The Conversation

Many young French voters are approaching the presidential runoff with a shrug and vow to 'vote blank'

Written by Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager, Associate Professor of Critical Cultural & International Studies, Colorado State University

Decisions, decisions.Chesnot/Getty Images

The race for the presidential post in France began with 12 candidates. It will conclude on April 24 with the same choice that confronted voters five years earlier: the centrist Emmanuel Macron or the far-right Marine Le Pen.

Sequels tend to be less inspiring, and the election as a whole has failed to spark...

The pandemic's gardening boom shows how gardens can cultivate public health

Written by Alessandro Ossola, Assistant Professor, University of California, Davis

A man tends to his plot at a community garden in Santa Monica, Calif., in April 2020.Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

As lockdowns went into effect in the spring of 2020 to slow the spread of the coronavirus, reports emerged of a global gardening boom, with plants, flowers, vegetables and herbs sprouting in backyards and on...

Discovering new drugs is a long and expensive process – chemical compounds that dupe screening tools make it even harder

Written by Martin Clasby, Research Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Michigan

Pan-assay interference compounds, or PAINS, often come up as false positives when researchers screen for potential drug candidates.unol/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Modern drug discovery is an expensive and complicated process. Hundreds of scientists and at least a decade are often required to produce a single medicine. One of the most critical...

Psychopaths can feel emotions and can be treated – don't believe what you see on crime shows

Written by Arielle Baskin-Sommers, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Yale University

Who really is a psychopath?Getty Images

On any given day, millions of Americans curl up to watch their favorite crime shows. Whether it is “FBI” on CBS, “Dexter” on Showtime, “Mindhunter” on Netflix, “Killing Eve” on BBC, reruns of “Law & Order,” or any of a myriad of other similar...

Should you wear a mask on a plane, bus or train when there's no mandate? 4 essential reads to help you decide

Written by Daniel Merino, Assistant Science Editor and Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast

It is now up to individuals whether to wear masks in airports and other mass transit areas.AP Photo/Evan Vucci

On April 18, 2022, a judge in Florida struck down the federal mandate requiring passengers on mass transit to wear masks. While the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends that passengers mask up while on planes,...

Why freezing the Arctic Council is bad news for global security

Written by Gabriella Gricius, Graduate Fellow with North American and Arctic Defense Security Network, PhD Candidate in Political Science, Colorado State University

Eight countries with territory in the Arctic make up the Arctic Council.Mike Swigunski/Unsplash, CC BY-ND

For the past quarter-century, the Arctic has been a unique zone of cooperation among the eight countries of the high north: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and the United States. Even when relations between Moscow and...

Human rights declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, in countries from Angola to the US to New Zealand

Written by Stephen Bagwell, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Pro-democracy protesters are arrested by police in Hong Kong on May 24, 2020.Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images

Human rights activists and international leaders first warned in April 2020 that countries could use the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to crack down on human rights.

Human rights refers to a wide range of political and social rights recog...

Beer and spirits have more detrimental effects on the waistline and on cardiovascular disease risk than red or white wine

Written by Brittany Larsen, Ph.D. Candidate in Neuroscience & Graduate Assistant, Iowa State University

Researchers are working to tease apart how various alcohol types contribute to weight gain and disease risk.pixhook/E+ via Getty Images

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Drinking beer and spirits is linked to elevated levels of visceral fat – the harmful type of fat that is associated with an...

When it comes to the rarest of diseases, the diagnosis isn't the answer – it's just the starting point

Written by Steven Walkley, Professor of Neuroscience, Pathology and Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

The National Institutes of Health estimates the existence of 7,000 rare diseases, with some affecting only a handful of people.Alan Phillips/E! via Getty Images

“Mr. and Mrs. Smith, we finally have an answer for you.” The couple, whose real names we are protecting for privacy, looked at me anxiously. I had been evaluating their young...

Biology with Tibetan Buddhist monks: What I'm taking back to my college classroom from teaching at a monastery

Written by Daniel Pierce, Assistant Professor of Biology, University of Richmond

Tibetan monks at Sera Jey Monastery in Mysore, India, experience using microscopes for the first time.Courtesy of Dan Pierce, CC BY-NC-ND

It would be quite appropriate for a college professor to assume students know that a tree is alive and a rock is not.

Or would it?

For several summers, I have had the pleasure of teaching biology to Tibetan...