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Guyana, one of South America's poorest countries, struck oil. Will it go boom or bust?

  • Written by Anthony T. Bryan, Professor of International Relations, The University of the West Indies: St. Augustine Campus

Today, Guyana is one of South America’s poorest countries, with an average per capita annual income of around US$4,000.

But within the decade, it could be among the richest. In 2015, ExxonMobil and its international partners discovered vast oil reserves off the Caribbean coast of this small country. By 2018, five new wells will be pumping out...

Read more: Guyana, one of South America's poorest countries, struck oil. Will it go boom or bust?

Why tax cuts make us less happy

  • Written by Michael Krassa, Chair, Human Dimensions of Environmental Systems and Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
imageWhy so grim? Oh, tax cuts. AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Republicans recently announced their tax plan and are hoping to turn it into law before Thanksgiving. While details are in flux, it would likely eliminate the estate tax, lower the top marginal rate and slash corporate rates, producing, in sum, what the president has dubbed a “gigan...

Read more: Why tax cuts make us less happy

Beyond October: Things to be aware of all year about breast cancer

  • Written by Karuna Mittal, Doctoral Candidate, Cellular and Molecular Biology, Georgia State University
imageInflammatory breast cancer, a pernicious form of the disease. David Litman/Shutterstock.com

Almost all of us have a friend or relative who has battled breast cancer, and that is in large part because the disease is so common. One in eight women has a lifetime risk of being diagnosed with the disease. Breast cancer causes about 15 percent of...

Read more: Beyond October: Things to be aware of all year about breast cancer

In scandal after scandal, NCAA takes fall for complicit colleges

  • Written by Rick Eckstein, Professor of Sociology, Villanova University
imageNorth Carolina head coach Roy Williams looks on during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game agaist Notre Dame.AP Photo/Robert Franklin

College sports fans probably weren’t surprised to learn that the University of North Carolina (UNC) had been engaged in academic fraud for decades. In this particular instance, students,...

Read more: In scandal after scandal, NCAA takes fall for complicit colleges

Real security requires strong encryption – even if investigators get blocked

  • Written by Susan Landau, Professor of Computer Science, Law and Diplomacy and Cybersecurity, Tufts University
imageWhat's the best way to keep data secure?Victor Moussa/Shutterstock.com

The FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have been fighting against easy, widespread public access to encryption technologiesfor 25 years. Since the bureau’s dispute with Apple in 2016 over access to the encrypted iPhone of one of the two people who shot 14 victims in...

Read more: Real security requires strong encryption – even if investigators get blocked

California's higher education: From American dream to dilemma

  • Written by John R. Thelin, University Research Professor, University of Kentucky
imageStudents at Berkeley campusAP Photo/Ben Margot, File

For the Golden State of California, 1960 was a golden year: It was a time of rapid development, when the state chose to use its tax revenues to fund magnificent freeways and other infrastructure.

Part of this massive development was a system of public higher education – a model that put...

Read more: California's higher education: From American dream to dilemma

Imagining the 'California Dream'

  • Written by William Deverell, Professor of History, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
imageIs the California Dream still alive and well?Ivan Aleshin/shutterstock.com

Who gave the world the idea of the California Dream?

One way to answer this question is: “Who didn’t?” Millions of people today and in the past imagined California before ever going there – or without ever going there at all. Their collective vision...

Read more: Imagining the 'California Dream'

What public transit can learn from Uber and Lyft

  • Written by Junfeng Jiao, Assistant Professor of Community and Regional Planning and Director, Urban Information Lab, University of Texas at Austin
imageRiders on San Francisco's Muni light rail system.David Lytle, CC BY

For all of their complaints about it, Americans care about public transit. Surveys show that large majorities support public transit initiatives. Nearly three-quarters of Americans approve of using tax dollars to fund transit initiatives. Every year new transit-focused ballot...

Read more: What public transit can learn from Uber and Lyft

After tax cuts derailed the 'California dream,' is the state getting back on track?

