The Conversation

Russ Schumacher, Colorado State University Record downpours from Hurricane Ida overwhelmed cities across the Northeast on Sept. 1, 2021, hitting some with more than 3 inches of rain an hour. Water poured into subway stations in New York City, and streets flooded up to the rooftops of cars in Philadelphia. The storm had already wreaked […]

Galia Cohen, Tarleton State University Police academies provide little training in the kinds of skills necessary to meet officers’ growing public service role, according to my research. Highly publicized cases of police violence – such as the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri – often […]

Erin Baker, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Matthew Lackner, University of Massachusetts Amherst The United States’ offshore wind industry is tiny, with just seven wind turbines operating off Rhode Island and Virginia. The few attempts to build large-scale wind farms like Europe’s have run into long delays, but that may be about to change. The […]

Jacqueline McGlade, UCL and Philip Landrigan, Boston College Ocean pollution is widespread, worsening, and poses a clear and present danger to human health and wellbeing. But the extent of this danger has not been widely comprehended – until now. Our recent study provides the first comprehensive assessment of the impacts of ocean pollution on human […]

Andrea Cantora, University of Baltimore When Congress decided in 1994 to ban federal student aid for people behind bars, it was part of a wider political agenda to “get tough on crime” – even though crime rates had begun to fall in the 1990s. The number of people behind bars grew, but, without access to […]

Story by Jenny Adams, University of Massachusetts Amherst In the closing sequence of “The Queen’s Gambit,” the chess-playing heroine, Beth Harmon, defeats her archrival Vasily Borgov at the Moscow Invitational. The next day she impulsively skips her flight home to join a group of adoring chess players in what appears to be Moscow’s famous Sokolniki Park. […]

Pamela M. Aaltonen, Purdue University As Americans prepare for the first Thanksgiving in the time of the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a stark warning a week before the big day: Don’t travel. No over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s condo. No flying to a beach gathering with […]

Jan Mutchler, University of Massachusetts Boston Older Americans who want to live independently face serious economic challenges. Half who live alone don’t have enough income to afford even a bare-bones budget in their home communities, and nearly 1 in 4 couples face the same problem. Those numbers add up to at least 11 million older […]

Morgan Marietta, University of Massachusetts Lowell If the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is replaced this year, the Supreme Court will become something the country has not seen since the justices became a dominant force in American cultural life after World War II: a decidedly conservative court. A court with a 6-3 conservative majority would […]

Kimberly Wood, Mississippi State University Here’s how active this year’s Atlantic hurricane season has been: When Tropical Storm Wilfred formed on Sept. 18, the National Hurricane Center exhausted its list of storm names for only the second time since naming began in 1950. Within hours, two more storm had formed – now known as Alpha […]

Charlotte Hill, University of California, Berkeley and Jake Grumbach, University of Washington Voter fraud is very rare, whether people vote in person or by mail. That much is clear from a large body of research. One of us is a political scientist at the University of Washington, and the other is a former elections commissioner […]

Phyllis Sharps and Lucine Francis The first U.S. schools have reopened with in-person classes, and they are already setting off alarm bells about how quickly the coronavirus can spread. Georgia’s Cherokee County School District, north of Atlanta, had over 100 confirmed COVID-19 cases by the end of its second week of classes, and more than […]

Elizabeth M. De Santo, Franklin & Marshall College; Elizabeth Mendenhall, University of Rhode Island, and Elizabeth Nyman, Texas A&M University Mining the ocean floor for submerged minerals is a little-known, experimental industry. But soon it will take place on the deep seabed, which belongs to everyone, according to international law. Seabed mining for valuable materials […]

Brandon W. Hawk, Rhode Island College President Donald Trump has a new favorite doctor. On July 27, the president and his son Donald Trump, Jr. tweeted a viral video featuring Dr. Stella Immanuel, in which the Houston pediatrician rejected the effectiveness of wearing face masks for preventing the spread of COVID-19 and promoted hydroxychloroquine to […]

Vicki Daniel, Case Western Reserve University In an open lot just a block or so from where George Floyd was killed while being detained by officers, 100 plastic headstones were carefully placed. Created by artists Anna Barber and Connor Wright, the “Say Their Names Cemetery” sprung up in south Minneapolis in early June, as protests […]

Geoffrey Joyce, University of Southern California The number of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. has jumped to around 50,000 a day, and the virus has killed more than 130,000 Americans. Yet, I still hear myths about the infection that has created the worst public health crisis in America in a century. The purveyors of […]

Jay L. Zagorsky, Boston University The number of fireworks being lit off at night is out of control this year. While people often light off fireworks close to the Fourth of July, this year fireworks have been lit in large numbers starting weeks earlier. New York City had a 4,000% increase in fireworks complaints in […]

Melissa Hawkins, American University After sustained declines in the number of COVID-19 cases over recent months, restrictions are starting to ease across the United States. Numbers of new cases are falling or stable at low numbers in some states, but they are surging in many others. Overall, the U.S. is experiencing a sharp increase in […]

Heidi Peltier, Boston University Earlier this month, President Trump signed an executive order making it easier for pipeline projects and other oil and gas development to progress, claiming environmental regulations cause economic burdens and cost jobs. A more effective way to stimulate the economy and protect the environment, my work suggests, is to pass legislation […]

Jasmine Kerrissey, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Clare Hammonds, University of Massachusetts Amherst Low-wage essential workers are more likely to face dangerous working conditions and food insecurity than high-wage workers, even more so during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research provides some of the first data on the safety of essential workers during the pandemic. Our […]

Jamie Rowen, University of Massachusetts Amherst As the nation takes a day to memorialize its military dead, those who are living are facing a deadly risk that has nothing to do with war or conflict: the coronavirus. Different groups face different degrees of danger from the pandemic, from the elderly who are experiencing deadly outbreaks […]

Siqian Shen, University of Michigan As states develop plans to restart their economies, the big fear is that coronavirus cases will surge again. To keep the pandemic under control, strategic testing systems will be needed, and they will need to be scaled up fast. But how many people should be tested? Who should be tested? […]

Maria Ivanova, University of Massachusetts Boston The first Earth Day protests, which took place on April 22, 1970 brought 20 million Americans – 10% of the U.S. population at the time – into the streets. Recognizing the power of this growing movement, President Richard Nixon and Congress responded by creating the Environmental Protection Agency and […]

Brian Thiede, Pennsylvania State University; David L. Brown, Cornell University; Jaclyn Butler, Pennsylvania State University, and Leif Jensen, Pennsylvania State University Income inequality has increased dramatically in the United States over recent decades, surpassing its previous peak in the 1920s. In 2016, the average income among the bottom 24.9 million households was US$21,000. Meanwhile, the […]