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The Conversation

Trump plan to revive the gallows, electric chair, gas chamber and firing squad recalls a troubled history

  • Written by Austin Sarat, Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College
imageEmpty, but for how long?AP File Photo

The way the federal government can kill death row prisoners will soon be expanded to ghoulish methods that include hanging, the electric chair, gas chamber and the firing squad.

Set to take effect on Christmas Eve, the new regulations authorizing an alternative to lethal injections – the method currently...

Read more: Trump plan to revive the gallows, electric chair, gas chamber and firing squad recalls a troubled...

What are emergency use authorizations, and do they guarantee that a vaccine or drug is safe?

  • Written by Christopher Robertson, Professor of Law, Boston University
imageTony Potts, a 69-year-old retiree, removes his face mask for a temperature check just before receiving his first injection in a phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial sponsored by Moderna. Potts is one of 30,000 participants in the Moderna trial. Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty ImageS

In coming days, the Food and Drug Administration is likely to...

Read more: What are emergency use authorizations, and do they guarantee that a vaccine or drug is safe?

How TikTok is upending workplace social media policies – and giving us rebel nurses and dancing cops

  • Written by Elizabeth C. Tippett, Associate Professor, School of Law, University of Oregon
imageFront-line workers frequently make short TikTok videos while on the job. Tzido/iStock via Getty Images

As the Thanksgiving holiday was winding down, a medical center in Salem, Oregon, found itself in the middle of a frothing social media mess. A nurse named Ashley Grames posted a video on TikTok that went viral in which she mock-confessed to...

Read more: How TikTok is upending workplace social media policies – and giving us rebel nurses and dancing cops

In a year of Black Lives Matter protests, Dutch wrestle (again) with the tradition of Black Pete

  • Written by Ayanna Thompson, Regents Professor of English, Arizona State University
imageAn annual tradition or a national embarrassment.AP Photo/Peter Dejong

As Black Lives Matter protests and social uprisings spread across U.S. cities in the summer, the civil rights icon the Rev. Jesse Jackson wrote a personal letter to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte over an annual tradition that many believe to be racist.

Every Dec. 5, people across...

Read more: In a year of Black Lives Matter protests, Dutch wrestle (again) with the tradition of Black Pete

Tiny treetop flowers foster incredible beetle biodiversity

  • Written by Caroline S. Chaboo, Adjunct Professor in Insect Systematics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
imageHundreds of beetle species seem to be specialists that feed only from small white flowers on trees.Susan Kirmse, CC BY-ND

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.

The big idea

Biologists have long known that rainforest treetops support a huge number of beetle species, but why these canopies are so rich in beetle diversity has r...

Read more: Tiny treetop flowers foster incredible beetle biodiversity

How a flu virus shut down the US economy in 1872 – by infecting horses

  • Written by Ernest Freeberg, Professor of History, University of Tennessee
imageHenry Bergh (in top hat) stopping an overcrowded horsecar, from Harper's Weekly, Sept. 21, 1872. Library of Congress

In 1872 the U.S. economy was growing as the young nation industrialized and expanded westward. Then in the autumn, a sudden shock paralyzed social and economic life. It was an energy crisis of sorts, but not a shortage of fossil...

Read more: How a flu virus shut down the US economy in 1872 – by infecting horses

What makes the world's biggest surfable waves?

  • Written by Sally Warner, Assistant Professor of Climate Science, Brandeis University
imageSome places, like Nazaré Canyon in Portugal, produce freakishly huge waves.AP Photo/Armando Franca

On Feb. 11, 2020, Brazilian Maya Gabeira surfed a wave off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, that was 73.5 feet tall. Not only was this the biggest wave ever surfed by a woman, but it also turned out to be the biggest wave surfed by anyone...

Read more: What makes the world's biggest surfable waves?

The chattering classes got the 'Hillbilly Elegy' book wrong – and they're getting the movie wrong, too

  • Written by Lisa R. Pruitt, Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor of Law, University of California, Davis

Film critics have had nary a good word to say about Netflix’s new movie “Hillbilly Elegy.”

Reviewers varyingly called it “Oscar-Season B.S.,” “woefully misguided,” “Yokel Hokum,” “laughably bad” and simply “awful.”

I admit to delight when I read professional critics...

Read more: The chattering classes got the 'Hillbilly Elegy' book wrong – and they're getting the movie wrong,...

Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 will have side effects – that's a good thing

  • Written by Matthew Woodruff, Instructor, Lowance Center for Human Immunology, Emory University
imageA little bit of post-injection soreness is completely normal.Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Takeaways

  • Temporary side effects from vaccines are a normal sign of a developing immune response.

  • Vaccines work by training your immune system to recognize and remember a pathogen in a safe way.

