The Conversation

Yellowstone is losing its snow as the climate warms, and that means widespread problems for water and wildlife

Written by Bryan Shuman, Professor of Paleoclimatology and Paleoecology, University of Wyoming

Snow melts near the Continental Divide in the Bridger Wilderness Area in Wyoming, part of the Greater Yellowstone Area.Bryan Shuman/University of Wyoming, CC BY-ND

When you picture Yellowstone National Park and its neighbor, Grand Teton, the snowcapped peaks and Old Faithful Geyser almost certainly come to mind. Climate change threatens all of...

Despite outrage, new state voting laws don't spell democracy's end – but there are some threats

Written by Derek T. Muller, Professor of Law, University of Iowa

Will new election laws being proposed and passed in states limit people's opportunity to vote? Sean Rayford/Getty Images

The sky is falling – that’s what you may believe about a rash of new election laws being introduced, largely by the GOP, in statehouses across the country. Alternatively, you may think these laws are absolutely...

How gay neighborhoods used the traumas of HIV to help American cities fight coronavirus

Written by Daniel Baldwin Hess, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo

HIV health and support groups offered COVID-19 testing and other community services during the pandemic. iStock / Getty Images Plus

Throughout the pandemic, local neighborhoods have played a critical and well-documented role providing the health and social services necessary for American communities and businesses to survive and recover from the...

For flood-prone cities, seawalls raise as many questions as they answer

Written by Gary Griggs, Director, Institute of Marine Sciences and Distinguished Professor of Earth & Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz

Flooding caused by high tides in a Miami neighborhood on June 19, 2019.AP Photo/Ellis Rua

The oceans are rising at an accelerating rate, and millions of people are in the way. Rising tides are already affecting cities along low-lying shorelines, such as the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts, where sunny-day flooding has become common during high tides....

Transgender medicine – what care looks like, who seeks it out and what's still unknown: 3 essential reads

Written by Daniel Merino, Assistant Editor: Science, Health, Environment; Co-Host: The Conversation Weekly Podcast

Access to transgender medical care has been under attack in many places in the U.S., and protesters, like those seen here in Texas, are pushing back. Erich Schlegel/AP Images for Human Rights Campaign

Transgender people continue to be the focus of political culture wars in the U.S. In the spring of 2021, lawmakers in many states sought to limit or b...

The FDA’s weak drug manufacturing oversight is a potentially deadly problem

Written by Adrian V. Hernandez, Associate Professor of Comparative Effectiveness and Outcomes Research, University of Connecticut

Though drug recalls are relatively uncommon in the U.S., reduced inspections increase the likelihood of manufacturing errors that slip through the cracks.AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool

The latest setback for Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine was the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s order on June 11, 2021, to discard 60 million doses th...

Flawed data led to findings of a connection between time spent on devices and mental health problems – new research

Written by Craig J.R. Sewall, Postdoctoral Scholar of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, University of Pittsburgh

When it comes to mental health, is digital technology a culprit or scapegoat?Bianca Castillo/Unsplash

Even a casual follower of the news over the last few years is likely to have encountered stories about research showing that digital technologies like social media and smartphones are harming young people’s mental health. Rates of depression a...

How Vladimir Putin uses natural gas to exert Russian influence and punish his enemies

Written by Lena Surzhko Harned, Assistant Teaching Professor of Political Science, Penn State

Pipes for Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline are loaded onto a ship at a German port, June 1, 2021.Stefan Sauer/picture alliance via Getty Images

The recent U.S.-Russia summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin suggests that a controversial Russian natural gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, is a done deal.

If completed as planned by the...

Biden's goal to permanently boost support for families echoes a failed Nixon proposal from 50 years ago – will it take off this time?

Written by Leslie Lenkowsky, Senior Counsellor and Professor Emeritus of Practice in Philanthropic Studies, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, IUPUI

Raising children strains most household budgets.Universal Images Group Editorial/Getty Images

In July 2021, households with up to 88% of all U.S. children will get their first of six no-strings-attached monthly payment from the federal government.

The money comes from a temporary expansion of the child tax credit in the Biden administration’s...

I have city kids make comic books to create a buzz about mosquitoes and ecology

Written by Katherine Richardson Bruna, Professor, Sociocultural Studies of Education, Iowa State University

Campers at the "Mosquitoes & Me" summer camp in Des Moines, Iowa, learn about mosquito science through hands-on outdoor activities. Katherine R. Bruna, CC BY-ND

If humans and mosquitoes had a battle at the end of the world, who would win? That’s the question I pose to 30 young kids each summer during a two-week camp called “Mosquitoe...