The Conversation

Why are so many statues naked? An art historian explains this tradition’s ancient roots

Written by Anna Swartwood House, Associate Professor of Art History, University of South Carolina

Artists have represented human bodies without clothes for a very long time.Metropolitan Museum of Art, CC BY

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

Why are so many statues naked? – Artie, age 12, Astoria, New York

We are all...

What decades of research reveal about involuntary substance use treatment – and why evidence points elsewhere

Written by Susan E. Collins, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington

Since President Donald Trump issued a July 2025 executive order aimed at “ending crime and disorder on America’s streets,” national attention has increasingly focused on involuntary treatment as a response to visible homelessness and drug use.

A few months later, in September 2025, officials in Utah announced plans for a 16-acre...

Free 10-minute online programs aimed at overcoming depression led to real improvements – new research

Written by Benjamin Kaveladze, Postdoctoral Fellow in Mental Health Resources, Dartmouth College

Free short, easily accessible programs could allow many more people to access mental health treatments.Elena Kalinicheva/iStock via Getty Images Plus

A well-designed 10-minute online exercise can spark small reductions in depression. That’s the key finding of my team’s paper, published in Nature Human Behaviour.

Many people believe that...

The nation is missing millions of voters due to lack of rights for former felons

Written by Kevin B. Smith, Professor of Political Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Javon Jackson, center, was able to register to vote following passage of a 2019 Nevada law that restored voting rights to formerly incarcerated individuals.AP Photo/John Locher

If you gathered every American with a prison record into one contiguous territory and admitted it to the union, you would create the 12th-largest state. It would be home to a...

Failure of US-Iran talks was all too predictable — but turning to military strikes creates dangerous unknowns

Written by Nina Srinivasan Rathbun, Professor of International Relations, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto; USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

When it came to U.S.-Iran talks, the writing was on the wall.Mohammadali Najib/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Three rounds of nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran failed to persuade President Donald Trump that a solution to the two countries’ nuclear impasse lay in diplomacy, rather than military action. A perceived lack of...

Kansas revoked transgender people’s IDs overnight – researchers anticipate cascading health and social consequences

Written by Jae A. Puckett, Associate Professor of Psychology, Michigan State University

Anti-trans bills effectively restrict transgender people's ability to participate fully in society.AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson

The number of bills directly targeting and undermining the existing legal rights of transgender and nonbinary people in the U.S. has been escalating, with sharp increases since 2021 and with each consecutive year....

Despite massive US attack and death of ayatollah, regime change in Iran is unlikely

Written by Donald Heflin, Executive Director of the Edward R. Murrow Center and Senior Fellow of Diplomatic Practice, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

A group of demonstrators in Tehran wave Iranian flags in support of the government on Feb. 28, 2026AP Photo/Vahid Salemi

After the largest buildup of U.S. warships and aircraft in the Middle East in decades, American and Israeli military forces launched a massive assault on Iran on Feb. 28, 2026.

President Donald Trump has called the attacks “m...

Iran will respond to US-Israeli strikes as existential threats to the regime – because they are

Written by Javed Ali, Associate Professor of Practice of Public Policy, University of Michigan

A plume of smoke rises above Tehran on Feb. 28, 2026.AFP via Getty Images

After U.S. and Israeli missiles struck Iran’s nuclear sites in June 2025, Tehran responded with a limited attack on the American airbase in Qatar. Five years before that, a U.S. drone strike against Qasem Soleimani, head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps...

Cuba’s speedboat shootout recalls long history of exile groups engaged in covert ops aimed at regime change

Written by William M. LeoGrande, Professor of Government, American University School of Public Affairs

Cuban coast guard ships docked at the port of Havana on Feb. 25, 2026.Adalberto Roque/ AFP via Getty Images

A boat carrying 10 heavily armed men entered Cuban territorial waters on Feb. 25, 2026, intent, according to officials in Havana, on infiltrating the island nation and undermining the communist government through acts of sabotage and...

Drug company ads are easy to blame for misleading patients and raising costs, but research shows they do help patients get needed treatment

Written by Anna Chorniy, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Institute for Humane Studies

The United States is one of just two countries where drugmakers can advertise directly to patients.BrianAJackson/iStock via Getty Images

It’s a familiar experience for many Americans: You’re watching your favorite show and suddenly you’re ambushed by an ad for a drug whose name sounds like a Wi-Fi password, before a relentlessly...