The Conversation

A concise history of the US abortion debate

Written by Treva B. Lindsey, Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University

Screenshot from 'Maude's Dilemma.'Amazon Prime Video

On Nov. 14, 1972, a controversial two-part episode of the groundbreaking television show, “Maude” aired.

Titled “Maude’s Dilemma,” the episodes chronicled the decision by the main character to have an abortion.

The landmark Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade was...

May jobs report suggests a slowing economy – and possibly an imminent interest rate cut

Written by Richard Grossman, Professor of Economics, Wesleyan University

The latest jobs data suggests an interest rate cut may be imminent.

The Labor Department reported on June 7 that U.S. nonfarm payroll employment increased by 75,000 in May, while the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3.6%. This level of job creation was well below economists’ forecasts of about 185,000 new jobs, as well as below the...

Climate change alters what's possible in restoring Florida's Everglades

Written by William Nuttle, Science Integrator, Integration and Application Network, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

Sawgrass prairie in Everglades National Park.NPS/G. Gardner

The Everglades are a vast network of subtropical freshwater wetland and estuarine ecosystems that once spanned the length and breadth of south Florida. Fifty years of dredging and diking, starting in 1948, greatly reduced their extent, altering water flow patterns and causing widespread...

Forget lower jobs growth, the number of people who've stopped looking for work is much more worrisome

Written by Michael Klein, Professor of International Economic Affairs, Fletcher School, Tufts University

Millions of unemployed Americans have become too discouraged to look for work.Manop_Phimsit/Shutterstock.com

The latest jobs report showed a lackluster gain in jobs in May that was worse than economists had predicted.

While the sudden slowdown in jobs growth after many months of strong numbers is worrying and signals a weakening economy, a more...

Are brain games mostly BS?

Written by Walter Boot, Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Florida State University

You might just be getting better at the game you're practicing.Malcolm Lightbody/Unsplash, CC BY

You’ve probably seen ads for apps promising to make you smarter in just a few minutes a day. Hundreds of so-called “brain training” programs can be purchased for download. These simple games are designed to challenge mental abilities,...

School vouchers expand despite evidence of negative effects

Written by Christopher Lubienski, Professor, Indiana University

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, center, signs a bill that creates a new voucher program for thousands of students to attend private schools using taxpayer dollars.Lynne Sladky/AP

For the past couple of decades, proponents of vouchers for private schools have been pushing the idea that vouchers work.

They assert there is a consensus among researchers that...

How the 'good guy with a gun' became a deadly American fantasy

Written by Susanna Lee, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, Georgetown University

A drawing of Philip Marlowe, an icon of hard-boiled detective fiction created by author Raymond Chandler.CHRISTO DRUMMKOPF/flickr, CC BY

At the end of May, it happened again. A mass shooter killed 12 people, this time at a municipal center in Virginia Beach. Employees had been forbidden to carry guns at work, and some lamented that this policy had...

Convicts are returning to farming – anti-immigrant policies are the reason

Written by Stian Rice, Food systems geographer, Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Migrant agricultural workers kept out of the US by tough immigration laws are now being replaced by prison labor.Shutterstock

Prison inmates are picking fruits and vegetables at a rate not seen since Jim Crow.

Convict leasing for agriculture – a system that allows states to sell prison labor to private farms – became infamous in the late...

Privacy concerns don't stop people from putting their DNA on the internet to help solve crimes

Written by Sarah Esther Lageson, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Rutgers University

Home DNA testing has made it easy and affordable for millions of people to learn about their ancestry. Now, police are using this genetic information to identify suspects in unsolved crimes.Shutterstock

Americans are embracing the use of DNA databases to solve crimes.

Over the past year DNA submitted to ancestry websites have helped police in the...

Does hitting the snooze button really help you feel better?

Written by Steven Bender, Clinical Assistant Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Texas A&M University

How many times do you hit snooze before getting out of bed?DGLimages

To sleep or to snooze? You probably know the answer, but you don’t prefer it.

Most of us probably use the snooze function on our alarm clocks at some point in our lives. Just a few more minutes under the covers, a time to gather our thoughts, right?

While such snoozing might...