The Conversation

Climate change is affecting crop yields and reducing global food supplies

Written by Deepak Ray, Senior scientist, University of Minnesota

Farm land near Holly Bluff, Miss., covered with backwater flooding, May 23, 2019. AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis

Farmers are used to dealing with weather, but climate change is making it harder by altering temperature and rainfall patterns, as in this year’s unusually cool and wet spring in the central U.S. In a recently published study, I...

Counterfeit alcohol, sometimes containing jet fuel or embalming fluid, is a growing concern for tourists abroad

Written by Monica H. Swahn, Professor, Epidemiology and Public Health, Georgia State University

Health experts advise that people drink unadulterated alcohol only in moderation, or not at all. Counterfeit alcohol, they warn, is especially dangerous.Olga Sapegina/shutterstock.com

The news about the tragic deaths of several American tourists in the Dominican Republic in May 2019 has created an outcry and a media frenzy. As of June 30, there...

New York's new rental protections won't end the outsize influence of big developers who pay the city's bills

Written by Cem S. Kayatekin, Assistant Professor of Architecture / Urbanism, IE School of Architecture and Design, IE University

New York has become a 'city for the rich' in recent decades, a shift in its real estate market that impacts policy-making, too.Alessandro Colle / Shutterstock

New York has passed sweeping new laws that will close some legal loopholes that allowed the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments to be deregulated and tenant protections bypassed....

New York's new rental protections won't end the outside influence of big developers who pay the city's bills

Written by Cem S. Kayatekin, Assistant Professor of Architecture / Urbanism, IE School of Architecture and Design, IE University

New York has become a 'city for the rich' in recent decades, a shift in its real estate market that impacts policy-making, too.Alessandro Colle / Shutterstock

New York has passed sweeping new laws that will close some legal loopholes that allowed the city’s 1 million rent-stabilized apartments to be deregulated and tenant protections bypassed....

5 Moon-landing innovations that changed life on Earth

Written by Jean Creighton, Planetarium Director, NASA Airborne Astronomy Ambassador, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission.Neil Armstrong/NASA

Much of the technology common in daily life today originates from the drive to put a human being on the Moon. This effort reached its pinnacle when Neil Armstrong stepped off the Eagle landing module onto the lunar surface 50 years ago.

As a NASA airborne astronomy...

A long-running immigration problem: The government sometimes detains and deports US citizens

Written by Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University

Entering a tent at the Homestead Temporary Shelter for Unaccompanied Children in Florida.AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee

We are law professors who have studied civil litigation involving citizenship disputes and thousands of cases involving citizens caught up in immigration cases.

That includes the U.S. citizens who have been accidentally swept up in the...

Hong Kong protests continue as China asserts more control over the island territory

Written by Kelly Chernin, Research Assistant Professor, Appalachian State University

It’s a tradition for people in Hong Kong to protest on July 1, the anniversary of the day in 1997 when the Chinese took over control of the territory from the British.

This year, the protests were likely the largest in Hong Kong history, and smaller protests continued days later.

On July 1, several dozen protesters out of a crowd of maybe a...

Why I made an app to document the seclusion and restraint of special education students

Written by Gabriela Marcu, Assistant Professor of Information, University of Michigan

A research assistant demonstrates an app designed to document what takes place in special education classrooms.Gabriela Marcu, Author provided

School districts are failing to accurately report when their most vulnerable students are being physically restrained or secluded. That’s according to a June 2019 report from the Government...

Without parking, thousands of Americans who live in vehicles have nowhere to go

Written by Graham Pruss, Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Washington

Without off-street space, vehicle residents crowd available public parking in Seattle. May 8, 2016.Graham Pruss, CC BY-NC-ND

My neighbor, Billy, has lived for 17 years in a 20-foot-long recreational vehicle parked within a mostly industrial, but now gentrifying, neighborhood in Seattle.

A 68-year-old former carpet layer and handyman, Billy says he...

Roberts rules: The 2 most important Supreme Court decisions this year were about fair elections and the chief justice

Written by Morgan Marietta, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Lowell

The Supreme Court is on summer vacation, but because of John Roberts, they may have to come back.AP/J. Scott Applewhite

The week before Independence Day, Chief Justice John Roberts gave the United States two extraordinary rulings on the nature of American democracy. Both cases are about fair elections, and both outcomes are all about John Roberts.

Th...