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Mass shootings in America: 4 essential reads

  • Written by Emily Costello, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation US

Editor’s note: The following is a roundup of stories from The Conversation’s archive.

Once again, Americans are asking themselves the same familiar, heartsick questions:

How can gun violence be prevented? What policy or program could help save innocent lives? What is an approach that would be tolerable to people on both sides of the...

Read more: Mass shootings in America: 4 essential reads

3 things I learned from delivering medical aid to a remote part of Puerto Rico

  • Written by Asa Oxner Myers, Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine, University of South Florida
imageThe author, distributing medications at a shelter in Villalba, Puerto RicoElimarys Perez-Colon, CC BY-SA

I belong to a group called Doctors for Puerto Rico.

We have been dispatching medicine and small teams of medical staff to the island, in coordination with local health authorities since two-and-a-half weeks after Hurricane Maria. When we started,...

Read more: 3 things I learned from delivering medical aid to a remote part of Puerto Rico

The long, strange history of dieting fads

  • Written by Melissa Wdowik, Assistant Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Colorado State University
imageAnother day, another diet.Yuriy Maksymiv/Shutterstock

“Of all the parasites that affect humanity I do not know of, nor can I imagine, any more distressing than that of Obesity.”

So started William Banting‘s “Letter on Corpulence,” likely the first diet book ever published. Banting, an overweight undertaker, published...

Read more: The long, strange history of dieting fads

Does American culture shame too much – or not enough?

  • Written by Peter Stearns, University Professor of History, Provost Emeritus, George Mason University
imagetomertu

The word “shameless” is being tossed around an awful lot these days, which might speak to what many see as the country’s increasingly coarse, vitriolic political discourse. Perhaps, the thinking goes, American culture could use a dose of shame and humility.

But what about people harassed on social media, like Walter Palmer,...

Read more: Does American culture shame too much – or not enough?

Rather than being free of values, good science is transparent about them

  • Written by Kevin Elliott, Associate Professor in Lyman Briggs College, Fisheries & Wildlife, and Philosophy, Michigan State University
imageIt's good for scientists to work in glass laboratories.Len Rubenstein, CC BY

Scientists these days face a conundrum. As Americans are buffeted by accounts of fake news, alternative facts and deceptive social media campaigns, how can researchers and their scientific expertise contribute meaningfully to the conversation?

There is a common perception...

Read more: Rather than being free of values, good science is transparent about them

Latino elites are paying the California dream forward

  • Written by Jody Agius Vallejo, Associate Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration at USC, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
imageA small – but powerful – Latino middle class has emerged in California, led by elites like State Senator Kevin de Leon.AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

American Latino economic elites have incomes and wealth in the top five percent of earners. Some own multi-million-dollar companies or work as corporate executives. Latino politicians –...

Read more: Latino elites are paying the California dream forward

One American woman's life in revolutionary Russia

  • Written by Julia L. Mickenberg, Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Texas at Austin
imageFemale protesters in Petrograd (now St Petersburg) in 1917 on International Women's Day. Wikimedia Commons

Anna Louise Strong, a journalist from Friend, Nebraska, was thrilled by what she heard about the Russian Revolution in 1917.

Although she is almost wholly unknown today, Strong was a household name in her time. She lived in the Soviet Union...

Read more: One American woman's life in revolutionary Russia

Two big problems with American voting that have nothing to do with Russian hacking

  • Written by Sascha Meinrath, Director of X-Lab; Palmer Chair in Telecommunications, Pennsylvania State University
imageWho gets to vote?Mikko Lemola/Shutterstock.com

Over the past year, the public discussion on election security and integrity has focused on concerns about foreign meddling in U.S. elections. The evidence is still coming in about which countries did what to influence both the public and the election itself. The American people have been left with a...

