The Conversation

The lasting appeal of homeschooling: What motivated families to continue after schools reopened post-pandemic

Written by Mark E. Wildmon, Assistant Professor of School Psychology, Mississippi State University

A mother leads her 7- and 9-year-old sons in a morning lesson during homeschool in Buffalo, Minn., in September 2023. Nicole Neri for The Washington Post via Getty Images

When schools abruptly closed their doors at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, millions of students unexpectedly started learning at home, with or without...

AI is showing up in court cases – but only a human jury can grapple with the moral weight of assessing guilt

Written by Sonali Chakravarti, Professor of Government, Wesleyan University

Human jurors need to wrestle with doubt – and that struggle gives trials their moral legitimacy. Pitiphothivichit/iStock via Getty Images Plus

“Mercy,” a film released in January 2026, depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in the near future: a city riddled with violence, homelessness and civic disorder. California’s response is...

Foreign aid’s hidden benefit: Recipients are more likely to pay the generosity forward

Written by JB Bae, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Colorado State University

South Korean soldiers oversee the arrival of a batch of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccines donated by the U.S. government on June 5, 2021.Kim Hong-Ji/Getty Images

Foreign aid may not improve how recipients view donor countries – but it can set off a chain of goodwill that spreads far beyond the original act of giving.

That...

Galaxies of life are collecting dust in museums – digitizing microscope slides can uncover billions of fossils for natural history

Written by Ingrid C. Romero, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

This screenshot juxtaposes a fossil of stem from the plant _Archaeopitys eastmanii_ (bottom) and a close-up of its vascular system (top). The specimen was found in Kentucky and is over 350 million years old.Ingrid C. Romero, CC BY-SA

Approximately 148 million: That’s the number of specimens – including plants, animals, minerals and...

Financial strain, lockdowns and fear of infection during disease outbreaks magnify violence against women and girls − new research

Written by Lindsay Stark, Professor of Public Health, Washington University in St. Louis

Multiple factors during an outbreak interact to raise the risk of exploitation and violence. Clovera/iStock via Getty Images

When the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, another crisis quietly grew behind closed doors. Reports from around the globe suggested that violence against women and girls was increasing. Governments,...

In rural Appalachia, abortion pill offers reproductive choice and privacy − but police may see a crime

Written by Gretchen E. Ely, Professor of Social Welfare, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)

A 35-year-old Kentucky woman was arrested in late 2025, accused of taking abortion pills that she ordered online.

The gestational age and status of the pregnancy is unknown. But Kentucky, like the majority of Southern states that contain Appalachian counties, has a complete abortion ban.

Mifepristone is a medication approved by the Food and Drug...

How workplace stress hijacks the nervous system to cause headaches − and a neurologist’s guide to managing them

Written by Danielle Wilhour, Assistant Professor of Neurology, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Ongoing stress can send the nervous system into a state of heightened sensitivity.Sean Gladwell/Moment via Getty Images

Many people finish the workday not just tired but wired. Their mind keeps racing, their body feels tense, and even in moments that should be restful they feel a lingering sense of urgency. Conversations replay in their mind,...

Pollen allergies are brutal this year – a doctor explains why, and how to find relief

Written by Levi Keller, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Sneezing, wheezing ... it's allergy season.Science Photo Library/Getty Images

Spring means beautiful flowers, fragrant lilacs – and lots of tree pollen coating cars and setting off sneezing, wheezing and headaches.

As an allergist and immunologist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, I help patients with seasonal allergies and...

As government privatization efforts grow, lawsuits against federal contractors get more difficult

Written by Steph Tai, Professor of Law and Associate Dean, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Chevron's oil production activities in coastal Louisiana are in a long-standing legal dispute.Mario Tama/Getty Images

The question of which court should hear a case isn’t always as easy as it might seem – and the answer can sometimes make a difference in the potential outcome. For instance, in 2013, the government of Plaquemines Parish,...

Photographic memory is a myth – here’s what research really says about remembering

Written by Gabrielle Principe, Professor of Psychology, College of Charleston

Your memory is not a camera.F.J. Jimenez/Moment via Getty Images

Hollywood loves a superpower. Not all involve capes or cosmic rays. Some are cognitive: characters who can remember everything. In movies and on TV, viewers repeatedly encounter those with extraordinary minds who glance once at a page, a room or a face – and later recreate every...