The Conversation

How to select a disaster relief charity

Written by David Campbell, Associate Professor of Public Administration, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Actress Jennifer Garner, a Save the Children trustee and ambassador, helped distribute supplies after Hurricane Harvey.Anthony Rathbun/Save the Children via AP Images

Harvey. Irma. Jose. Maria. Massive earthquakes. Epic floods. As with previous disasters, millions of Americans have already made donations to help with the latest ones.

A telethon packe...

Mexico’s road to recovery after quakes is far longer than it looks

Written by Morten Wendelbo, Lecturer, Bush School of Government and Public Service; Research Fellow, Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs; and, Policy Sciences Lecturer, Texas A&M University Libraries, Texas A&M University

Workers clear debris on Sept. 25, 2017 from the top of a building that collapsed in Mexico City after the Sept. 19 earthquake. AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell

In the span of just 11 days, Mexico was devastated by two major earthquakes that destroyed buildings and claimed lives across southern and central Mexico. The official death count was higher than...

The surprising connection between 'take a knee' protests and Citizens United

Written by Elizabeth C. Tippett, Assistant Professor, School of Law, University of Oregon

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones joined his team in taking a knee before a game on Sept. 25.AP Photo/Matt York

Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that some fear is destroying American democracy, may also be showing us how to heal it.

The most recent example of this is the reaction to President Donald Trump’s comments suggesting that...

Why don't big companies keep their computer systems up-to-date?

Written by Douglas C. Schmidt, Professor of Engineering, Computer Science and Computer Engineering, Vanderbilt University

It's not so easy to keep up with technology.alphaspirit/Shutterstock.com

The Equifax hack, exposing 143 million people’s personal data to unknown cybercriminals starting in March but not made public until mid-September, was entirely avoidable. The company was using out-of-date software with known security weaknesses. But it appears that with...

How the anal cancer epidemic in gay and bi HIV-positive men can be prevented

Written by Ashish A. Deshmukh, Assistant Professor, University of Florida

Singers from the New York City Gay Men's Choir sing Dec. 1, 2015 at the Apollo Theater in New York for World AIDS Day. A new health foe has emerged among gay and bisexual men. AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Almost 620,000 gay and bisexual men in the United States were living with HIV in 2014, and 100,000 of these men were not even aware of their infection....

Why your kids might be able to see better if they play outdoors more often

Written by Karla Zadnik, Dean, College of Optometry , The Ohio State University

There are many health benefits to kids playing outdoors, not the least of which is preventing myopia. wavebreakmedia/www.shutterstock.com

The ready availability of technology may make the children of today faster at configuring a new smartphone, but does all of that screen time affect the development of their eyes?

While conventional wisdom dictates...

Secret weapon for space travelers: A steady diet of TV?

Written by Jan Van den Bulck, Professor of Media Psychology, University of Michigan

Deep-space journeys will have plenty of downtime.studiostoks/Shutterstock.com

No one knows for sure what a long-range space journey will be like for the people on board. Nobody in the history of our species has ever had to deal with the “Earth-out-of-view” phenomenon, for instance. How will it feel to live in close quarters with a small...

By concealing identities, cryptocurrencies fuel cybercrime

Written by Ari Juels, Professor of Computer Science, Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, Cornell Tech, and Co-Director, Initiative for CryptoCurrencies and Contracts (IC3), Cornell University

Can criminals use cryptocurrency to hide their identities and activities?Elnur/Shutterstock.com

When hackers hold their victims’ data for ransom, as happened in the WannaCry and NotPetya ransomware attacks that spread across the globe in mid-2017, a key to the criminals’ success is getting away with the money. That often means they use...

Opioid epidemic causing rise in hepatitis C infections and other serious illnesses

Written by Thomas J. Stopka, Assistant Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University

Discarded used hypodermic needles along the Merrimack River in Lowell, Massachusetts.Charles Krupa/AP Photos

Many Americans now know that, over the past decade, opioid addiction and deaths from opioid overdose in the U.S. have skyrocketed.

But we don’t hear as often about the other epidemics intertwined with this public health crisis. In rural...

Will outlawing 'instant divorce' advance justice for Muslim women in India?

Written by Z. Fareen Parvez, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Activists protesting against the recently banned triple divorce.AP Photo/Altaf Qadri

The Supreme Court of India recently struck down a specific divorce practice among its minority Muslims. The age-old practice known as “triple talaq” allowed a Muslim man to dissolve his marriage by uttering the term divorce three times, all at once.

As a...