The Conversation

What do students’ beliefs about God have to do with grades and going to college?

Written by Ilana Horwitz, Assistant Professor, Fields-Rayant Chair in Contemporary Jewish Life, Tulane University

How do students' religious lives influence their academic ones?Image Source via Getty Images

In America, the demographic circumstances of a child’s birth substantially shape academic success. Sociologists have spent decades studying how factors beyond students’ control – including the race, wealth and ZIP code of their parents...

Physics and psychology of cats – an (improbable) conversation

Written by Beth Daley, Editor and General Manager

According to researcher Marc-Antoine Fardin, under the right circumstances, cats’ bodies can behave like liquids.Nevena Uzurov/Moment via Getty Images

Have you wondered why cats are so nimble and seem to fit perfectly in cups, boxes and other small places? Or how cats communicate with humans?

Marc Abrahams, editor of the Annals of Improbable...

How Sylvia Plath’s secret miscarriage transforms our understanding of her poetry

Written by Jason Miller, Professor of English, North Carolina State University

Sylvia Plath wrote a series of 14 intensely personal letters to her psychologist that were only recently uncovered.Amy T. Zielinski/Getty Images

In 2017, one of Sylvia Plath’s private letters, which had previously not been made public, included a startling revelation: Plath suggested that her husband, poet Ted Hughes, was responsible for the...

How Russia hooked Europe on its oil and gas – and overcame US efforts to prevent energy dependence on Moscow

Written by Ryan Haddad, Research Affiliate at the Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets, University of Maryland

Is it a weapon or merely trade? AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky

The Biden administration hopes its threat of “severe economic consequences” deters Russia from invading Ukraine – an event Americans officials say could be imminent.

In response, the U.S. said it may ban the export of microchips and other technologies to critical sectors...

What is the ‘social cost of carbon’? 2 energy experts explain after court ruling blocks Biden's changes

Written by Jim Krane, Fellow for Energy Studies, Baker Institute for Public Policy; Lecturer, Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University

The Capitol Power Plant, which uses fossil fuels.AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

When an electric company runs a coal- or natural gas-fired power plant, the greenhouse gases it releases cause harm – but the company isn’t paying for the damage.

Instead, the costs show up in the billions of tax dollars spent each year to deal with the effects of...

Whether up in smoke or down the toilet, missing presidential records are a serious concern

Written by Shannon Bow O'Brien, Associate Professor of Instruction, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts

We may never get to the bottom of whether Donald Trump flushed documents down a White House toilet. “Fake story,” says the former president. “100% accurate,” retorts a reporter.

But even without having to unclog plumbing in search of missing papers, national archivists have their work cut out trying to plug potential gaps in...

In research studies and in real life, placebos have a powerful healing effect on the body and mind

Written by Elissa H. Patterson, Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology, University of Michigan

The concept of placebos – which are sometimes called "sugar pills" – has been around since the 1800s.Wladimir Bulgar/Science Photo Library via Getty Images

Did you ever feel your own shoulders relax when you saw a friend receive a shoulder massage? For those of you who said “yes,” congratulations, your brain is using its...

Your sense of privacy evolved over millennia – that puts you at risk today but could improve technology tomorrow

Written by Laura Brandimarte, Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems, University of Arizona

People are good at avoiding prying eyes, but avoiding online snoops – not so much.Donald Iain Smith/Moment via Getty Images

Many people think of privacy as a modern invention, an anomaly made possible by the rise of urbanization. If that were the case, then acquiescing to the current erosion of privacy might not be particularly alarming.

As cal...

4 ways to help STEM majors stay the course

Written by Esohe G. Irabor, Ph.D. Candidate in Biology, Howard University

Minority STEM majors are more likely than their white peers to switch fields.andresr/E+ via Getty Images

Black and Latino students who start out majoring in STEM – or science, technology, engineering or mathematics – are more likely than their white peers to switch fields or leave without a degree.

Some students leave because they feel...

This god shoots love darts – but no, it's not Cupid

Written by Jeffery D. Long, Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College

The love god Kamadeva prepares to shoot Shiva with a love dart.British Museum/Wikimedia Commons

With the coming of Valentine’s Day, images of a chubby Cupid aiming his arrows of love at unwary humans’ hearts seem to be everywhere.

The Cupid that Americans see splashed across greeting cards and chocolate boxes began life as a Roman God of...