The Conversation

Why cows are getting a bad rap in lab-grown meat debate

Written by Alison Van Eenennaam, Extension Specialist: Animal Biotechnology and Genomics, Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis

A battle royal is brewing over what to call animal cells grown in cell culture for food. Should it be in-vitro meat, cellular meat, cultured meat or fermented meat? What about animal-free meat, slaughter-free meat, artificial meat, synthetic meat, zombie meat, lab-grown meat, non-meat or artificial muscle proteins?

Then there is the polarizing...

Nonprofit drugmaker Civica Rx aims to cure a health care system ailment

Written by Stacie B. Dusetzina, Associate Professor of Health Policy and Cancer Research, Vanderbilt University

Supply and demand are often out of sync in the drug industry.Wasant/Shutterstock.com

Several years ago, drug shortages became headline news when supplies of three different drugs used to treat childhood cancers were running low in major hospitals. Sometimes shortages like those are resolved before patients are harmed. Sometimes they are not.

There...

Georgia election fight shows that black voter suppression, a southern tradition, still flourishes

Written by Frederick Knight, Associate Professor of History, Morehouse College

Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp has been sued for suppressing minority votes after an Associated Press investigation revealed a month before November’s midterm election that his office has not approved 53,000 voter registrations – most of them filed by African-Americans.

Kemp, who is running for governor...

Trump encuentra oportunidad electoral en la crisis humanitaria venezolana

Written by Marco Aponte-Moreno, Assistant Professor of Global Business, St Mary's College of California

Diariamente unos 5.000 venezolanos huyen de la violencia, la tiranía y el hambre, provocando una crisis migratoria de proporciones similares a la de Siria.AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

El presidente Donald Trump ha hablado contundentemente sobre la crisis humanitaria de Venezuela. En la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas de septiembre la...

Why washing your hands well is so important to protect your family from the flu

Written by Michelle Sconce Massaquoi, Doctoral candidate, microbiology, University of Oregon

One-year-old Kilian Doherty being prepared for a chest X-ray Feb. 9, 2018 to determine if he had flu.David Goldman/AP Photo

During my second year of graduate school, I moved in with my sister’s family to save money. “You must get the flu shot if you are going to live here,” my sister declared. Both of my nieces were under the age...

E-cigarettes and a new threat: How to dispose of them

Written by Yogi H. Hendlin, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Public Health Policy, University of California, San Francisco

A discarded Juul on the floor of a San Francisco streetcar March 20, 2018.Julia McQuoid, CC BY-SA

The two largest global brands of capsule coffee, Nespresso and Keurig, are regarded by many as environmental nightmares. Billions of the throwaway nonrecyclable plastic products currently clutter waste dumps, waterways and city streets. Both inventor...

Transgender and non-binary people face health care discrimination every day in the US

Written by Shanna K. Kattari, Assistant Professor of Social Work, University of Michigan

A significant number of transgender and non-binary people report discrimination when seeking medical and social services.Elvira Koneva/shutterstock.com

Many people may experience anxiety when seeking medical treatment. They might worry about wait times, insurance coverage or how far they must travel to access care.

Transgender and non-binary...

Georgia's gubernatorial race could be a bellwether for Democrats nationally

Written by Jeffrey Lazarus, Associate Professor of Political Science, Georgia State University

Georgia gubernatorial candidates Stacey Abrams, left, and Brian Kemp.AP Photos/John Amis, File

Democrats haven’t won a major statewide office in Georgia since 2000, but this year’s gubernatorial race in the state is a tossup.

As a political scientist who studies elections and lives in Georgia, I’ve been watching this race closely.

P...

These kids and young adults want their day in court on climate change

Written by Mary Wood, Philip H. Knight Professor of Law, University of Oregon

Young people will spend more years living with the consequences of climate policies than their elders.Robin Loznak, courtesy of Our Children's Trust, CC BY-NC-SA

Humanity must rapidly decrease greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic levels of global warming, climate scientists have warned for decades. But America’s president has both...

Artificial intelligence will make you smarter

Written by Terrence Sejnowski, Francis Crick Professor and Director of the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory at Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology, University of California San Diego

People plus machines will surpass the capabilities of either element alone.metamorworks/Shutterstock.com

The future won’t be made by either humans or machines alone – but by both, working together. Technologies modeled on how human brains work are already augmenting people’s abilities, and will only get more influential as society...