The Conversation

Clinical trials that are actually marketing ploys targeting doctors – how seeding trials put profit over patients

Written by Sukhun Kang, Assistant Professor of Technology Management, University of California, Santa Barbara

Marketing trials aren't conducted for scientific knowledge or the benefit of patients.Ekin Kizilkaya/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Some clinical trials aren’t designed to answer scientific questions. They’re designed to market drugs. In our recently published research, my team and I analyzed over 34,000 industry-funded trials and found...

Alaska’s near-record landslide tsunami sent a wave 1,580 feet up the fjord walls – and left clues for building a warning system

Written by Michael E. West, Director of the Alaska Earthquake Center and State Seismologist, University of Alaska Fairbanks

The Tracy Arm landslide sent a tsunami wave far up the opposite side of the fjord near South Sawyer Glacier.John Lyons/U.S. Geological Survey

On the evening of Aug. 9, 2025, passengers on the Hanse Explorer finished taking selfies and videos of the South Sawyer Glacier, and the ship headed back down the fjord. Twelve hours later, a landslide from...

From ancient goddesses to modern peace activists − Mother’s Day celebrates women’s political power

Written by Marie-Claire Beaulieu, Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Tufts University

Mothers are often honored and gifted flowers on Mother's Day, but their broader influence in the political sphere is not celebrated enough.www.direct2florist.co.uk/ via Flickr, CC BY

On Mother’s Day, Americans go all out with gift-buying and dining out to honor the women in their lives. In fact, according to some estimates, consumer spending...

The method in Iran’s madness? Closure of Strait of Hormuz echoes a centuries-old Danish play − and is a tragedy for the world order

Written by Vivek Krishnamurthy, Associate Professor of Law, University of Colorado Boulder

Vessel movements in the Strait of Hormuz are seen on a ship-tracking website.AFP via Getty Images

More than two months into the war in Iran, navigation through the Strait of Hormuz – the key waterway through which more than a third of the international trade in oil and gas passes – remains perilous and uncertain. Underscoring the...

White House wants to vet powerful AI models for risks − a computer scientist explains why AI safety is so difficult

Written by Ahmed Hamza, Associate Teaching Professor of Computer Science, University of Colorado Boulder

Is it possible to keep AI from causing harm?J Studios/DigitalVision via Getty Images

The Trump administration is looking to develop a process that would have the federal government review the safety of powerful artificial intelligence models before approving their release, according to a report in The New York Times on May 4, 2026. The move would...

Muslim women-led nonprofits are engaging in advocacy despite facing a surge in Islamophobia

Written by Nausheena Hussain, Doctoral Candidate in Philanthropic Leadership, Indiana University

Two police officers wear American flag head scarfs at a World Hijab Day event on Feb. 1, 2017, in New York City.Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Nonprofits led by Muslim women remain extensively engaged in a wide range of civic activities, even though 72% say they have experienced Islamophobia in their work.

That’s one of the main findings of the...

The lasting appeal of homeschooling: What motivated families to continue after schools reopened post-pandemic

Written by Mark E. Wildmon, Assistant Professor of School Psychology, Mississippi State University

A mother leads her 7- and 9-year-old sons in a morning lesson during homeschool in Buffalo, Minn., in September 2023. Nicole Neri for The Washington Post via Getty Images

When schools abruptly closed their doors at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, millions of students unexpectedly started learning at home, with or without...

AI is showing up in court cases – but only a human jury can grapple with the moral weight of assessing guilt

Written by Sonali Chakravarti, Professor of Government, Wesleyan University

Human jurors need to wrestle with doubt – and that struggle gives trials their moral legitimacy. Pitiphothivichit/iStock via Getty Images Plus

“Mercy,” a film released in January 2026, depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in the near future: a city riddled with violence, homelessness and civic disorder. California’s response is...

Foreign aid’s hidden benefit: Recipients are more likely to pay the generosity forward

Written by JB Bae, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Colorado State University

South Korean soldiers oversee the arrival of a batch of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccines donated by the U.S. government on June 5, 2021.Kim Hong-Ji/Getty Images

Foreign aid may not improve how recipients view donor countries – but it can set off a chain of goodwill that spreads far beyond the original act of giving.

That...

Galaxies of life are collecting dust in museums – digitizing microscope slides can uncover billions of fossils for natural history

Written by Ingrid C. Romero, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

This screenshot juxtaposes a fossil of stem from the plant _Archaeopitys eastmanii_ (bottom) and a close-up of its vascular system (top). The specimen was found in Kentucky and is over 350 million years old.Ingrid C. Romero, CC BY-SA

Approximately 148 million: That’s the number of specimens – including plants, animals, minerals and...