Google Earth Philip M. Orton, Stevens Institute of Technology and Stefan Talke, California Polytechnic State University Centuries ago, estuaries around the world were teeming with birds and turbulent with schools of fish, their marshlands and endless tracts of channels melting into the gray-blue horizon. Fast-forward to today, and in estuaries such as New York Harbor, […]
The Conversation
Posted inCity & Government
Offshore wind farms connected by an underwater power grid for transmission could revolutionize how the East Coast gets its electricity
Tyler Hansen, Dartmouth College; Abraham Silverman, Johns Hopkins University; Elizabeth J. Wilson, Dartmouth College, and Erin Baker, UMass Amherst Strong offshore winds have the potential to supply coastlines with massive, consistent flows of clean electricity. One study estimates offshore wind farms could meet 11 times the projected global electricity demand in 2040. The U.S. East […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Extreme heat waves broiling the US in 2024 aren’t normal: How climate change is heating up weather around the world
Mathew Barlow, UMass Lowell and Jeffrey Basara, UMass Lowell Less than a month into summer 2024, the vast majority of the U.S. population has already experienced an extreme heat wave. Millions of people were under heat warnings across the western U.S. in early July or sweating through humid heat in the East. Death Valley hit […]
Posted inHistory
Juneteenth celebrates just one of the United States’ 20 emancipation days – and the history of how emancipated people were kept unfree needs to be remembered, too
Kris Manjapra, Tufts University The actual day was June 19, 1865, and it was the Black dockworkers in Galveston, Texas, who first heard the word that freedom for the enslaved had come. There were speeches, sermons and shared meals, mostly held at Black churches, the safest places to have such celebrations. The perils of unjust […]
Posted inNews
The warming ocean is leaving coastal economies in hot water
Charles Colgan, Middlebury Institute of International Studies Ocean-related tourism and recreation supports more than 320,000 jobs and US$13.5 billion in goods and services in Florida. But a swim in the ocean became much less attractive in the summer of 2023, when the water temperatures off Miami reached as high as 101 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 Celsius). […]
Posted inNews
Taylor Swift is ready for her history to be rewritten
Elizabeth Vlossak, Brock University Taylor Swift is famous for writing her life (and, most notoriously, her ex-boyfriends) into her music. But she is also fascinated by history, and regularly incorporates historic figures, places and events into her songs. An avid reader since early childhood, Swift has long drawn inspiration from women of the past (both […]
Posted inNews
Trump found guilty: 5 key aspects of the trial explained by a law professor
Gabriel J. Chin, University of California, Davis After the May 30, 2024, conviction of former President Donald Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in New York, what comes next? Trump’s legal team will likely appeal the verdict. “We will fight for our Constitution,” Trump said following the jury’s announcement. “This is long […]
Posted inNews
Black holes are mysterious, yet also deceptively simple − a new space mission may help physicists answer hairy questions about these astronomical objects
By Gaurav Khanna, Professor of Physics at the University of Rhode Island Physicists consider black holes one of the most mysterious objects that exist. Ironically, they’re also considered one of the simplest. For years, physicists like me have been looking to prove that black holes are more complex than they seem. And a newly approved […]
Posted inNews
Why US offshore wind power is struggling – the good, the bad and the opportunity
Christopher Niezrecki, UMass Lowell America’s first large-scale offshore wind farms began sending power to the Northeast in early 2024, but a wave of wind farm project cancellations and rising costs have left many people with doubts about the industry’s future in the U.S. Several big hitters, including Ørsted, Equinor, BP and Avangrid, have canceled contracts […]
Posted inNews
Biden’s labor report card: Historian gives ‘Union Joe’ a higher grade than any president since FDR
Erik Loomis, University of Rhode Island Joe Biden has pledged repeatedly to go further than any of his predecessors with his support for U.S. labor rights. “I intend to be the most pro-union president leading the most pro-union administration in American history,” Biden said at a White House meeting in September 2021 that brought together […]
Posted inNews
La Niña is coming, raising the chances of a dangerous Atlantic hurricane season – an atmospheric scientist explains this climate phenomenon
Pedro DiNezio, University of Colorado Boulder One of the big contributors to the record-breaking global temperatures over the past year – El Niño – is nearly gone, and its opposite, La Niña, is on the way. Whether that’s a relief or not depends in part on where you live. Above-normal temperatures are still forecast across […]
Posted inNews
Gaza campus protests: why understanding 1960s student demonstrations and police reaction is relevant today
Sinead McEneaney, The Open University For anybody interested in the history of the 1960s, the ongoing protests at US universities have a peculiar resonance. In the past weeks, riot police have entered several college campuses at the behest of administrators to break up unauthorised encampments of students protesting the war in Gaza and calling on […]
Posted inNews
How trains linked rival port cities along the US East Coast into a cultural and economic megalopolis
