The Conversation

How Australia can help the US make democracy harder to hack

Written by Scott Shackelford, Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Director, Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance; Cybersecurity Program Chair, IU-Bloomington, Indiana University

The U.S. and Australia can boost each other's security.Bennian/Shutterstock.com

In the drumbeat of reports about Russian attempts to undermine U.S. democratic institutions with trolls, Twitter bots and cyberattacks on congressional candidates, it is easy to forget that the problem of election security is not isolated to the United States, and...

After a fatal shark attack on Cape Cod, will the reaction be coexistence or culling?

Written by Carlos G. García-Quijano, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Marine Affairs, University of Rhode Island

Warning sign at a Cape Cod beach.Carlos García-Quijano, CC BY-ND

Interactions between people and animals offer insights into human culture and societies’ core values. This is especially true with respect to large predators – perhaps due to a collective memory of our evolutionary past as hunted prey.

Along with fellow...

10 US military bases are named after Confederate generals

Written by Jeff South, Associate Professor of Journalism, Virginia Commonwealth University

The Fort Hood military base in Killeen, Texas.AP Photo/ Tamir Kalifa

In the debate over Confederate symbols in the U.S., the 10 Army bases named after Confederate generals who fought for the South during the Civil War have largely escaped scrutiny.

As a former newspaper reporter and a current journalism professor, I have wondered why the media...

Things have changed since Anita Hill – sort of

Written by Meg Bond, Professor of psychology, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Anita Hill, who accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, amid heavy security when she was to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Oct. 10, 1991. AP Photo/Doug Mills

In 1991, Anita Hill accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. Thomas was nonetheless confirmed. Now, as Brett...

How the mafia uses violence to control politics

Written by Gianmarco Daniele, Post-Doctoral economics researcher, Bocconi University

Italy is not the only country with an organized crime problem. But movies and TV shows like “Scarface,” “The Godfather” and “Gomorrah” have made the Italian mobs – in both their southern Italian and American incarnations – world-famous.

Such pop culture portrayals tend to romanticize a dangerous...

Mapping the 100 trillion cells that make up your body

Written by Mark Atkinson, Professor of Medicine , University of Florida

University of Florida scientists will be analyzing every cell in the pancreas, among other organs, to understand the roots of Type 1 diabetes.Magic mine/Shutterstock.com

There are about 100 trillion cells that make up the human body. A new megascience endeavor will catalog and image each of the 200 or more types of cells from the 80 known organs...

How humans fit into Google’s machine future

Written by Ed Finn, Associate Professor of Arts, Media and Engineering; Associate Professor of English; Director, Center for Science and the Imagination, Arizona State University

Will people use technology, or will it use us?Zapp2Photo/Shutterstock.com

In 1998, Google began humbly, formally incorporated in a Menlo Park garage, providing search results from a server housed in Lego bricks. It had a straightforward goal: make the poorly indexed World Wide Web accessible to humans. Its success was based on an algorithm that...

Scientists have been drilling into the ocean floor for 50 years – here's what they've found so far

Written by Suzanne O'Connell, Professor of Earth & Environmental Sciences, Wesleyan University

The scientific drilling ship JOIDES Resolution arrives in Honolulu after successful sea trials and testing of scientific and drilling equipment.IODP, CC BY-ND

It’s stunning but true that we know more about the surface of the moon than about the Earth’s ocean floor. Much of what we do know has come from scientific ocean drilling –...

Fraud can scuttle nonprofits but the bigger and older ones fare better

Written by Sarah Webber, Associate Professor, Department of Accounting, University of Dayton

Fraud has organizational consequences.Shutterstock.com/smspsy

After a director of the Fairmont-Marion County Food Pantry embezzled more than US$50,000, it had to close for two months in 2009 – leaving 1,200 West Virginians who depended on it in a temporary lurch.

The effects of this kind of malfeasance may appear straightforward. Charities...

Hiring highly educated immigrants leads to more innovation and better products

Written by Gaurav Khanna, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California San Diego

Apple’s Tim Cook believes access to high-skill immigrants is a key source of American innovation.AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Much of the current debate over immigration is about what kind of impact immigrants have on jobs and wages for workers born in the United States.

Seldom does anyone talk about how immigration leads to a wider variety of...