The Conversation

The average person's daily choices can still make a big difference in fighting climate change – and getting governments and utilities to tackle it, too

Written by Tom Ptak, Assistant Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies, Texas State University

Reducing household energy use can contribute to slowing climate change.Westend61 via Getty Images

The average American’s everyday interactions with energy sources are limited. They range from turning appliances on or off, to commuting, to paying utility bills.

The connections between those acts and rising global temperatures may seem distant.

Ho...

How the pandemic helped spread fentanyl across the US and drive opioid overdose deaths to a grim new high

Written by Andrew Kolodny, Co-Director of Opioid Policy Research, Brandeis University

Emblems of America's epidemics.David Gannon/AFP via Getty Images

For the past 20 years, I have been engaged in efforts to end the opioid epidemic, as a public health official, researcher and clinician. And for every one of those years I have looked on as the number of deaths from drug overdoses has set a new record high.

Yet even knowing that trend...

Project Veritas and the mainstream media: Strange allies in the fight to protect press freedom

Written by Jane E Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law, University of Minnesota

James O'Keefe at the National Press Club announces an undercover investigation into Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign staff in 2015.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

An FBI raid on Project Veritas leader James O'Keefe’s home in early November 2021 has sparked an unusual demonstration of support from the very establishment media that...

Americans support climate change policies, especially those that give them incentives and clean up the energy supply

Written by Janet K. Swim, Professor of Psychology, Penn State

Incentives like rebates for insulation or allowing homeowners to sell energy from solar panels were more popular than taxing for excess energy use.Lourdes Balduque via Getty Images

As the Biden administration tries to build support for new climate and energy policies, a set of studies offers some insights that could help them appeal to the widest...

Infrastructure law's digital equity goals are key to smart cities that work for everyone

Written by Gregory Porumbescu, Assistant Professor at the School of Public Affairs and Administration, Rutgers University - Newark

Smart cities promise a shining future, but without deliberate efforts to include underserved communities they can worsen the digital divide.shunli zhao/Moment via Getty Images

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law by President Joe Biden on Nov. 15, 2021, differs from past infrastructure investments not only in its size but also...

Adoptees nationwide may soon gain access to their original birth certificates

Written by Andrea Ross, Lecturer in the University Writing Program, University of California, Davis

For adopted children, obtaining original birth certificates is a difficult process and includes searches in storage rooms such as this one in the Boston City Hall basement.Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

I was adopted in Colorado in the late 1960s. At the age of 20, I was stricken with a serious illness that necessitated...

Talking turkey! How the Thanksgiving bird got its name (and then lent it to film flops)

Written by Jack Lynch, Professor of English, Rutgers University - Newark

Not everyone is a fan of Turkey Day.E4C via Getty Images

“Meleagris Gallopavo Day” is a bit of a mouthful. Which may be why this Thanksgiving, most people will opt for the less ornithologically precise “Turkey Day.”

And just as turkey is a versatile meat – think of those leftover options! – so too is the word...

The first Thanksgiving is a key chapter in America's origin story – but what happened in Virginia four months later mattered much more

Written by Peter C. Mancall, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

In the 19th century, there was a campaign to link the Thanksgiving holiday to the Pilgrims.Bettman/Getty Images

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the first Thanksgiving in New England. Remembered and retold as an allegory for perseverance and cooperation, the story of that first Thanksgiving has become an important part of how Americans...

Why are barns painted red?

Written by Thomas Durant Visser, Professor of Historic Preservation, University of Vermont

A dairy barn in Waitsfield, Vermont, built circa 1890.Thomas Visser, CC BY-ND

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

Why are barns painted red? – Elijah B., age 13, Waverly, Tennessee

There are three reasons we see so many red...

Rittenhouse verdict flies in the face of legal standards for self-defense

Written by Ronald Sullivan, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges.Sean Krajacic - Pool/Getty Images

In a two-week trial that reignited debate over self-defense laws across the nation, a Wisconsin jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse for shooting three people, two fatally, during a racial justice protest in Kenosha.

The Wisconsin jury believed Rittenhouse’s...