The Conversation

Soil carbon is a valuable resource, but all soil carbon is not created equal

Written by Jocelyn Lavallee, Research Scientist, Colorado State University

Planting cover crops, like this red clover in Sussex County, Delaware, can help return carbon to farm fields.Michele Dorsey Walfred/Flickr, CC BY

Human society is literally built on soil. It feeds the world and produces vital fuel and fiber. But most people rarely give soil a second thought.

Recently, though, soil has been getting some well-deserved...

What's a church? That can depend on the eye of the beholder or paperwork filed with the IRS

Written by Samuel Brunson, Professor of Law, Loyola University Chicago

This might be a church. Or not.Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com

In 2016, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association told the Internal Revenue Service that it no longer wanted to be treated merely as a tax-exempt religious organization, free from the obligation to pay taxes on its income. Instead, the association – a Charlotte, North...

Re-creating live-animal markets in the lab lets researchers see how pathogens like coronavirus jump species

Written by Richard Bowen, Professor of Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University

Places where lots of animals come into contact can help pathogens move from species to species.Baloncici/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Nobody yet knows for sure the definitive origins of the newly recognized coronavirus now known as 2019-nCoV that’s currently spreading across the globe as a human respiratory pathogen. Early reports indicate...

Fighting coronavirus fear with empathy: Lessons learned from how Africans got blamed for Ebola

Written by Kevin J.A. Thomas, Professor of Sociology, Demography, and African Studies, Pennsylvania State University

Decontee Sawyer, wife of Liberian government official Patrick Sawyer, a naturalized American who died from Ebola after traveling from Liberia to Nigeria, on July 29, 2014.AP Photo/Craig Lassig

With coronavirus cases exploding in China, the U.S. is once again responding to a global epidemic. Five years ago, when the Ebola virus infected more than...

This is how ancient Rome's republic died – a classicist sees troubling parallels at Trump's impeachment trial

Written by Timothy Joseph, Associate Professor of Classics, College of the Holy Cross

Trump hugs the American flag at a 2019 convention of political conservatives. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The U.S. Senate has made its judgment in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, acquitting the president. Fifty two of 53 senators in the Republican majority voted to acquit the president on the abuse of power charge and all 53...

Civility in politics is harder than you think

Written by Robert B. Talisse, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tears up her copy of President Donald Trump's State of the Union speech.AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up the text of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech in full public view, her supporters saw defiance of both his policies and his earlier refusal to shake her hand. But...

Trump's excess and extravagance turned the State of the Union into an action movie

Written by Vanessa B. Beasley, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Vanderbilt University

President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address at the Capitol on Feb. 4, 2020. OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

State of the Union addresses are supposed to be boring speeches.

Actually, they are not required to be speeches at all. The U.S. Constitution requires only that the president “from time to time give to the...

A plasma reactor zaps airborne viruses – and could help slow the spread of infectious diseases

Written by Herek Clack, Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan

Researchers Tian Xia and Zijie Lin test a plasma prototype for preventing airborne transmission of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus at a Michigan pig farm.Robert Coelius/Michigan Engineering, Communications & Marketing, CC BY-ND

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

The big idea: It’s the...

Is the coronavirus a pandemic, and does that matter? 4 questions answered

Written by Brian Labus, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Flight attendants check temperatures of passengers aboard an Air China flight from Melbourne to Beijing on Feb. 4, 2020. AP Photo/Andy Wong

Editor’s note: The new coronavirus has now affected more than 20,000 people in China and claimed more lives as of Feb. 4 than the SARS epidemic from 2002 to 2004. Hong Kong has reported its first death....

'American Dirt' fiasco exposes publishing industry that's too consolidated, too white and too selective

Written by Christine Larson, Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of Colorado Boulder

Copies of 'American Dirt' sit on a rack at a bookstore in New York.Laura Bonilla CAL/AFP via Getty Images

In an early chapter of “American Dirt,” the much-hyped novel now at the center of a racial controversy, the protagonist, Lydia, fills her Acapulco, Mexico, bookstore with her favorite literary classics. Because these don’t...