The Conversation

What are 'ghost guns,' a target of Biden's anti-crime effort?

Written by Garen Wintemute, Professor of Emergency Medicine; Director, Violence Prevention Research Program, University of California, Davis

A San Franciso police officer displays several 'ghost guns' – untraceable firearms with no serial numbers or manufacturing marks.AP Photo/Haven Daley

It’s not expensive or difficult to produce large numbers of untraceable firearms in the United States. Whether for private use, sale on the criminal market or arming violent extremists,...

Women are as likely as men to accept a gender pay gap if they benefit from it

Written by Marlon Williams, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Dayton

Perhaps it all depends on perspective.Tommy/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images

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

The big idea

Women are just as inclined as men to vote against a policy to reduce a gender pay gap if they are personally benefiting from the status quo. This is one of the main findings of my new study...

A new reason Americans are getting leery of billionaire donors

Written by David Campbell, Associate Professor of Public Administration, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Some extremely rich people are paying a much smaller share of their income on taxes than other folks.Nuthawut Somsuk/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the rest of the 25 richest Americans paid very low federal income taxes from 2014 to 2018 even as they amassed wealth, according to Internal Revenue Service data...

Working with dangerous viruses sounds like trouble – but here's what scientists learn from studying pathogens in secure labs

Written by Jerry Malayer, Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education and Professor of Physiological Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Oklahoma State University

Microbes are everywhere – and they aren't all friendly. spawns/E+ via Getty Images

There are about 1,400 known human pathogens – viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa and helminths that can cause a person’s injury or death. But in a world with a trillion individual species of microorganisms, where scientists have counted only one...

Parking reform could reenergize downtowns – here's what happened when Buffalo changed its zoning rules

Written by Daniel Baldwin Hess, Professor of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo

Surface parking in downtown San Jose, California.Sergio Ruiz, SPUR/Flickr, CC BY

For urban planners, parking rules established decades ago have become a contentious 21st-century challenge. Parking takes up about one-third of land area in U.S. cities; nationwide, there are an estimated eight parking spaces for every car.

In 2017 Buffalo, New York,...

Alcohol companies make $17.5 billion a year off of underage drinking, while prevention efforts are starved for cash

Written by David H. Jernigan, Professor of Health Law, Policy & Management, Boston University

New research estimates that underage drinkers consume $2.2 billion of Anheuser-Busch InBev drinks – like Budweiser – per year.AP Photo/Reed Saxon

CC–BY–ND.

Alcohol is still the most commonly used drug among high school students. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every year approximately 3,500...

The FDA's big gamble on the new Alzheimer's drug

Written by C. Michael White, Distinguished Professor and Head of the Department of Pharmacy Practice, University of Connecticut

Do the benefits of approving a drug before confirming it works outweigh the potential costs?monkeybusinessimages/iStock via Getty Images Plus

The Food and Drug Administration set off a firestorm of debate when it approved a new drug, aducanumab, for Alzheimer’s disease via an accelerated approval pathway. This decision ignored the...

Here's what I tell teachers about how to teach young students about slavery

Written by Raphael E. Rogers, Associate Professor of Practice, Clark University

U.S. teachers often struggle to depict the realities of slavery in America. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Nervous. Concerned. Worried. Wary. Unprepared.

This is how middle and high school teachers have told me they have felt over the past few years when it comes to teaching the troublesome topic of slavery.

Although I work with...

Is tax avoidance ethical? Asking on behalf of a few billionaire friends

Written by Erin Bass, Associate Professor of Management, University of Nebraska Omaha

Should America's billionaires be paying more tax?J. Countess/Getty Images, Joe Raedle/Getty Images, Arif Hudaverdi Yaman/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Some of the U.S.‘s wealthiest individuals reportedly pay just a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars added annually to their fortunes in federal income tax – sometimes they pay...

Senator Warren's wealth tax might prevent billionaires from paying nearly nothing in taxes – but it's probably not constitutional

Written by Beverly Moran, Professor Emerita of Law, Vanderbilt University

Jeff Bezos paid no taxes in some years despite gaining billions in wealth.AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

A new report that shows America’s biggest billionaires paid barely any income tax from 2014 to 2018 has revived talk of a wealth tax – such as the one proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The report from ProPublica – which based its...