The Conversation

Essential health benefits suddenly at center of health care debate, but what are they?

Written by Simon Haeder, Assistant Professor of Political Science, West Virginia University

Lisa Schwetschenau, who has multiple sclerosis, shown in a photo in Omaha, Nebraska on March 16. She worries that she could lose some of her essential health benefits under the new proposed health care law.Nati Harnik/AP

Republicans have tirelessly campaigned to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) with a conservative, market-based...

America can't be first without Europe

Written by Earl Anthony Wayne, Visiting Professor of International Affairs, Hamilton College

On March 25, European Union leaders celebrate the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty, a central pillar of the structure set up in the aftermath of World War II to solidify peace, prosperity and partnership in Europe.

Over the last 60 years, the EU (and its predecessors) has served as an essential U.S. partner: for example, by enhancing...

Dangers of the witch hunt in Washington

Written by Peter Neal Peregrine, Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies, Lawrence University

FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers at hearing on allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

As an anthropologist, I know that all groups of people use informal practices of social control in day-to-day interactions. Controlling disruptive...

Want to end TB? Diagnose and treat all forms of the disease

Written by Lauren Carruth, Assistant Professor, School of International Service, American University School of International Service

Tuberculosis should be a specter of the past, something only our great-grandparents feared and died of. Alas, although almost all cases of TB today are both preventable and treatable, several different strains and manifestations of the disease still sicken and kill millions of people every year.

Global tuberculosis interventions are usually tied...

What the Heaven's Gate suicides say about American culture

Written by Ben Zeller, Associate Professor of Religion, Lake Forest College

Heaven’s Gate – also known as the “UFO cult” – burst into American consciousness 20 years ago this month, when, on March 26, 1997, law enforcement discovered 39 decomposing bodies in a San Diego, California mansion.

Each detail that emerged from the scene stunned a rapt public: Adherents had committed suicide in waves...

London attack: Terrorism expert explains three threats of jihadism in the West

Written by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Research Director of the Program on Extremism, George Washington University

Details about the man who attacked the British Parliament on March 22, identified by London police as British national Khalid Masood, are still emerging. With three victims confirmed dead, the attack is the worst in London since the July 7, 2005 bombings on the London transport system.

A day after the attack, the Islamic State media organization...

New powerful telescopes allow direct imaging of nascent galaxies 12 billion light years away

Written by J. Xavier Prochaska, Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz

Artist's impression of a quasar shining through a galaxy's 'super halo' of hydrogen gas.A. Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF), CC BY-ND

How does a galaxy like our own Milky Way form? Until now there’s been a lot of inferring involved in answering that question.

The basic story is that gas collects toward the center of roughly spherical...

Using the placenta to understand how complex organs evolve

Written by Oliver Griffith, Postdoctoral Associate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University

Developing lizard embryo beneath placental tissues.Oliver Griffith, CC BY-ND

Considering how different they look from the outside, it might be surprising that all vertebrates – animals with a backbone – share the same, conserved set of organs. Chickens, fish, human beings – all have hearts, livers, brains, kidneys and so on. Each...

How a study about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was doctored, adding to pain and stigma

Written by Steven Lubet, Williams Memorial Professor of Law, Northwestern University

Dr. Ellen Wright Clayton, who has worked with those who have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, spoke to an open committee at the Institute of Medicine in February 2015 about the biomedical nature of CFS. Susan Walsh/AP

The public relies on scientists to report their findings accurately and completely, but that does not always happen. Too often, researchers...

What's the point of an ethics course?

Written by Cassandra Burke Robertson, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Ethics, Case Western Reserve University

Research shows that regular ethics training helps.O'Riordan Images, CC BY-NC

Earlier in March, news broke that the White House had declined to award a contract for an ethics course aimed at senior staffers, Cabinet nominees and others holding political appointments in the Trump administration.

The decision made news because the Trump administration...