Tulasi Srinivas, Emerson College If ever there was a year to toast drawing to an end, it’s 2020. Over the festive period, people around the world will be raising a glass to better times ahead. Accompanying sighs of relief will likely be the subtle tinkling of ice. In researching a book on the social, medical […]
The Conversation
Posted inArts & Culture
What Kwanzaa means for Black Americans
Frank Dobson, Vanderbilt University On Dec. 26, millions throughout the world’s African community will start weeklong celebrations of Kwanzaa. There will be daily ceremonies with food, decorations and other cultural objects, such as the kinara, which holds seven candles. At many Kwanzaa ceremonies, there is also African drumming and dancing. It is a time of […]
Posted inArts & Culture
How holiday cards help us cope with a not-so-merry year, according to a professor of comedy
Matthew McMahan, Emerson College The first Christmas card was, perhaps predictably, one of good cheer. The concept is commonly credited to Sir Henry Cole, the founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. To spare himself the stress of responding to the all-too-many Christmas letters he received from friends, Cole commissioned an artist to […]
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Congress lifts long-standing ban on Pell grants to people in prison
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 […]
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In ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ and beyond, chess holds up a mirror to life
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. […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Cicely was young, Black and enslaved – her death during an epidemic in 1714 has lessons that resonate in today’s pandemic
Nicole S Maskiell, University of South Carolina What I believe to be the oldest surviving gravestone for a Black person in the Americas memorializes an enslaved teenager named Cicely. Cicely’s body is interred across from Harvard’s Johnston Gate in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She died in 1714 during a measles epidemic brought to the college by a […]
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As CDC warns against Thanksgiving travel, here are a dozen more things you can do to help stop COVID-19
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 […]
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Why masks belong at your Thanksgiving gathering and how to properly clean and wear them
Jason Farley, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing COVID-19 has disrupted our daily lives, and it is poised to completely disrupt the holiday season. As people make holiday plans and think about ways to reduce the risks to their loved ones, a strategy is essential. Face masks are a crucial part of that strategy, and […]
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How mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna work, why they’re a breakthrough and why they need to be kept so cold
Sanjay Mishra, Vanderbilt University As the weather cools, the number of infections of the COVID-19 pandemic are rising sharply. Hamstrung by pandemic fatigue, economic constraints and political discord, public health officials have struggled to control the surging pandemic. But now, a rush of interim analyses from pharmaceutical companies Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have spurred optimism that […]
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No, soaring COVID-19 cases are not due to more testing – they show a surging pandemic
Zoë McLaren, University of Maryland, Baltimore County COVID-19 cases are surging upward around the U.S., reaching 100,000 daily cases for the first time on Nov. 4 and 150,000 only eight days later. Some believe this increase in reported is a result of increases in testing, as more than 1.5 million tests are performed every day […]
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Nearly two-thirds of older Black Americans can’t afford to live alone without help – and it’s even tougher for Latinos
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 […]
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3 ways a 6-3 Supreme Court would be different
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 […]
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The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season is so intense, it just ran out of storm names – and then two more storms formed
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 […]
Posted inNews, People & Profiles
Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped shape the modern era of women’s rights – even before she went on the Supreme Court
Jonathan Entin, Case Western Reserve University Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, the Supreme Court announced. Chief Justice John Roberts said in a statement that “Our nation has lost a jurist of historic stature.” Even before her appointment, she had reshaped American law. When he nominated Ginsburg to the Supreme Court, President Bill Clinton […]
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COVID-19 vaccines: Open source licensing could keep Big Pharma from making huge profits off taxpayer-funded research
Charles M Schweik, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell An international, multi-billion-dollar race is underway to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, and progress is moving at record speed, but with nationalistic, competitive undertones. If and when an effective vaccine is invented, its production will require an unprecedented effort to vaccinate people […]
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Keeping coronavirus vaccines at subzero temperatures during distribution will be hard, but likely key to ending pandemic
Anna Nagurney, University of Massachusetts Amherst Just like a fresh piece of fish, vaccines are highly perishable products and must be kept at very cold, specific temperatures. The majority of COVID-19 vaccines under development – like the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines – are new RNA-based vaccines. If they get too warm or too cold they […]
Posted inCity & Government, News
Who formally declares the winner of the U.S. presidential election?
Amy Dacey, American University With the U.S. presidential election rapidly approaching at a time of extraordinary political and social disruption, the possibility of an unclear or contested result is coming under scrutiny. Unlike many other countries, where the president or prime minister is chosen by direct popular vote, in the U.S., a candidate may win […]
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6 ways mail-in ballots are protected from fraud
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 […]
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Economic hardship from COVID-19 will hit minority seniors the most
Marc Cohen, University of Massachusetts Boston and Jane Tavares, University of Massachusetts Boston For Americans 60 and older, COVID-19 is widespread and deadly. Its economic impact could also be devastating. With a recession fast developing, much of the attention on the downturn focuses on working-age adults, but many older Americans – with less time to […]
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Kids are bigger coronavirus spreaders than many doctors realized – here’s how schools can lower the risk
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 […]
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A rush is on to mine the deep seabed, with effects on ocean life that aren’t well understood
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 […]
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Stella Immanuel’s theories about the relationship between demons, illness and sex have a long history
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 […]
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Black deaths matter: The centuries-old struggle to memorialize slaves and victims of racism
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 […]
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5 COVID-19 myths politicians have repeated that just aren’t true
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 […]
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Why are so many people lighting off fireworks?
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 […]