The Conversation

Four charts that show who loses out if the White House cuts food stamps

Written by Orgul Demet Ozturk, Associate Professor of Economics, University of South Carolina

About 13 percent of American households have low or very low food security.Aleksei Potov/Shutterstock

The White House has proposed cutting 25 percent of SNAP’s budget – about US$193 billion – over the next decade.

SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, though it’s more widely known by its pre-2008 name,...

The real costs of cheap surveillance

Written by Jonathan Weinberg, Professor of Law, Wayne State University

Who's collecting your data, and what are they using your data for?Brian A. Jackson/Shutterstock.com

Surveillance used to be expensive. Even just a few years ago, tailing a person’s movements around the clock required rotating shifts of personnel devoted full-time to the task. Not any more, though.

Governments can track the movements of massive...

How the social gospel movement explains the roots of today's religious left

Written by Christopher H. Evans, Professor of the History of Christianity, Boston University

A Moral Monday protest led by a preacher, Rev. William Barber.AP Photo/Martha Waggoner

Throughout American history, religion has played a significant role in promoting social reform. From the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century to the civil rights movement of the 20th century, religious leaders have championed progressive political...

Warnings on US cigarette packs not as effective as those in other countries

Written by Yoojin Cho, Doctoral student in Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior, University of South Carolina

Do you know what's in your cigarettes?Pe3k/Shutterstock

Cigarette smoke contains more than 9,000 chemicals, including more than 60 carcinogens. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, there are 93 harmful and potentially harmful chemicals found in tobacco products.

But, when asked, adults in the U.S. can name only a few, such as tar and...

Maryam Mirzakhani was a role model for more than just her mathematics

Written by Mehrdokht Pournader, Lecturer in Operations Management and Organizational Behavior, Macquarie Graduate School of Management

On July 14, Maryam Mirzakhani, Stanford professor of mathematics and the only female winner of the prestigious Fields Medal in Mathematics, died at the age of 40.

In just a few hours, her name, both in her native Farsi (#مریم میرزاخانی) and English (#maryammirzakhani),...

Why police reforms rarely succeed: Lessons from Latin America

Written by Yanilda González, Assistant Professor, School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago

Riot police in Buenos Aires, Argentina.AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano

President Donald Trump’s appointment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions has led people to speculate about the fate of recent police reform efforts.

Early into his tenure, Sessions said he intended to “pull back on” the Justice Department’s investigations of...

Digital database captures voices from inside America's prisons

Written by Doran Larson, Wolcott-Bartlett Professor of Literature & Creative Writing; Director of the Program in Jurisprudence, Law, and Justice Studies, Hamilton College

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently announced a return to a pre-Obama policy of seeking maximum penalties for all drug crimes, including low-level, nonviolent offenses. Criticism from politicians, criminologists, lawyers and others was swift and unambiguous.

Based on a discredited belief in a zero-sum relationship between crime and...

Women still carry most of the world's water

Written by Bethany Caruso, Postdoctoral (FIRST) Fellow, Department of Environmental Health, Emory University

Ethiopian girls carrying water.Waterdotorg, CC BY-NC-SA

Imagine going through your day without access to clean, safe water in your home for drinking, cooking, washing or bathing whenever you need it. According to a new report from UNICEF and the World Health Organization, 2.1 billion people around the world face that challenge every day. And the...

As academic hospitals lower mortality rates, should insurers reconsider excluding them?

Written by Marschall Runge, Dean, School of Medicine, University of Michigan

Health care personnel in all hospitals work hard to provide first-rate care, but academic hospitals carry an added responsibility. Some have questioned whether that dilutes clinical care. gpointstudios/Shutterstock.com

A comprehensive new study has found that major teaching hospitals in the United States outperformed non-teaching hospitals in the...

Hinduism and its complicated history with cows (and people who eat them)

Written by Wendy Doniger, Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago

Are cows sacred to all Hindus?PRODaniel Incandela, CC BY-NC

Just this past June, at a national meeting of various Hindu organizations in India, a popular preacher, Sadhvi Saraswati, suggested that those who consumed beef should be publicly hanged. Later, at the same conclave, an animal rights activist, Chetan Sharma, said,

“Cow is also the...