  • Written by Manuel Pastor, Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California – Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
imageWhile Prop 13 may have saved the California dream for some, it destroyed it for many others. AP Photo/Lennox McLendon

In 1978, the year I graduated from college with a degree in economics, most voters in my state chose to turn their backs on the “California dream.”

Not unlike the American dream, California’s iteration focused on...

Read more: After tax cuts derailed the 'California dream,' is the state getting back on track?

Synthetic sex in yeast promises safer medicines for people

  • Written by Ian Haydon, Doctoral Student in Biochemistry, University of Washington
imageWhat can mating yeast tell us about new drugs?Conor Lawless, CC BY

Our old friend Saccharomyces cerevisiae – the yeast that’s helped people bake bread and brew beer for millennia – has just had its sex life upgraded.

Bioengineers at the University of Washington have reprogrammed the mating habits of this single-celled organism,...

Read more: Synthetic sex in yeast promises safer medicines for people

More Articles ...

  1. What Chinese philosophers can teach us about dealing with our own grief
  2. How Lincoln's embrace of embalming birthed the American funeral industry
  3. How has air quality been affected by the US fracking boom?
  4. How has the US fracking boom affected air pollution in shale areas?
  5. What the charges against Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos could mean for Trump
  6. Will wildfires leave lasting economic scars on California's vital wine country?
  7. How the dead danced with the living in medieval society
  8. Measuring the implicit biases we may not even be aware we have
  9. The misguided campaign to remove a Thomas Hart Benton mural
  10. Why it's time to lay the stereotype of the 'teen brain' to rest
  11. Don't rely on China: North Korea won't kowtow to Beijing
  12. Will the iPhone X be a hit beyond Apple diehards? 3 questions answered
  13. What works in workplace giving
  14. Life after death: Americans are embracing new ways to leave their remains
  15. Understanding Chinese President Xi’s anti-corruption campaign
  16. Want to prevent sexual harassment and assault? Start by teaching kids
  17. Will the AI jobs revolution bring about human revolt, too?
  18. Why were California's wine country fires so destructive?
  19. Soy bibliotecaria en Puerto Rico y sobreviví al Huracán María. Esta es mi historia.
  20. I'm a librarian in Puerto Rico, and this is my Hurricane Maria survival story
  21. The science of fright: Why we love to be scared
  22. Why Puerto Rico 'doesn't count' to the US government
  23. How the US tax code bypasses women entrepreneurs
  24. How the god you worship influences the ghosts you see
  25. Tricking and treating has a history
  26. How I discovered a wellspring of sexual harassment complaints
  27. Don't blame California wildfires on a 'perfect storm' of weather events
  28. Is it time for a Cyber Peace Corps?
  29. Dark matter: The mystery substance physics still can't identify that makes up the majority of our universe
  30. Martin Luther's spiritual practice was key to the success of the Reformation
  31. Why aren't we curing the world's most curable diseases?
  32. For cattle farmers in the Brazilian Amazon, money can't buy happiness
  33. The best way to deal with failure
  34. Will anyone protect the Rohingya?
  35. It's not just O'Reilly and Weinstein: Sexual violence is a 'global pandemic'
  36. The mental health toll of Puerto Rico's prolonged power outages
  37. Cosmic alchemy: Colliding neutron stars show us how the universe creates gold
  38. How companies can learn to root out sexual harassment
  39. California needs to rethink urban fire risk after wine country tragedy
  40. A new clue into treatments for triple negative breast cancer, a mean disease
  41. Rebooting the mathematics behind gerrymandering
  42. Is @realDonaldTrump addicted to Twitter?
  43. Are religious people more moral?
  44. The psychology of the clutch athlete
  45. Japan's vote for Abe could worsen prospects for peace with North Korea, China
  46. India outlawed commercial surrogacy – clinics are finding loopholes
  47. Our laws don't do enough to protect our health data
  48. Will Obamacare marketplaces suffer as open enrollment begins?
  49. Terrorist leaders in the Philippines are dead – will democracy be restored?
  50. In Central America, gangs like MS-13 are bad – but corrupt politicians may be worse