The need for shut-eye is universal.Justin Lewis/Stone via Getty Images
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 do I need to sleep for a long time at night? – Sly M., 6, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Just like eating, drinking or...
Political pressure is focusing on the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court.Stefani Reynolds/Getty ImagesThe future of the U.S. Supreme Court is politically fraught.
The court’s partisan balance has long been a hot-button issue, and both Democrats and Republicans can correctly claim that the other party bears at least some blame for the politiciza...
Read more: States pick judges very differently from US Supreme Court appointments
Protest signs on the ground before a march on March 28, 2021, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to denounce President Jovenel Moïse's efforts to stay in office past his term.Valerie Baeriswyl/AFP via Getty ImagesHaitian protesters on the nation’s streets have a laundry list of reasons they believe President Jovenel Moïse should resign.
They...
A simple two-dimensional grid can convey a lot of information – whether making pictures with Lite-Brite or storing data in DNA.Justin Day/Flickr, CC BY-SAThe Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
We and our colleagues have developed a way to store data using pegs and pegboards made out of DNA and...
Read more: DNA 'Lite-Brite' is a promising way to archive data for decades or longer
Black and Hispanic business school professors are few in number.nortonrsx/iStock via Getty Images PlusDespite the increasing diversity among America’s college students, business school professors remain overwhelmingly white.
In U.S. business schools, Black and Hispanic individuals make up 23.2% of students, yet only 6.7% of the faculty.
As a re...
Read more: Why business school efforts to recruit more diverse faculties are failing
Video evidence at trial played a crucial part in the conviction of a police officer for the 2020 murder of George Floyd.AP Photo/Ben GrayNews media coverage of Derek Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd highlighted the role of video as a “star witness.” Jurors in this trial saw footage from cellphones, police body...
An orchard near Kettleman City in California's San Joaquin Valley on April 2, 2021.Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty ImagesAs the drought outlook for the Western U.S. becomes increasingly bleak, attention is turning once again to groundwater – literally, water stored in the ground. It is Earth’s most widespread and reliable source of...
Read more: Water wells are at risk of going dry in the US and worldwide
A visualization of daily life around Angkor Wat in the late 12th century.
Tom Chandler, Mike Yeates, Chandara Ung and Brent McKee, Monash University, 2021, CC BY-NC-NDHow big were the world’s ancient cities? At its height, the world’s first city of Uruk may have had about 40,000 people about 5,000 years ago. In the medieval period,...
Mary Washington helped her son develop into the leader he became. While her son was the subject of several portrait artists, there is no record that Mary ever was.Stock Montage/Getty ImagesIt is important and poignant to recall the hard life of Mary Ball Washington, who struggled – mostly alone – to raise our Founding Father....
The rate of intellectual disabilities is disproportionately high among incarcerated populations.Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesPrison life in the U.S. is tough. But when you have an intellectual, developmental or cognitive disability – as hundreds of thousands of Americans behind bars do – it can make you especially vulnerable.
In March, the...