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Some ‘Star Wars’ stories have already become reality

  • Written by Daniel B. Oerther, Professor of Environmental Health Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology
imageTatooine's moisture farming equipment stands in the desert of Tunisia, where parts of the 'Star Wars' movie series were filmed.Véronique Debord-Lazaro via Flickr, CC BY-SA

Just 48 short years ago, movie director George Lucas used the phrase “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” as the opening to the first “Star...

Read more: Some ‘Star Wars’ stories have already become reality

Fleeting fireflies illuminate Colorado summer nights − and researchers are watching

  • Written by Orit Peleg, Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder
imageFireflies in Boulder, Colo., during the summer of 2023. Radim Schreiber/Firefly Experience, CC BY

The Colorado June air was thick with summer heat. Mosquitoes rose in clouds around us, testing our resolve while we gathered our cameras and sensors. We walked into the wetland, down the unmarked path until the cattails rose shoulder-high. The sounds...

Read more: Fleeting fireflies illuminate Colorado summer nights − and researchers are watching

What makes people flourish? A new survey of more than 200,000 people across 22 countries looks for global patterns and local differences

  • Written by Victor Counted, Associate Professor of Psychology, Regent University
imageFlourishing is about your whole life being good, including the people and places around you.Westend61 via Getty Images

What does it mean to live a good life? For centuries, philosophers, scientists and people of different cultures have tried to answer this question. Each tradition has a different take, but all agree: The good life is more than just...

Read more: What makes people flourish? A new survey of more than 200,000 people across 22 countries looks for...

Deporting international students risks making the US a less attractive destination, putting its economic engine at risk

  • Written by David L. Di Maria, Vice Provost for Global Engagement, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
imageDuring the 2023-2024 academic year, international students contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy.Mvltcelik/Getty Images

In early April 2025, the Trump administration terminated the immigration statuses of thousands of international students listed in a government database, meaning they no longer had legal permission to be in the country....

Read more: Deporting international students risks making the US a less attractive destination, putting its...

As heated tobacco products reenter the US market, evidence on their safety remains sparse – new study

  • Written by Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, Assistant Professor of Health Promotion and Policy, UMass Amherst
imageMost studies on the safety of heated tobacco products are funded by tobacco companies. YaroslavKryuchka/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Heated tobacco products are often marketed by tobacco companies as less harmful than cigarettes, but they can pose health risks to users, according to a new review I co-authored in the journal Tobacco Control....

Read more: As heated tobacco products reenter the US market, evidence on their safety remains sparse – new...

What causes RFK Jr.’s strained and shaky voice? A neurologist explains this little-known disorder

  • Written by Indu Subramanian, Clinical Professor of Neurology, University of California, Los Angeles
imageU.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at an April 16, 2025, news conference in Washington, D.C.Alex Wong via Getty Images

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has attracted a lot of attention for his raspy voice, which results from a neurological voice disorder called spasmodic dysphonia.

Kenne...

Read more: What causes RFK Jr.’s strained and shaky voice? A neurologist explains this little-known disorder

Is a faith-based charter school a threat to religious freedom, or a necessity to uphold it? The weighty decision lies with the Supreme Court

  • Written by Charles J. Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and Research Professor of Law, University of Dayton
imageSupporters of charter schools rally outside the Supreme Court building on April 30, 2025, during oral arguments over a proposed Catholic charter school.AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

As demonstrators gathered outside, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 30, 2025, about whether Oklahoma can operate the nation’s firstfaith-basedcharter...

Read more: Is a faith-based charter school a threat to religious freedom, or a necessity to uphold it? The...

Guns in America: A liberal gun-owning sociologist offers 5 observations to understand America’s culture of firearms

  • Written by David Yamane, Professor of Sociology, Wake Forest University
imageAbout 86 million American adults own at least one of the estimated 400 million firearms in the U.S. today.Paul Campbell, iStock / Getty Images Plus

An Asian American and lifelong liberal from the San Francisco Bay Area, I became a first-time gun owner as a 42-year-old in 2011. I began a now 14-year journey into an unfamiliar and complex world of...

Read more: Guns in America: A liberal gun-owning sociologist offers 5 observations to understand America’s...

Terrorists weigh risks to their reputation when deciding which crises to exploit − new research

  • Written by Seden Akcinaroglu, Professor of Political Science, Binghamton University, State University of New York
imageTerrorists tend not to exploit humanitarian disasters, such as the 2004 tsunami that caused devastation across Thailand and Indonesia.AP Photo/Karim Khamzin

Terrorist attacks are more common during security and economic crises, but they decrease during humanitarian disasters.

That’s the main finding of our in-depth analysis of global data from...

Read more: Terrorists weigh risks to their reputation when deciding which crises to exploit − new research

The woman who turned the Met Gala into the biggest party of the year

  • Written by Elizabeth Castaldo Lundén, SweAmfo/ASF Research Fellow at USC School of Cinematic Arts | Fulbright Scholar, University of Southern California
imageDiana Vreeland takes a drag from her cigarette as she greets Andy Warhol.Ron Galella Collection/Getty Images

The annual Met Gala in New York City is a dazzling collision of celebrity, fashion and media frenzy.

