The Conversation

Independent voters are few in number, influential in close elections – and hard for campaigns to reach

Written by Julio Borquez, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Michigan-Dearborn

As the 2024 campaign cycle unfolds, campaign strategists, pollsters and political scientists have been closely watching independent voters.

The year began with a January 2024 Gallup report that 43% of Americans identify as political independents – regardless of whether they are registered to vote as a member of one party or the other....

Losing winter ice is changing the Great Lakes food web – here’s how light is shaping life underwater

Written by Steven Wilhelm, Professor of Microbiology, University of Tennessee

Ice on Lake Erie provides winter light for algae thriving below.Sue Thompson, CC BY-ND

Winters on the Great Lakes are harsh – so much so that the scientists who work there often focus on the summer months, when tiny microbes at the base of the food chain were thought to be most productive.

However, emerging research is changing our...

Are older adults more vulnerable to scams? What psychologists have learned about who’s most susceptible, and when

Written by Natalie C. Ebner, Professor of Psychology, University of Florida

Financial exploitation takes many forms, and it often comes from people within an older person's social circle.prpicturesproduction/iStock via Getty Images Plus

About 1 in 6 Americans are age 65 or older, and that percentage is projected to grow. Older adults often hold positions of power, have retirement savings accumulated over the course of...

Complaints are different when customers think a company cares

Written by Vivek Astvansh, Associate Professor of Quantitative Marketing and Analytics, McGill University

When a consumer has a bad experience involving a company’s products – be it purchasing a car with a safety defect, becoming the victim of a data breach or having baggage lost by an airline – you might think he or she wouldn’t care too much about the business’s good intentions.

But the opposite appears to be true. When...

Coral reef recovery could get a boost from an unlikely source: Sea cucumbers, the janitors of the seafloor

Written by Mark Hay, Professor of Environmental Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology

Sea cucumbers convert organic material that accumulates on the seafloor into biomass.Philip Wade/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Sea cucumbers, scavengers of the seafloor that resemble the cylindrical vegetable, have been consumed as a delicacy in Asia for centuries. But in recent decades, they’ve been severely overharvested to a point that they are now...

Biden and Trump may forget names or personal details, but here is what really matters in assessing whether they’re cognitively up for the job

Written by Leo Gugerty, Professor Emeritus in Psychology, Clemson University

This image of Trump and Biden was taken during the 2020 presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn.Pavlo Conchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Some Americans are questioning whether elderly people like Joe Biden and Donald Trump are cognitively competent to be president amid reports of the candidates mixing up names while speaking and having...

The warming ocean is leaving coastal economies in hot water

Written by Charles Colgan, Director of Research for the Center for the Blue Economy, Middlebury Institute of International Studies

Warm water expands, raising sea levels, which worsens storm surge during hurricanes. It's only one risk from warming oceans.AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

Ocean-related tourism and recreation supports more than 320,000 jobs and US$13.5 billion in goods and services in Florida. But a swim in the ocean became much less attractive in the summer of 2023, when...

How DEI rollbacks at colleges and universities set back learning

Written by JT Torres, Director of the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning, Washington and Lee University

DEI programs can foster a stronger sense of belonging among college students from minority groups. Ariel Skelley/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Just four years ago, following the murder of George Floyd, almost every college and university in the U.S. had at least one diversity, equity and inclusion – or DEI – program. Many had existed...

American slavery wasn’t just a white man’s business − new research shows how white women profited, too

Written by Trevon Logan, Professor of Economics, The Ohio State University

As the United States continues to confront the realities and legacy of slavery, Americans continue to challenge myths about the country’s history. One enduring myth is that slavery was a largely male endeavor — that, for the most part, the buying, selling, trading and profiting from enslavement were carried out by white men alone.

While...

NASA’s asteroid sample mission gave scientists around the world the rare opportunity to study an artificial meteor

Written by Brian Elbing, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Oklahoma State University

Collecting the OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule. NASA/Keegan Barber, CC BY

Earth is constantly bombarded by fragments of rock and ice, also known as meteoroids, from outer space. Most of the meteoroids are as tiny as grains of sand and small pebbles, and they completely burn up high in the atmosphere. You can see meteoroids larger than about a golf...