The Conversation

Venezuela’s oil industry has flailed under government control – Mexico and Brazil have had more success with nationalizing

Written by Skip York, Nonresident Fellow in Energy and Global Oil, Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University

The Venezuelan state-run oil company is contending with aging infrastructure.Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post via Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump has ignited a contentious debate over who has the right to control Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Speaking on Jan. 3, 2026, after the U.S. military seized Venezuelan President...

CPR on TV is often inaccurate – but watching characters jump to the rescue can still save real lives

Written by Beth Hoffman, Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, University of Pittsburgh

You probably don't want to base your CPR technique on 'The Office.'The Office/NBC via YouTube

Television characters who experience cardiac arrest outside a hospital are more likely to receive CPR than people in real life. But the CPR on these shows often depicts outdated practices and inaccuracies about who is most likely to experience cardiac...

NASA’s Pandora telescope will study stars in detail to learn about the exoplanets orbiting them

Written by Daniel Apai, Associate Dean for Research and Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences, University of Arizona

A new NASA mission will study exoplanets around distant stars. European Space Agency, CC BY-SA

On Jan. 11, 2026, I watched anxiously at the tightly controlled Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as an awe-inspiring SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried NASA’s new exoplanet telescope, Pandora, into orbit.

Exoplanets are worlds that orbit other...

Damn the torpedoes! Trump ditches a crucial climate treaty as he moves to dismantle America’s climate protections

Written by Gary W. Yohe, Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Wesleyan University

Severe storms triggered flooding across the central and eastern U.S. in April 2025, including in Kentucky's capital, Frankfort.Leandro Lozada/AFP via Getty Images

On Jan. 7, 2026, President Donald Trump declared that he would officially pull the United States out of the world’s most important global treaty for combating climate change. He...

Damn the torpedoes! Trump ditches a crucial climate treaty in latest move to dismantle America’s climate protections

Written by Gary W. Yohe, Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, Wesleyan University

Severe storms triggered flooding across the central and eastern U.S. in April 2025, including in Kentucky's capital, Frankfort.Leandro Lozada/AFP via Getty Images

On Jan. 7, 2026, President Donald Trump declared that he would officially pull the United States out of the world’s most important global treaty for combating climate change. He...

George Washington’s foreign policy was built on respect for other nations and patient consideration of future burdens

Written by Maurizio Valsania, Professor of American History, Università di Torino

George Washington believed restraint was the truest measure of American national interest.Elizabeth Fernandez/Getty Images

Foreign policy is usually discussed as a matter of national interests – oil flows, borders, treaties, fleets. But there is a problem: “national interest” is an inherently ambiguous phrase. Although it is often...

Why the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s closure exposes a growing threat to democracy

Written by Victor Pickard, C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy, University of Pennsylvania

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced it will shut down on May 3.AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced on Jan. 7, 2026, that it will cease all operations effective May 3. The daily newspaper, founded in 1786, has been the city’s paper of record for nearly a century and is one of the oldest newspapers in the country.

Bloc...

The 6-7 craze offered a brief window into the hidden world of children

Written by Rebekah Willett, Professor in the Information School, University of Wisconsin-Madison

There's a long history of children revising, adapting and remixing language and games.Bert Hardy/Picture Post/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Many adults are breathing a sigh of relief as the 6-7 meme fades away as one of the biggest kid-led global fads of 2025.

In case you managed to miss it, 6-7 is a slang term – spoken aloud as “six...

Meth inflames and stimulates your brain through similar pathways – new research offers potential avenue to treat meth addiction

Written by Habibeh Khoshbouei, Professor of Neuroscience, University of Florida

Meth, also known as ice, is as addictive as it is damaging.FlashMovie/iStock via Getty Images Plus

Methamphetamine doesn’t just spike levels of the pleasure-inducing hormone dopamine in the reward pathways of the brain – it also provokes damaging brain inflammation through similar mechanisms.

Meth is addictive because it increases...

‘Shared decision-making’ for childhood vaccines sounds empowering – but it may mean less access for families already stretched thin

Written by Y. Tony Yang, Endowed Professor of Health Policy and Associate Dean, George Washington University

Pediatricians often spend at least 10 minutes of an already-short visit discussing vaccines. Heather Hazzan, SELF Magazine

When federal health officials announced on Jan. 5, 2026, that they were taking six out of 17 vaccines off the childhood immunization schedule, they argued that the move would give parents and caregivers more choice.

Instead of...