The Conversation

Benjamin Franklin's fight against a deadly virus: Colonial America was divided over smallpox inoculation, but he championed science to skeptics

Written by Mark Canada, Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Indiana University Kokomo

As a printer's apprentice in 1721, Franklin had a front-row seat to the controversy around a new prevention technique.ClassicStock/Archive Photos via Getty Images

Exactly 300 years ago, in 1721, Benjamin Franklin and his fellow American colonists faced a deadly smallpox outbreak. Their varying responses constitute an eerily prescient object lesson...

What's a ghost kitchen? A food industry expert explains

Written by Jeffrey Miller, Associate Professor of Hospitality Management, Colorado State University

The co-founder of a takeout business called The Bussdown plates a dish at the ghost kitchen he cooks out of in Oakland.Stephen Lam/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

While the phrase “ghost kitchen” may conjure up images of haunted houses, the reality is a bit more mundane.

Ghost kitchens are food prep operations with no...

Racism lurks behind decisions to deny Black high school students from being recognized as the top in their class

Written by Jamel K. Donnor, Associate Professor of Education, William & Mary

Was 'white fragility' the reason behind two Black Mississippi high schoolers' losing their valedictorian/salutatorian status?Sue Barr/Getty Images

Two Black students – Ikeria Washington and Layla Temple – were named valedictorian and salutatorian at West Point High School in Mississippi in 2021. Shortly afterward, two white parents ques...

Trustees' handling of Nikole Hannah-Jones' tenure application shows how university boards often fail the accountability test

Written by Felecia Commodore, Assistant Professor, Educational Foundations & Leadership, Old Dominion University

Demonstrators gather June 25, 2021, on University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill, N.C., to demand that the university offer tenure to award-winning investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. AP Photo/Jonathan Drew

University boards of trustees hold considerable power over the institutions they govern, but get attention only when...

5 children's books that teach valuable engineering lessons

Written by Michelle Forsythe, Assistant Professor of STEM Education, Texas State University

Engineering lessons can be found in many books kids already have at home or their local library. Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Most people think of the children’s classic “Charlotte’s Web” as a story of devoted friendship between a spider and a pig. But it can also be read as a story of a budding engineer...

Skip the fireworks this record-dry 4th of July, over 150 wildfire scientists urge the US West

Written by Philip Higuera, Professor of Fire Ecology and Paleoecology, The University of Montana

In heat and drought like the western U.S. and Canada are experiencing in 2021, all it takes is a spark to start a wildfire.Jim Watson/Getty Images

The heat wave hitting the northwestern U.S. and Canada has been shattering records, with temperatures 30 degrees Fahrenheit or more above normal. With drought already gripping the West, the intense heat...

US intelligence report on UFOs: No aliens, but government transparency and desire for better data might bring science to the UFO world

Written by Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona

The new government report describes 144 sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena.U.S. Navy

On June 25, 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a much-anticipated report on UFOs to Congress. The military has rebranded unidentified flying objects as unidentified aerial phenomena – UAPs – in part to avoid the...

An expert on search and rescue robots explains the technologies used in disasters like the Florida condo collapse

Written by Robin R. Murphy, Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering; Vice-President Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (nfp), Texas A&M University

A drone flies above search and rescue personnel at the site of the Champlain Towers South Condo building collapse in Surfside, Florida.AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee

Texas A&M’s Robin Murphy has deployed robots at 29 disasters, including three building collapses, two mine disasters and an earthquake as director of the Center for Robot-Assisted...

Critical race theory: What it is and what it isn't

Written by David Miguel Gray, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Affiliate, Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis

President Lyndon Johnson signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which aimed to do away with racial discrimination in the law. But discrimination persisted.AP file photo

U.S. Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana sent a letter to fellow Republicans on June 24, 2021, stating: “As Republicans, we reject the racial essentialism that critical race theory teaches...

China's 'one-child policy' left at least 1 million bereaved parents childless and alone in old age, with no one to take care of them

Written by Lihong Shi, Associate Professor of Anthropology , Case Western Reserve University

For four decades, the Chinese government has restricted family size.Peter Charlesworth/LightRocket via Getty Images

A child’s death is devastating to all parents. But for Chinese parents, losing an only child can add financial ruin to emotional devastation.

That’s one conclusion of a research project on parental grief I’ve...