The Conversation

Video: How ancient ice cores show ‘black swan’ events in history – even pandemics

Written by Lonnie Thompson, Distinguished University Professor, Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University

Lonnie Thompson and Ellen Mosley-Thompson at The Ohio State University have been studying ice cores from around the world for over 30 years. They collect, store and study ice cores to understand the history of the Earth’s climate and preserve them for future scientists. In this interview, they explain how ice cores preserve evidence of rare...

Does publishing tuition prices influence college choice?

Written by Dominique Baker, Assistant Professor of Education Policy, Southern Methodist University

Families and students need a clear understanding of what makes a college affordable for their enrollment decisions.Peter Dazeley/Photodisc via Getty Images

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

The big idea

A federal effort to identify less affordable colleges makes little difference in students’ decisions of which...

Mail-in voting lessons from Oregon, the state with the longest history of voting by mail

Written by Priscilla Southwell, Professor Emerita of Political Science, University of Oregon

A county election worker gets mailed-in ballots ready to be counted, in this file photo from 2016.AP Photo/Don Ryan

Oregon voters have long cast their ballots by mail in many types of elections, including for local, state and federal offices. They started doing so in 1987 – and have voted exclusively by mail in all elections since 1998.

For...

Citizenship delays imperil voting for hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the 2020 election

Written by Ming Hsu Chen, Professor of Law and Political Science, University of Colorado Boulder

Citizenship means the ability to vote, as naturalized citizen Cici Carpio declared in April 2019 in El Paso, Texas.Paul Ratje / AFP/Getty Images

Citizenship unlocks voting rights for immigrants in America. The long wait for naturalized citizenship imperils those rights for a growing number of immigrants.

A backlog is defined as the “number of...

Indian Americans can be an influential voting bloc – despite their small numbers

Written by Sumit Ganguly, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations, Indiana University

Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris.AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

Senator Kamala Harris being picked by Joe Biden as his running mate has put a spotlight on the Indian American community in the United States.

The interest, in part, stems from her origins: Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a biologist from the Indian city of Chennai....

Addiction treatment shrinks during the pandemic, leaving people with nowhere to turn

Written by Elizabeth Chiarello, Associate Professor of Sociology, Saint Louis University

Josh Ledesma displays safe injection supplies with outreach specialist Rachel Bolton outside the Access Drug User Health Program drop-in center in Cambridge, Massachusetts on March 31, 2020. Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

COVID-19 has overshadowed the U.S. opioid crisis, but that doesn’t mean opioid addiction has gone away....

Chess is taking over the online video game world – and both are changing from this unlikely pairing

Written by Ilya Brookwell, Assistant Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, University of California, Riverside

Chess is exploding in popularity on the video game streaming site Twitch.tv B. Aa. Sætrenes/Moment Mobile via Getty Images

As a global pandemic continues to determine a new normal, tens of thousands of viewers have been tuning in to watch people play chess on a livestreaming website called Twitch.tv. An American chess grandmaster, Hikaru...

American environmentalism's racist roots have shaped global thinking about conservation

Written by Prakash Kashwan, Co-Director, Research Program on Economic and Social Rights, Human Rights Institute, and Associate Professor, Department of Political Science., University of Connecticut

John James Audubon relied on African Americans and Native Americans to collect some specimens for his 'Birds of America' prints (shown: Florida cormorant), but never credited them. National Audubon Society, CC BY

The United States is having a long-overdue national reckoning with racism. From criminal justice to pro sports to pop culture, Americans...

El tiempo fuera bien aplicado mejora el comportamiento de los niños

Written by Lucy (Kathleen) McGoron, Assistant Professor of Child and Family Development, Wayne State University

Esta técnica de modificación del comportamiento reduce los signos de agresión y contribuye a que los niños sigan las normas familiares. Brooke Fasani Auchincloss/The Image Bank via Getty Images

Debido a la pandemia de COVID-19, ahora la mayoría de los padres pasan más tiempo de lo habitual con sus hijos,...

Unionized workers are more likely to assert their right to a safe and healthy workplace

Written by Aaron Sojourner, Associate Professor and Labor Economist, University of Minnesota

Many essential workers believe joining a union could provide more protections. AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

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

The big idea

Unionized workers are more likely than their non-union peers to speak up about health and safety problems in the workplace, according to a just-published,...