The Conversation

Don't blame California wildfires on a 'perfect storm' of weather events

Written by Gregory L Simon, Associate Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Colorado Denver

In explaining the causes of wildfires, the media and policymakers typically point to environmental factors, but that's not the whole story.AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Late evening on Oct. 8, a series of fires ignited in Northern California’s famous Wine Country region. The fires would produce the most damaging wildfire event in...

Is it time for a Cyber Peace Corps?

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

Some Peace Corps volunteers already provide computer assistance and instruction.Peace Corps

Hackers around the world are attacking targets as diverse as North Dakota’s state government, the Ukrainian postal service and a hospital in Jakarta, Indonesia. Unfortunately, many governments – in the developing world, and even cash-strapped stat...

Dark matter: The mystery substance physics still can't identify that makes up the majority of our universe

Written by Dan Hooper, Associate Scientist in Theoretical Astrophysics at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Associate Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Chicago

Map of all matter – most of which is invisible dark matter – between Earth and the edge of the observable universe.ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY

The past few decades have ushered in an amazing era in the science of cosmology. A diverse array of high-precision measurements has allowed us to reconstruct our universe’s history in...

Martin Luther's spiritual practice was key to the success of the Reformation

Written by Marion Goldman, Professor Emeritus, University of Oregon

Luther's 95 Theses.Ferdinand Pauwels, via Wikimedia Commons

On Oct. 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Germany’s Wittenberg Castle Church and inadvertently ushered in what came to be known as the Reformation.

In his theses, Luther explicitly attacked the Catholic Church’s lucrative practice of selling papal...

Why aren't we curing the world's most curable diseases?

Written by Katherine J. Wu, Ph.D. Candidate in Microbiology, Harvard University

A woman blinded by onchocerciasis, or river blindness, crouches in her hut in northern Ivory Coast. AP Photo/Jean-Marc Bouju

Once upon a time, the world suffered.

In 1987, 20 million people across the world were plagued by a debilitating, painful and potentially blinding disease called river blindness. This parasitic infection caused pain,...

For cattle farmers in the Brazilian Amazon, money can't buy happiness

Written by Rachael Garrett, Assistant Professor of the Human Dimensions of Global Change, Boston University

Picture the Brazilian Amazon. You probably don’t see a lot of cows in that image. But, in fact, in this rainforested part of South America – home to the world’s most booming tropical agricultural region – ranching has been the most common land use for over four decades.

That’s a major environmental challenge for...

The best way to deal with failure

Written by Selin Malkoc, Associate Professor of Marketing, The Ohio State University

Coca-Cola executives Robert C. Goizueta and Donald R. Keough toast cans of 'New Coke' – a product rollout that's considered one of the biggest business blunders of all time.AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler

Failure is a part of life, and we make mistakes pretty much every day. How do we cope? Or better yet, how should we cope?

Academics and the main...

Will anyone protect the Rohingya?

Written by Vincent A. Auger, Professor of Political Science, Western Illinois University

Since August, the Rohingya, an ethnic minority in Myanmar, has faced what a United Nations official called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

Recent reports describe a campaign by Myanmar security forces to drive the Rohingya from the country permanently. Hundreds of thousands have fled to camps in neighboring Bangladesh, creatin...

It's not just O'Reilly and Weinstein: Sexual violence is a 'global pandemic'

Written by Valerie Dobiesz, Emergency Physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Director of External Programs STRATUS Center for Medical Simulation, Core Faculty Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, Harvard University

The recent exposure of widespread sexual predation in the American media industry, from Harvey Weinstein to Bill O'Reilly, has elicited shock and sparked debate on violence against women in the United States.

Sexual harassment isn’t the exclusive domain of show biz big shots. It remains alarmingly prevalent nationwide, even as other crimes...

The mental health toll of Puerto Rico's prolonged power outages

Written by Shao Lin, Professor of Public Health, University at Albany, State University of New York

Plush toys, recovered from a flooded home, hang out to dry on a wrought iron gate in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.Ramon Espinosa/AP

More than a month has passed since Hurricane Maria’s initial landfall in Puerto Rico, but around 80 percent of the island still remains without power.

As residents grapple with the immediate damage, it’s...