The Conversation

Living drugs: Engineering bacteria to treat genetic diseases

Written by Pedro Belda Ferre, Postdoctoral Scholar in Pediatrics, University of California San Diego

A capsule with a genetically engineered bacterium for therapeutic purposes.abrakadabra / Shutterstock.com

A pill containing millions of bacteria ready to colonize your gut might be a nightmare to many. But it may become an effective new tool for fighting disease.

In many inherited genetic diseases a mutated gene means that an individual cannot make...

Instagram posts suggest e-scooter companies like Bird aren't promoting safe riding to newbies

Written by Jon-Patrick Allem, Research Scientist, University of Southern California

Since emerging in the U.S. last year, electric scooters have become an increasingly popular way for people to travel short distances, thanks to their speed and convenience. But they’ve also generated controversy and concerns about their safety.

Recently, nine people who say they’ve been injured by e-scooters filed a class-action lawsuit...

Why Twitter's cute, heart-shaped 'like' button is not so harmless

Written by A. Trevor Sutton, Ph.D. Student in Doctrinal Theology, Concordia Seminary

Researchers have found people use the 'like' button on social media posts for many reasons.Worawee Meepian

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s founder and CEO, was recently reported to have questioned how the site “incentivizes people to want (the number of likes on their posts) to go up.” He also said that “he was not a fan of the...

How local journalism can upend the 'fake news' narrative

Written by Damian Radcliffe, Caroline S. Chambers Professor in Journalism, University of Oregon

Local journalists are often the only journalists that most people will ever meet.teka12/Shutterstock.com

“For the first time media is the least trusted institution globally,” Edelman, the global PR and marketing firm concluded in its annual worldwide study on trust in institutions like the media, business and government.

These...

A rush to judgment: The Trump administration is taking science out of air quality standards

Written by H. Christopher Frey, Glenn E. Futrell Distinguished University Professor of Environmental Engineering, North Carolina State University

Industrial facilities like this oil refinery in Anacortes, Washington are significant air pollution sources.Walter Siegmund/Wikimedia, CC BY

Many critics of government regulation argue that it reduces economic growth by making it more expensive for businesses to operate. But there is a strong counterargument that a clean environment is consistent...

Drug treatment targets mutant proteins to stop neurodegenerative diseases

Written by Albert La Spada, Professor of Neurology, Neurobiology, and Cell Biology, Duke University

Researchers are developing treatments for blindness caused by neurodegeneration.Alexandra Lande / Shutterstock.com

Designer therapies are treatments tailored to a specific disease, and nowhere is the need greater for new therapies than in a group of nervous system disorders, known as “neurodegenerative diseases.”

Many of these diseases...

Mexico wants internet access for all. Getting everyone online could reduce poverty, too

Written by Jack J. Barry, Postdoctoral research associate, University of Connecticut

Mexicans surf the web at a 'digital village' in Mexico City in 2015, part of the country's effort to get all citizens online.AP Photo/Sofia Jaramillo

The internet has been a right in Mexico since the nation’s Constitution was amended in 2013 to guarantee universal online access.

Yet just 47 percent of households there reported having internet...

College-educated cops enforce the law more aggressively

Written by Richard Wright, Regents' Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminology, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University

Some police reform efforts encourage stations to hire more educated officers.vchal/shutterstock.com

In the wake of controversial and widely publicized incidents involving the use of deadly force by the police against racial and ethnic minorities, President Obama appointed the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing in 2015 to propose...

Smoking rates in US have fallen to all-time low, but how did they ever get so high?

Written by Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University

This ad featuring then-actor Ronald Reagan is an example of industry advertising that made smoking so popular.University of California San Francisco Tobacco Archives, CC BY-SA

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls cigarette smoking “the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., accounting for over 480,000...

Social Security helped slash elderly poverty to 9.2 percent in the 20th century – that triumph is now in jeopardy

Written by David W. Rasmussen, James H. Gapinski Professor of Economics, Florida State University

More elderly people may soon be pinching pennies.docent/Shutterstock.com

In 1959, more than a third of all elderly Americans lived in poverty. Slashing that number to under 10 percent by the late 1990s was among the great U.S. triumphs of the 20th century. Social Security deserves a large share of the credit.

I believe eliminating old-age poverty...