Read more: Two big problems with American voting that have nothing to do with Russian hacking

Taxpayers are subsidizing hush money for sexual harassment and assault

  • Written by Peter J. Henning, Professor of Law, Wayne State University
imageThe secret settlements that leave the reputations of alleged sexual abuse perpetrators intact are also tax-deductible.Lisa S./Shutterstock.com

Many of the recent stories about sexual abuse claims against disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and other powerful actors, journalists and executives mention...

Read more: Taxpayers are subsidizing hush money for sexual harassment and assault

Improving women's lives through energy: What Rick Perry got right and wrong

  • Written by Michael E. Webber, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Deputy Director of the Energy Institute, University of Texas at Austin
imageRefugee women from Darfur, Sudan return to their camp in eastern Chad with wood for their households in 2011.European Commission DG ECHO, CC BY-SA

On Nov. 2, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry clumsily stated that fossil fuels could help prevent sexual assaults on vulnerable women in Africa. “When the lights are on, when you have light, it...

Read more: Improving women's lives through energy: What Rick Perry got right and wrong

More Articles ...

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  2. Academic journal publishing is headed for a day of reckoning
  3. How citizen investigators can collaborate on crowdsourced fact-checking
  4. Maria will fundamentally change US policy toward Puerto Rico
  5. The curious relationship between altitude and suicide
  6. How burnout is plaguing doctors and harming patients
  7. 'Voodoo economics' makes a comeback in Republican tax plan enriching the rich
  8. As wildfires expand, fire science needs to keep up
  9. How does an oppressive government celebrate a revolution?
  10. How does an authoritarian regime celebrate a revolution?
  11. To stop the opioid epidemic, the White House should embrace prevention
  12. How dogs and cats can get their day in court
  13. It's mostly mothers who pass on mitochondria – and a new theory says it's due to the first sexual conflict
  14. In Brazil, religious gang leaders say they're waging a holy war
  15. On-board computers and sensors could stop the next car-based attack
  16. Trump names 'safe' choice to lead the Federal Reserve: 5 questions answered
  17. Trump picks 'safe' choice to lead the Federal Reserve: 5 questions answered
  18. In America's sandwiches, the story of a nation
  19. Brain science should be making prisons better, not trying to prove innocence
  20. How the crisis in Catalonia is helping Rajoy consolidate power
  21. What the history of iconoclasm tells us about the Confederate statue controversy
  22. Is daylight saving time worth the trouble? Research says no
  23. Venezuela's opposition is on the verge of collapse
  24. Stop doing companies' digital busywork for free
  25. How donors can help make nonprofits more accountable
  26. US shouldn't give up benefits of 'green card lottery' over low risk of terrorism
  27. What draws 'lone wolves' to the Islamic State?
  28. After months of feuding, Ecuador's president is ousted by his party
  29. What ancient cultures teach us about grief, mourning and continuity of life
  30. Surprise! How Obamacare is beginning to look a lot like Medicaid
  31. Guyana, one of South America's poorest countries, struck oil. Will it go boom or bust?
  32. Why tax cuts make us less happy
  33. Beyond October: Things to be aware of all year about breast cancer
  34. In scandal after scandal, NCAA takes fall for complicit colleges
  35. Real security requires strong encryption – even if investigators get blocked
  36. California's higher education: From American dream to dilemma
  37. Imagining the 'California Dream'
  38. What public transit can learn from Uber and Lyft
  39. After tax cuts derailed the 'California dream,' is the state getting back on track?
  40. Synthetic sex in yeast promises safer medicines for people
  41. What Chinese philosophers can teach us about dealing with our own grief
  42. How Lincoln's embrace of embalming birthed the American funeral industry
  43. How has air quality been affected by the US fracking boom?
  44. How has the US fracking boom affected air pollution in shale areas?
  45. What the charges against Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos could mean for Trump
  46. Will wildfires leave lasting economic scars on California's vital wine country?
  47. How the dead danced with the living in medieval society
  48. Measuring the implicit biases we may not even be aware we have
  49. The misguided campaign to remove a Thomas Hart Benton mural
  50. Why it's time to lay the stereotype of the 'teen brain' to rest