There are still a few days to go until the 2016 Rio Olympics begin. But the games have already been playing out in the news for a while – and for all the wrong reasons. Brazil has been criticized for political instability, doping scandals, environmental and safety concerns and the Zika virus.

Although research has shown that the media tend to...

In June, California utility Pacific Gas and Electric announced plans for phasing out its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, located on the central California...

As we watch Bernie Sanders’ supporters struggling to come to terms with the nomination of Hillary Clinton, it makes sense to ask why leftists are involved in the Democratic Party in the first place.

It started in 1934 when Upton Sinclair, author of “The Jungle” and a socialist for most of his life, announced that he would run for...

If you flip over a log in a forest in the southeastern U.S., you are likely to find a squirming salamander.

A healthy forest floor, full of fallen branches and rotting leaves, provides these amphibians with the moisture, protection and food they...

Americans clearly love their museums, particularly in the summer months. In fact, museum attendance is estimated at about 850 million visits a year, significantly more than all the major league sporting and theme parks combined (about 483 million in 2011).

That’s in a part because they have a lot of choices. If you include zoos, historical...

When Uber decided to develop its own self-driving car, it went big. The company came to Carnegie Mellon University, the epicenter for autonomous driving research for three decades, and hired away four professors and 36 technical staff...

The U.S. coal industry is in rapid decline, a shift marked not only by the bankruptcy of many mine operators in coal-rich Appalachia but also by a legacy of potential environmental and social disasters.

As mines close, states, the federal government and taxpayers are...

What does it mean to be a good loser in politics?

In 2015, I taught a seminar called, simply, Political Losers. In the course, we read about political loss in labor strikes, in social movement campaigns, in elections and in war.

In all of these cases, the students and I asked: How do losers fight to win again? How do losers position themselves, in...

It was raining on May 12, the last time I was in Rio. The cidade maravilhosa – the “Marvelous City” – was cold and dark, the furthest thing from the vibrant, jovial landscapes you’ll see on a Google image search.

The rain didn’t deter thousands of workers pulling 12-hour shifts to finish construction for the 2016...

When longtime former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson filed suit July 6 for sexual harassment against the network’s former boss, Roger Ailes, the public response was less than kind. There were expressed disbelief and rebuttals that she was fabricating her story in retaliation for being fired.

Many asked: If it was so bad, why didn’t she...