The Conversation

Why do brides wear white?

Written by Marlise Schoeny, Assistant Curator for the Ohio State Historic Costume & Textiles Collection, Adjunct Instructor for the Columbus College of Art and Design, The Ohio State University

Wedding gown bodice, circa 1836.The Ohio State Historic Costume & Textiles Collection

“A wedding gown represents far more than just a dress. It is also the embodiment of a dream,” said Vera Wang.

For most American brides, that dream is realized in a beautiful white wedding gown. It’s a seemingly timeless tradition that is often...

The complicated legacy of the Pilgrims is finally coming to light 400 years after they landed in Plymouth

Written by Peter C. Mancall, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Plimoth Plantation, in Plymouth, Mass., is a living museum that's a replica of the original settlement, which existed for 70 years.Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

The 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ voyage to Plymouth will be celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic with a “remembrance ceremony” with state and local officials and a...

Why COVID-19 vaccines need to prioritize 'superspreaders'

Written by Dana Goldman, Leonard D. Schaeffer Chair and Distinguished Professor of Public Policy, Pharmacy, and Economics, University of Southern California

How should COVID-19 vaccine be prioritized?AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File

Once safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines are available, tough choices will need to be made about who gets the first shots.

A committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – at the behest of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and...

CRISPR can help combat the troubling immune response against gene therapy

Written by Samira Kiani, Associate Professor of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh

Introducing healthy genes to replace defective ones is the essence of gene therapy.KTSFotos/Getty Images

One of the major challenges facing gene therapy - a way to treat disease by replacing a patient’s defective genes with healthy ones - is that it is difficult to safely deliver therapeutic genes to patients without the immune system...

Plants might be able to tell us about the location of dead bodies, helping families find missing people

Written by Neal Stewart, Professor of Plant Sciences, University of Tennessee

Can plants signal to us when they are sick or detect radiation?Sebastian Kopp/EyeEm via Getty Images

The notion of plants talking to us about dead people sounds like a bad horror movie. But that’s the theme of a recent scientific paper I co-authored.

Each day, over 160,000 people die in the world. Most people die with family members present...

What the CDC eviction ban means for tenants and landlords: 6 questions answered

Written by Katy Ramsey Mason, Assistant Professor of Law and Director of the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic, University of Memphis

The CDC order may offer some tenants breathing room.Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

Editor’s note: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order on Sept. 1 banning evictions of people who lost work as a result of the pandemic. To benefit, renters must sign a declaration that they don’t make more than US$99,000 a year...

School bus safety during the COVID-19 pandemic: 8 recommendations

Written by Jesse Capecelatro, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan

Mask mandates, open windows and empty seats can help reduce the spread of the coronavirus.AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

Short trips. Masks for everyone. Far fewer passengers than before.

Those are my top recommendations for how America’s school buses should take kids to and from school during the pandemic.

I am a professor of mechanical and aerospace...

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...