The Conversation

As the pandemic rages, the US could use a little bit more 'samfundssind'

Written by Marie Helweg-Larsen, Professor of Psychology, the Glenn E. & Mary Line Todd Chair in the Social Sciences, Dickinson College

Pedestrians walk past a waste bin for disposable face masks in Aarhus Center, Denmark.Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images

In recent years, the English-speaking world has found two Danish concepts, “pyt” and “hygge,” useful for dealing with anxiety and stress.

Now another Danish word – “samfundssind&r...

How COVID-19 vaccines will get from the factory to your local pharmacy

Written by Bahar Aliakbarian, Research associate professor of supply chain management, Michigan State University

Bahar Aliakbarian is an expert in supply chain management in pharmaceuticals and a professor at the School of Packaging at Michigan State University. Below, she describes the vaccine supply chains of Pfizer and Moderna, which are expected to be the two major early suppliers of the COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. She also talks about challenges in...

How to fight Holocaust denial in social media – with the evidence of what really happened

Written by Adam G. Klein, Associate Professor of Media Studies, Pace University

Holocaust survivor Shalom Stamberg holds a book with a photo of himself in Auschwitz, alongside a copy of his concentration camp record.AP Photo/Ariel Schalit

One in four American millennials believe the Holocaust was exaggerated or entirely made up, according to a recent national survey that sought to find out what young adults know about the...

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

Empty, 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...

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

Tony 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...

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

Front-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...

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

An 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...

Tiny treetop flowers foster incredible beetle biodiversity

Written by Caroline S. Chaboo, Adjunct Professor in Insect Systematics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Hundreds 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...

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

Written by Ernest Freeberg, Professor of History, University of Tennessee

Henry 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...

What makes the world's biggest surfable waves?

Written by Sally Warner, Assistant Professor of Climate Science, Brandeis University

Some 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...