David Alff, University at Buffalo The Northeast corridor is America’s busiest rail line. Each day, its trains deliver 800,000 passengers to Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington and points in between. The Northeast corridor is also a name for the place those trains serve: the coastal plain stretching from Virginia to Massachusetts, where over 17% of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
In 1877, a stained-glass window depicted Jesus as Black for the first time − a scholar of visual images unpacks its history and significance
Virginia Raguin, College of the Holy Cross A stained-glass window, donated in 1877 to a church in Rhode Island, shows Jesus as a dark-skinned man. Most Western depictions portrayed him as a European, with light skin and sometimes even with blue eyes. A Black Jesus at this time was unknown. Now in the Memphis Brooks […]
Posted inNews
Looking to photograph a solar eclipse with your smartphone? Try these features and think about creative angles
Douglas Goodwin, Scripps College As the Moon casts its shadow across the Earth during the upcoming solar eclipse, cameras of all kinds will turn skyward. While professional photographers with specialized equipment will aim to capture the perfect shot, others will reach for their smartphones to immortalize this moment. While smartphone cameras can’t take a great […]
Posted inNews
What causes earthquakes in the Northeast, like the magnitude 4.8 that shook New Jersey? A geoscientist explains
Gary Solar, Buffalo State, The State University of New York It’s rare to feel earthquakes in the U.S. Northeast, so the magnitude 4.8 earthquake in New Jersey that shook buildings in New York City and was felt from Maryland to Boston on April 5, 2024, drew a lot of questions. It was one of the […]
Posted inNews
‘Jaws’ portrayed sharks as monsters 50 years ago, but it also inspired a generation of shark scientists
Gavin Naylor, University of Florida Human fear of sharks has deep roots. Written works and art from the ancient world contain references to sharks preying on sailors as early as the eighth century B.C.E. Relayed back to land, stories about shark encounters have been embellished and amplified. Together with the fact that from time to […]
Posted inNews
2023’s billion-dollar disasters list shattered the US record with 28 big weather and climate disasters amid Earth’s hottest year on record
Shuang-Ye Wu, University of Dayton National weather analysts released their 2023 billion-dollar disasters list on Jan. 9, just as 2024 was getting off to a ferocious start. A blizzard was sweeping across across the Plains and Midwest, and the South and East faced flood risks from extreme downpours. The U.S. set an unwelcome record for […]
Posted inArts & Culture
2 colonists had similar identities – but one felt compelled to remain loyal, the other to rebel
Abby Chandler, UMass Lowell Through the early 1750s, two men in the British colony of Rhode Island – Martin Howard and Stephen Hopkins – had similar backgrounds and led strikingly similar lives. They knew each other, were both supporters of libraries with successful legal careers, and were politically active. Their writings in the 1760s demonstrate […]
Posted inArts & Culture
50 years later, ‘The Exorcist’ continues to possess Hollywood’s imagination, reflecting our obsession with evil
Regina Hansen, Boston University When the “The Exorcist” premiered 50 years ago, in December 1973, some theatergoers fainted or broke down in tears. A few even vomited. The film, which cast a young Linda Blair as a girl claiming to be possessed by the devil, was an almost instant success, with moviegoers waiting in line […]
Posted inArts & Culture
New England stone walls lie at the intersection of history, archaeology, ecology and geoscience, and deserve a science of their own
Robert M. Thorson, University of Connecticut The abandoned fieldstone walls of New England are every bit as iconic to the region as lobster pots, town greens, sap buckets and fall foliage. They seem to be everywhere – a latticework of dry, lichen-crusted stone ridges separating a patchwork of otherwise moist soils. Stone walls can be […]
Posted inNews
A Halloween party in Boston turned ugly when a gang hurled antisemitic slurs and attacked Jewish teenagers
Andrew Sperling, American University On a chilly Halloween night in late October 1950, dozens of Jewish teenagers and their friends gathered for merriment in the Boston neighborhood of Dorchester at the Hecht House, a Jewish community center that provided job training and hosted social events. While there, they celebrated the holiday with dancing, cake and […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Indigenous Peoples Day offers a reminder of Native American history − including the scalping they endured at the hands of Colonists
The first encounters between European settlers and Native Americans are captured on a wood engraving in this 1888 image. DigitalVision Vectors Christoph Strobel, UMass Lowell For the third year, the United States will officially observe Columbus Day alongside Indigenous Peoples Day on Oct. 9, 2023. In 2021, the Biden administration declared the second Monday in […]
Posted inNews
Sea glass, a treasure formed from trash, is on the decline as single-use plastic takes over
Lori Weeden, UMass Lowell When you stroll along a beach, you may look down and spot colorful bits of worn glass mixed in with the sand. But the little treasures you’ve found actually began as discarded trash. As an environmental science professor, I find these gifts from the sea particularly interesting. I have analyzed sand […]
Posted inNews
CDC greenlights two updated COVID-19 vaccines, but how will they fare against the latest variants? 5 questions answered
By Prakash Nagarkatti, University of South Carolina and Mitzi Nagarkatti, University of South Carolina On Sept. 12, 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the newly formulated COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans ages 6 months and up, hours after its expert advisory committee voted 13 to 1 in favor of recommending the vaccines. […]