The Conversation

Pivot to remote learning creates a chance to reinvent K-12 education

Written by Carl Kurlander, Senior Lecturer, University of Pittsburgh

Lights, camera, learn! AaronAmat/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Many of the nation’s 57 million K-12 students will spend at least part of the 2020-2021 school year either dealing with distance learning or a hybrid model that keeps them out of classrooms several days a week. They’ll spend lots of time using teleconferencing software, with...

Before Kamala Harris became Biden's running mate, Shirley Chisholm and other Black women aimed for the White House

Written by Sharon Austin, Professor of Political Science, University of Florida

Kamala Harris, a U.S. senator from California, endorsed Joe Biden for president in March. Now she is his vice presidential nominee. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, the American daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is Joe Biden’s choice for vice president. If Biden wins in November, Harris would break three...

With Harris pick, Biden reaches out to young Black Americans

Written by Sam Fulwood III, Fellow, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, American University

Will young, Black Americans turn out to vote in November?Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

With his choice of Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, Joe Biden may have helped bring young Black Americans to his side on Election Day.

Only 47% of those Black Americans under 30 years old that we surveyed recently planned to vote for Biden, the presumed...

Trillions in coronavirus spending is putting AOC's favorite economic theory to the test

Written by Steven Pressman, Professor of Economics, Colorado State University

The Fed can create all the money Uncle Sam needs. GeorgePeters/E+ via Getty Images

French philosopher Voltaire famously quipped: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.” Something similar can be said of modern monetary theory, also known as MMT, because it may be the economy’s only hope to get through the...

Clever chemistry turns ordinary bricks into electricity storage devices

Written by Julio M. D'Arcy, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Washington University in St Louis

Bricks could do double duty as building materials and supercapacitors.Big_Ryan/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images

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

The big idea

In my synthetic chemistry lab, we have worked out how to convert the red pigment in common bricks into a plastic that conducts electricity, and this...

¿El cerebro de los hombres y las mujeres realmente es diferente?

Written by Ari Berkowitz, Presidential Professor of Biology; Director, Cellular & Behavioral Neurobiology Graduate Program, University of Oklahoma

Desde el siglo XIX, investigadores que buscan entender las diferencias de género y raza se han enfocado en el cerebro humano.SebastianKaulitzki/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

La gente ha investigado sobre diferencias sexuales en el cerebro humano desde al menos el siglo XIX, cuando el científico Samuel George Morton verti&oacut...

4 tips to help kids to cope with COVID-19 anxiety

Written by Steven Siegel, Professor and Chair, Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences, University of Southern California

On the news channels, coverage of the pandemic seems 24/7. Getty Images / Chris Stein

The news coverage on COVID-19 is pervasive, persistent, and in my view as a professor of psychiatry, perilous. Sometimes it seems as though the pandemic is all we talk about.

As difficult as this experience is, it’s easier for educated adults than it is for...

African Americans have long defied white supremacy and celebrated Black culture in public spaces

Written by Shannon M. Smith, Associate Professor of History, College of Saint Benedict & Saint John's University

Protesters at the Richmond, Virginia monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee on June 18, 2020. Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images

From Richmond to New York City to Seattle, anti-racist activists are getting results as Confederate monuments are coming down by the dozens.

In Richmond, Virginia, protesters have changed the story of Lee...

Indigenous Mexicans turn inward to survive COVID-19, barricading villages and growing their own food

Written by Jeffrey H. Cohen, Professor of Anthropology, The Ohio State University

Zapotec farmers return from their 'milpa,' the garden plots that provide much of the communities' food, in Oaxaca, Mexico. Jeffrey H. Cohen, CC BY-SA

While the coronavirus hammers Mexico, some Indigenous communities in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca are finding creative ways to cope.

Oaxaca, one of Mexico’s poorest and most ethnically...

Freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from mask mandates

Written by John E. Finn, Professor Emeritus of Government, Wesleyan University

Some church members have no problem wearing masks; others say it's an unconstitutional mandate.Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

Mask mandates do not violate the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech, assembly and association, as I wrote recently in a story that examined Constitution-based...