The event is ostensibly a fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, which houses a vast collection of...

Read more: The woman who turned the Met Gala into the biggest party of the year

More Articles ...

  1. Pandas and politics − from World War II to the Cold War, zoos have always been ideological
  2. The legal limits of Trump’s crackdown on sanctuary cities like Philadelphia
  3. Trump seeks to reshape how schools discipline students
  4. In the $250B influencer industry, being a hater can be the only way to rein in bad behavior
  5. From the Chinese Exclusion Act to pro-Palestinian activists: The evolution of politically motivated deportations
  6. AI is giving a boost to efforts to monitor health via radar
  7. Forensics tool ‘reanimates’ the ‘brains’ of AIs that fail in order to understand what went wrong
  8. What is a downburst? These winds can be as destructive as tornadoes − we recreate them to test building designs
  9. How rising wages for construction workers are shifting the foundations of the housing market
  10. Bees, fish and plants show how climate change’s accelerating pace is disrupting nature in 2 key ways
  11. How a reading group helped young German students defy the Nazis and find their faith
  12. ‘Agreeing to disagree’ is hurting your relationships – here’s what to do instead
  13. Young bats learn to be discriminating when listening for their next meal
  14. RFK Jr. said many autistic people will never write a poem − even though there’s a rich history of neurodivergent poets and writers
  15. Whooping cough is making a comeback, but the vaccine provides powerful protection
  16. No whistleblower is an island – why networks of allies are key to exposing corruption
  17. From cats and dogs to penguins and llamas, treating animals with acupuncture has become mainstream in veterinary medicine
  18. The ‘sacramental shame’ many LGBTQ+ conservative Christians wrestle with – and how they find healing
  19. Almost Zion: Remembering a short-lived Jewish state in New York
  20. Spider-Man’s lessons for us all on the responsibility to use our power, great or small, to do good
  21. Disinformation and other forms of ‘sharp power’ now sit alongside the ‘hard power’ of tanks and ‘soft power’ of ideas in policy handbook
  22. Florida panthers and black bears need a literal path for survival – here’s how the Florida Wildlife Corridor provides it in one of the fastest-growing US states
  23. How Trump promotes a radical, unscientific theory about sex and gender in the name of opposing ‘gender ideology extremism’
  24. Trump’s first 100 days show him dictating the terms of press coverage − following Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán’s playbook for media control
  25. 50 years later, Vietnam’s environment still bears the scars of war – and signals a dark future for Gaza and Ukraine
  26. Trump administration’s attempt to nix the labor rights of thousands of federal workers on ‘national security’ grounds furthers the GOP’s long-held anti-union agenda
  27. Bureaucrats get a bad rap, but they deserve more credit − a sociologist of work explains why
  28. Italy’s Meloni is positioning herself as bridge between EU and Trump – but will it work?
  29. Pope Francis filled the College of Cardinals with a diverse group of men – and they’ll be picking his successor
  30. Granular systems, such as sandpiles or rockslides, are all around you − new research will help scientists describe how they work
  31. Cancer research in the US is world class because of its broad base of funding − with the government pulling out, its future is uncertain
  32. Detroit’s lack of affordable housing pushes families to the edge - and children sometime pay the price
  33. How does soap keep you clean? A chemist explains the science of soap
  34. Tensions over Kashmir and a warming planet have placed the Indus Waters Treaty on life support
  35. In talking with Tehran, Trump is reversing course on Iran – could a new nuclear deal be next?
  36. Colors are objective, according to two philosophers − even though the blue you see doesn’t match what I see
  37. Florida, once considered a swing state, is firmly Republican – a social anthropologist explains what caused this shift
  38. ‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ − an astronomer explains how much evidence scientists need to claim discoveries like extraterrestrial life
  39. Trump’s ‘Garden of American Heroes’ is a monument to celebrity and achievement – paid for with humanities funding that benefits everyday Americans
  40. Hotter and drier climate in Colorado’s San Luis Valley contributes to kidney disease in agriculture workers, new study shows
  41. Japanese women have long sacrificed their surnames in marriage − politics and demographics might change that
  42. ‘I were but little happy, if I could say how much’: Shakespeare’s insights on happiness have held up for more than 400 years
  43. Why predicting battery performance is like forecasting traffic − and how researchers are making progress
  44. These 4 tips can make screen time good for your kids and even help them learn to talk
  45. Trump’s aggressive actions against free speech speak a lot louder than his words defending it
  46. Memes and conflict: Study shows surge of imagery and fakes can precede international and political violence
  47. Pope Francis’ death right after Easter sounds miraculous – but patients and caregivers often work together to delay dying
  48. US colleges and universities have billions stashed away in endowments − a higher ed finance expert explains what they are
  49. Gratitude comes with benefits − a social psychologist explains how to practice it when times are stressful
  50. Alaska, rich in petroleum, faces an energy shortage