of silence'

Written by Robert A. Sedler, Distinguished Professor of Law, Wayne State University

Plaintiff Mark Janus, right, leaves the the Supreme Court WednesdayAP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Forty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state could require nonmembers of a public employee union to pay an “agency fee,” otherwise known as costs of collective bargaining, for their representation by the union.

The union could not use...

Approval of drug derived from cannabis not necessarily a win for weed

Written by Timothy Welty, Professor of Pharmacy Practice, Drake University

Small vials of CBD, an ingredient in a drug just approved by the FDA to treat two types of epilepsy.. Roxana Gonzalez/Shutterstock.com

The Food and Drug Administration on June 25 approved for the first time a drug made from cannabidiol (CBD), a molecule derived from the cannabis plant. The drug, Epidiolex, was approved for the treatment of two...

Supreme Court hands victory to pro-life crisis pregnancy centers

Written by Robert A. Sedler, Distinguished Professor of Law, Wayne State University

On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers by holding that a 2015 California law regulating them, the Reproductive FACT Act, violates the First Amendment.

I am a constitutional law professor who has written extensively on the First Amendment.

These religion-based pregnancy care centers try to discourage...

'We are only following the law' doesn't explain immigration policy during Nazi era or now

Written by Laurel Leff, Associate Professor of Journalism, Northeastern University

Holocaust historians’ first impulse is to reject comparisons between those dark decades and our present. We don’t want to be perceived as abusing history for political purposes, or engaging in overly emotional analyses.

But then comes a moment when it’s not possible to avoid parallels.

For me, that moment came two weeks ago.

I...