  • Expected side effects from a COVID-19 vaccine...

Read more: Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 will have side effects – that's a good thing

How a troop drawdown in Afghanistan signals American weakness and could send Afghan allies into the Taliban's arms

  • Written by Brian Glyn Williams, Professor of Islamic History, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
imageAfghan security forces gather near the site of an attack in Jalalabad in August 2020.AP Photo/Rahmat Gul

President Donald Trump’s recent call to withdraw just over half of the 4,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan has been condemned as an act that “would hurt our allies and delight, delight, the people who wish us harm” by members of...

Read more: How a troop drawdown in Afghanistan signals American weakness and could send Afghan allies into...

More Articles ...

  1. A better way for billionaires who want to make massive donations to benefit society
  2. Cicely was young, Black and enslaved – her death during an epidemic in 1714 has lessons that resonate in today's pandemic
  3. Tribes mount organized responses to COVID-19, in contrast to state and federal governments
  4. AI makes huge progress predicting how proteins fold – one of biology's greatest challenges – promising rapid drug development
  5. The morality of canceling student debt
  6. Global disabilities map visualizes the strength and power of millions of athletes around the world
  7. Socialism is a trigger word on social media – but real discussion is going on amid the screaming
  8. Your brain's built-in biases insulate your beliefs from contradictory facts
  9. Peru's democracy faces greatest trial since Fujimori dictatorship after two presidents are ousted in one week
  10. Rapid COVID-19 tests can be useful – but there are far too few to put a dent in the pandemic
  11. Reckoning with slavery: What a revolt's archives tell us about who owns the past
  12. James Baker's masterful legal strategies won George W. Bush a contested election – unlike Rudy Giuliani's string of losses
  13. NCAA amateurism appears immune to COVID-19 – despite tide in public support for paying athletes having turned
  14. Fences have big effects on land and wildlife around the world that are rarely measured
  15. Nonprofits are struggling to do more with less money, but donors and volunteers can help: 5 questions answered
  16. Why waiters give Black customers poor service
  17. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was a record-breaker, and it's raising more concerns about climate change
  18. How Taiwan uses Buddhist literature for environmental education
  19. Parler is bringing together mainstream conservatives, anti-Semites and white supremacists as the social media platform attracts millions of Trump supporters
  20. 57 años después del asesinato de Kennedy, las pistas en México se agotan
  21. 'Constructive arguing' can help keep the peace at your Thanksgiving table
  22. This type of sexual harassment on campus often goes overlooked
  23. Homeless patients with COVID-19 often go back to life on the streets after hospital care, but there's a better way
  24. Will there be a monument to the COVID-19 pandemic?
  25. Janet Yellen and Kamala Harris keep shattering glass ceilings – but global elite boys club remains
  26. Poland's anti-abortion push highlights pandemic risks to democracy
  27. California vetoed ethnic studies requirements for public high school students, but the movement grows
  28. It's not just ABCs – preschool parents worry their kids are missing out on critical social skills during the pandemic
  29. Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is cheaper than Pfizer's and Moderna's and doesn't require supercold temperature
  30. Testing sewage can give school districts, campuses and businesses a heads-up on the spread of COVID-19
  31. How Biden and Kerry could rebuild America's global climate leadership
  32. 'My vote will be Black' – A wave of Afro-Brazilian women ran for office in 2020 but found glass ceiling hard to break
  33. School suspensions don't just unfairly penalize Black students – they lead to lower grades and 'Black flight'
  34. Republicans didn't lose big in 2020 – they held onto statehouses and the power to influence future elections
  35. These at-home exercises can help older people boost their immune system and overall health in the age of COVID-19
  36. Coronavirus vaccines: health experts identify ways to build public trust
  37. Why do older people heal more slowly?
  38. A century ago, James Weldon Johnson became the first Black person to head the NAACP
  39. Kids as young as 3 years old think YouTube is better for learning than other types of video
  40. Muslim schools are allies in France's fight against radicalization – not the cause
  41. Muslims have visualized Prophet Muhammad in words and calligraphic art for centuries
  42. How George Washington used his first Thanksgiving as president to unite a new country
  43. In the 1620s, Plymouth Plantation had its own #MeToo moment
  44. Ocho meses de confinamiento por COVID-19 y contando: ¿Qué podemos hacer cuando estamos aburridos?
  45. Why nursing home aides exposed to COVID-19 aren’t taking sick leave
  46. China beat the coronavirus with science and strong public health measures, not just with authoritarianism
  47. A brief history of Georgia's runoff voting – and its racist roots
  48. Why do tigers have stripes?
  49. Laughing is good for your mind and your body – here's what the research shows
  50. The rise and fall of Tab – after surviving the sweetener scares, the iconic diet soda gets canned