The Conversation

The made-up crisis behind the state takeover of Houston's public schools

Written by Domingo Morel, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University Newark

The State of Texas is in a legal battle to seize power from the Houston public school board.Eakrin Rasadonyindee/Shutterstock.com

If the state of Texas had its way, the state would be in the process of taking over the Houston Independent School District.

But a judge temporarily blocked the takeover on Jan. 8, with the issue now set to be decided at...

We're living in the bizarre world that Flaubert envisioned

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

'I want to produce such an impression of utter weariness and ennui that my readers will imagine the book could only have been written by a cretin,' Flaubert wrote.Photo by Nadar / ullstein bild via Getty Images

Are we all trapped in a live-action version of Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary”?

The Jan. 3 assassination of Iranian General...

Your blood type may influence your vulnerability to norovirus, the winter vomiting virus

Written by Patricia L. Foster, Professor Emerita of Biology, Indiana University

Projectile vomiting is common with norovirus.Elnur/Shutterstock.com

In the last few months, schools all over the country have closed because of outbreaks of norovirus. Also known as stomach flu, norovirus infections cause watery diarrhea, low-grade fever and, most alarming of all, projectile vomiting, which is an extremely effective way of spreading...

Why we are hard-wired to worry, and what we can do to calm down

Written by James Carmody, Professor of Medicine and Population Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts Medical School

The everyday stressors of life can lead to worrisome thoughts. PR Image Factory

A new year brings both hopes and anxieties. We want things to be better for ourselves and the people we love, but worry that they won’t be, and imagine some of the things that might stand in the way. More broadly, we might worry about who’s going to win the...

3D printing of body parts is coming fast – but regulations are not ready

Written by Dinusha Mendis, Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation Law and Co-Director of the Jean Monet Centre of Excellence for European Intellectual Property and Information Rights, Bournemouth University

The technology of producing biological parts is advancing, raising new legal and regulatory questions.Philip Ezze, CC BY-SA

In the last few years, the use of 3D printing has exploded in medicine. Engineers and medical professionals now routinely 3D print prosthetic hands and surgical tools. But 3D printing has only just begun to transform the...

Matching Vietnamese brides with Chinese men, marriage brokers find good business – and sometimes love

Written by Wei Li, Associate Professor of Sociology, Frostburg State University

A growing number of young Vietnamese women are marrying foreigners, mostly from China and South Korea. AP Photo/Chitose Suzuki

China has 24 million more men than women of marriageable age, putting some bachelors in a tough spot.

In rural areas of China, three decades of sex-selective abortions under the one-child policy, which ended in 2015, have...

Rotting feral pig carcasses teach scientists what happens when tons of animals die all at once, as in Australia's bushfires

Written by Brandon Barton, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, Mississippi State University

To understand the effects of a big die-off, researchers set up experiments with wild boar carcasses.Brandon Barton, Mississippi State University, CC BY-ND

The unprecedented wildfire raging across Australia is not only destroying human lives, but has killed hundreds of millions of animals – perhaps billions before it is all over.

Burning is...

Trump, like Obama, tests the limits of presidential war powers

Written by Sarah Burns, Associate Professor of Political Science, Rochester Institute of Technology

In an official White House photo, President Donald Trump stands alone.Shealah Craighead/White House

To many observers, President Donald Trump’s decision to kill a senior Iranian general is yet another example of his unique impetuousness and determination to go it alone in his foreign policy. Congress has begun to take steps to reel in...

The US-Iran conflict and the consequences of international law-breaking

Written by David Mednicoff, Chair, Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, and Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Public Policy, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Mourners carry the coffins of slain Iraqi paramilitary chief Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani and eight others during a funeral procession in Karbala, Iraq on Jan. 4, 2020.MOHAMMED SAWAF/AFP via Getty Images

Editor’s note: Iran’s missile attack on a U.S. base in Iraq in retaliation for the Trump...

School closures can hit rural communities hard

Written by Mara Casey Tieken, Associate Professor of Education, Bates College

An abandoned Arkansas high schoolMara Casey Tieken, CC BY-SA

The school bus begins picking up children before 6 a.m. in Elaine, Arkansas, a small, mostly African American town on the Mississippi River floodplains about 120 miles east of Little Rock. It crawls past long stretches of oxbow lakes, acres of soybean and cotton fields, and two closed...