The Conversation

The fertility industry is poorly regulated – and would-be parents can lose out on having children as a result

Written by Naomi Cahn, Professor of Law, University of Virginia

Louise Brown, who was the world's first baby to be born from in vitro fertilization (IVF) in 1978, poses with equipment used in early IVF treatments. Daniel Leal-Olivas/ Getty

When embryologist Joseph Conaghan arrived at work at San Francisco’s Pacific Fertility Center on March 4, 2018, nothing seemed awry. He did routine inspections of the...

How would planting 8 billion trees every year for 20 years affect Earth's climate?

Written by Karen D. Holl, Professor of Restoration Ecology, University of California, Santa Cruz

Planting 8 billion trees a year would replace about half of the 15 billion cut down annually.Michael Tewelde/AFP 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.

If we planted 8 billion trees a year for 20 years, what would...

Why the feds are investigating Tesla's Autopilot and what that means for the future of self-driving cars

Written by Hayder Radha, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University

Tesla's Autopilot enables hands-free driving, but it's not meant to allow drivers to take their eyes off the road.Marcus Zacher/Flickr, CC BY-NC

It’s hard to miss the flashing lights of fire engines, ambulances and police cars ahead of you as you’re driving down the road. But in at least 11 cases in the past three and a half years,...

Italy – once overwhelmed by COVID-19 – turns to a health pass and stricter measures to contain virus

Written by Sara Belligoni, Ph.D. Candidate in Security Studies, University of Central Florida

Italians must now present a form of vaccine passport called a 'Green Pass' to enter many indoor establishments.Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images

Cases of COVID-19 are surging around the world, but the course of the pandemic varies widely from country to country. To provide you with a global view as we approach a year and a half since the official...

Poison or cure? Traditional Chinese medicine shows that context can make all the difference

Written by Yan Liu, Assistant Professor of History, University at Buffalo

Poisons have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for over two millennia.4X-image/E+ via Getty Images

Poisons today typically evoke notions of harm and danger – the opposite of medicines for healing. Yet traditional Chinese medicine, which has been in practice for over two millennia, used a large number of poisons to treat a variety of...

Where do Afghanistan's refugees go?

Written by Tazreena Sajjad, Senior Professorial Lecturer of Global Governance, Politics and Security, American University School of International Service

Hundreds of Afghan citizens, fleeing their home country, await takeoff after packing inside a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Afghanistan. AP Photo/Capt. Chris Herbert/U.S. Air Force

Images of thousands of Afghans desperately trying to flee their country following a hasty U.S. withdrawal have provoked an...

Climate change is an infrastructure problem – map of electric vehicle chargers shows one reason why

Written by Paul N. Edwards, William J. Perry Fellow in International Security, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University

While a gas station might be 72 miles away, an EV charger may be much farther.Pgiam via Getty Images

Most of America’s 107,000 gas stations can fill several cars every five or 10 minutes at multiple pumps. Not so for electric vehicle chargers – at least not yet. Today the U.S. has around 43,000 public EV charging stations, with about...

How a vial of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine travels from a lab in Missouri to an arm in Bangladesh

Written by Ravi Anupindi, Professor of Technology and Operations, University of Michigan

A Bangladeshi man gets his jab.AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu

Inoculating the planet from COVID-19 presents an unprecedented logistical challenge like none we’ve seen before. Mobilizing for a world war may be the closest comparison – but in this case, the enemy is invisible and everywhere.

Some of the vaccines require super-cold storage at...

Students are returning to school with anxiety, grief and gaps in social skills – will there be enough school mental health resources?

Written by Sandra M. Chafouleas, Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Connecticut

School districts are using federal COVID-19 relief funds to hire more mental health professionals.mmpile/E+ Collection via Getty Images

Even before COVID-19, as many as 1 in 6 young children had a diagnosed mental, behavioral or developmental disorder. New findings suggest a doubling of rates of disorders such as anxiety and depression among...

Opioid lawsuit payout plans overlook a vital need: Pain management care and research focused on smarter use of addictive drugs

Written by Mark C. Bicket, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan

The improper prescription of opioids for pain treatment is one of the central drivers of the opioid epidemic.ah_designs/iStock via Getty Images Plus

The opioid crisis has resulted in more than 500,000 overdose deaths over the past two decades. The federal government, states and other entities have filed litigation against drug manufacturers,...