The Conversation

Smoke, heat and stress: A snapshot from Southern California of life in an altered climate

Written by Kyla Thomas, Sociologist, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

A lone jogger runs during a heat wave in the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in Los Angeles on June 17, 2021. Xinhua via Getty Images

From record-breaking heat waves to massive wildfires, floods and long-running drought, the impacts of climate change across the U.S. have been impossible to ignore in 2021. While conditions vary from one region to...

US prep schools held student exchanges with elite Nazi academies

Written by Helen Roche, Associate Professor of Modern European Cultural History, Durham University

German students reading newspapers in the Nazi academy in Rügen in 1943.Dietrich Schulz, Author provided

In the summer of 1935, the Nazi government hijacked a student exchange program between leading American and German schools.

The International Schoolboy Fellowship, as it was known, was first set up by Walter Huston Lillard, the headmaster...

'Strangers in their own land': Iraqi Yazidis and their plight, 7 years on from genocide

Written by Houman Oliaei, PhD Candidate, Brandeis University

Tens of thousands of members of Iraq's Yazidi religious minority are now living in shelters and camps.AP Photo/Seivan Salim

Each year in the second week of December, Iraqi Yazidis, an ethnoreligious minority in northern Iraq, celebrate Rojiet Ezi, a festival that follows three days of fasting. During my ethnographic fieldwork in a refugee camp in...

What partnership looks like in Mormon marriages is shifting – slowly

Written by Caroline Kline, Assistant Director of the Center for Global Mormon Studies, Claremont Graduate University

What should a marriage look like? Religious leaders' ideas have shifted for centuries.davidf/E+ via Getty Images

Discussions about women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the LDS church or Mormon church, often revolve around one question: Will they ever be ordained?

Latter-day Saint women may serve as leaders of women...

Orthodox Jewish women's leadership is growing – and it's not all about rabbis

Written by Michal Raucher, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies, Rutgers University

Opportunities are expanding for Orthodox Jewish women to formally study Jewish texts. This event in Jerusalem celebrated women who completed the 7 1/2-year cycle of daily study of the Talmud.AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov

More Orthodox Jewish women around the world are following the path of ordination, though controversy over female rabbis continues in...

Comic book introduces kids to key concepts and careers in cybersecurity

Written by Kara Dawson, Professor of Educational Technology, University of Florida

The number of cybersecurity jobs is expected to grow up to 33% in the near future.fstop123/E+ via Getty Images

Students crack a secret message using this Caesar wheel as part of a challenge.CryptoComics, Author provided

Three 9-year-old girls are huddled around a Caesar wheel, an ancient tool for sharing secret messages.

Cracking a code is one of...

Blocking an immune system molecule in mice may help prevent long-term disabilities after traumatic brain injury

Written by Jeanne Paz, Associate Investigator at Gladstone Institutes and Associate Professor of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco

An estimated 69 million people worldwide experience a traumatic brain injury every year.Iaremenko/iStock via Getty Images Plus

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

The big idea

Blocking an immune system molecule that accumulates after traumatic brain injury could significantly reduce the injury’s detrimental...

Tornadoes and climate change: What a warming world means for deadly twisters and the type of storms that spawn them

Written by John Allen, Associate Professor of Meteorology, Central Michigan University

Tornadoes are tough to forecast.Mike Coniglio/NOAA/NSSL

The deadly tornado outbreak that tore through communities from Arkansas to Illinois on the night of Dec. 10-11, 2021, was so unusual in its duration and strength, particularly for December, that a lot of people including the U.S. president are asking what role climate change might have played &...

Here's how Southern Baptist women found ways to lead outside the denomination

Written by Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State University

Theologian Molly Marshall preaching at the Southern Baptist Women in Ministry meeting, June 9, 1985.Baptist Women in Ministry, CC BY

Southern Baptists have a long history of conflict over women’s leadership in the denomination. But women have found ways to lead, even as their roles have become ever more circumscribed.

I have been researching...

In polygamous communities, deep roots of distrust shape vaccine hesitancy

Written by Cristina Rosetti, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Claremont McKenna College

A group of protesters stands inside the Utah State Capitol in 2016, criticizing a proposal to make polygamy a felony again.Rick Bowmer/AP

From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church or LDS church, followed government guidelines to protect members of their...