The Conversation

Detecting 'deepfake' videos in the blink of an eye

Written by Siwei Lyu, Associate Professor of Computer Science; Director, Computer Vision and Machine Learning Lab, University at Albany, State University of New York

It's actually very hard to find photos of people with their eyes closed.Bulin/Shutterstock.com

A new form of misinformation is poised to spread through online communities as the 2018 midterm election campaigns heat up. Called “deepfakes” after the pseudonymous online account that popularized the technique – which may have chosen...

Will John McCain be the last Republican leader in the Senate to address climate change?

Written by Tim Profeta, Director, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and Associate Professor of Practice, Duke University

“He was just doing his job.”

When I asked a longtime staffer to Sen. John McCain why the senator battled to address climate change in the early 2000s, that was his answer.

A simple answer, but one essential to understanding how McCain led those early efforts to combat the challenge when no one else would step forward.

Although others had...

¿Qué está causando la crisis de algas en Florida? 5 preguntas con respuesta

Written by Karl Havens, Professor, Director of Florida Sea Grant, University of Florida

Las algas cubren la superficie del río Caloosahatchee en el W.P. Franklin Lock and Dam, 12 de julio de 2018, en Alva, Florida.AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

Nota del editor: Dos brotes de algas a gran escala están matando peces y amenazando la salud pública en Florida. A lo largo de la costa suroeste, uno de los brotes de marea roja...

Tentative deal to replace NAFTA puts pressure on Canada in win for Trump

Written by Tim Meyer, FedEx Research Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University

President Donald Trump on Aug. 27 announced an agreement that he said would replace NAFTA, an almost 25-year-old deal that allows most goods produced in North America to move duty-free across the continent.

Pointedly, the deal excludes Canada, one of the three original North American Free Trade Agreement signatories. All three had been working on...

Elon Musk was right to drop his bungled plan to take Tesla private

Written by Erik Gordon, Clinical Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

Elon Musk changed his mind about privatizing Tesla.AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

Elon Musk shocked the world – including his own car company’s board – on Aug. 7 when he tweeted that he had the “funding secured” to take Tesla private. A little more than two weeks of uncertainty, confusion and a wildly fluctuating stock price...

Cracking the sugar code: Why the 'glycome' is the next big thing in health and medicine

Written by Emanual Maverakis, Associate Professor- Departments of Medical Microbiology & Immunology and Dermatology | Member- Foods For Health Institute | Member- Comprehensive Cancer Center | Director- Autoimmunity | Director- Immune Monitoring Core, University

By molekuul_be/shutterstock.com

When you think of sugar, you probably think of the sweet, white, crystalline table sugar that you use to make cookies or sweeten your coffee. But did you know that within our body, simple sugar molecules can be connected together to create powerful structures that have recently been found to be linked to health...

Teaching V.S. Naipaul in the Caribbean

Written by J. Vijay Maharaj, Lecturer, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus

Like everyone else in the world, people on the twin-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago learned on Aug. 11 that Trinidad-born Sir Vidia Naipaul – better known as V.S. Naipaul – had died.

While newspapers in the U.S. and Britain ran tributes to this titan of English-language literature, reactions in the Caribbean have been...

Why the Catholic Church is so slow to act in sex abuse cases: 4 essential reads

Written by Kalpana Jain, Senior Religion + Ethics Editor

Members of Chile's bishops conference, in May 2018, who say they are open to whatever Pope Francis proposes to overhaul the Chilean church devastated by a clergy sex abuse and cover-up scandal. AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia

The Vatican’s retired ambassador to the United States, Carlo Maria Vigano, has accused Pope Francis and other officials of...

Here's how forests rebounded from Yellowstone's epic 1988 fires – and why that could be harder in the future

Written by Monica G. Turner, Professor of Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The 2016 Maple fire (photographed in July 2017) reburned young forests that had regenerated after the 1988 Yellowstone fires. More frequent high-severity fires are expected in the future as climate warms, which may change patterns of forest recovery.Monica Turner, CC BY-ND

This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the 1988 Yellowstone fires –...

Why McCain and all POWs deserve our profound respect and gratitude

Written by Joan Cook, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University

Sen. John McCain pictured at a rally Oct. 15, 2014 in Marietta, Georgia to support Senate candidate David Perdue, who was elected a few weeks later. John Amis/AP Photo

On Saturday, John McCain, the U.S. Republican senator from Arizona, a war hero and two-time presidential contender, died. As remembrances of him pour out, let us not focus on...