The Conversation

Chasing the flame: Does media coverage of wildfires probe deeply enough?

Written by Adrianne Kroepsch, Assistant Professor, Division of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Colorado School of Mines

Trees burn in the High Park wildfire near Fort Collins, Colorado, June 17, 2012.USFS, CC BY

It is the dry season in western states, which means that large swaths of land are burning or smoldering and are likely to remain that way until the snows arrive. The 2017 wildfire year started earlier and has scorched more acreage than normal. It is also far...

How Trump could undermine the US solar boom

Written by Llewelyn Hughes, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Australian National University

Tumbling prices for solar energy have helped stoke demand among U.S. homeowners, businesses and utilities for electricity powered by the sun. But that could soon change.

President Donald Trump – whose proposed 2018 budget would slash support for alternative energy – may get a new opportunity to undermine the solar power market by...

Study: More, and more diverse, US college students voted in 2016

Written by Nancy Thomas, Director of the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, Tufts University

Whether motivated by support for particular policies or enthusiasm – or ire – toward the candidates, the 2016 election captured the attention of U.S. college and university students nationwide.

That’s the finding of a new study of students at more than 1,000 U.S. institutions released by the Institute for Democracy and Higher...

Comics captured America's growing ambivalence about the Vietnam War

Written by Cathy Schlund-Vials, Professor of English and Asian American Studies, University of Connecticut

A Panel from the Marvel Comics series 'The 'Nam.'Marvel Comics

In America’s imagination, the Vietnam War is not so much celebrated as it is assiduously contemplated. This inward-looking approach is reflected in films like “The Deer Hunter” and “Apocalypse Now,” best-selling novels and popular memoirs that dwell on the...

'Medicare for all' could be cheaper than you think

Written by Gerald Friedman, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Some of the original advocates for Medicare in the 1960s hoped to eventually extend it to everyone.AP Photo

Public support for single-payer health care has been rising in recent months amid failed Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

That’s perhaps why Sen. Bernie Sanders on September 13 introduced a new version of...

The South Vietnamese who fled the fall of Saigon -- and those who returned

Written by Jana Lipman, Associate Professor of History, Tulane University

Vietnamese at a camp in Guam seeking repatriation, September 1975.National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 319, Box 19, declassification number 984082, CC BY

More than 120,000 people fled Vietnam after the North Vietnamese captured Saigon on April 30, 1975.

This chaotic evacuation has been captured in iconic photos, documentary...

Why it's offensive to offer a lamb dinner to the Hindu god Ganesha

Written by Jeffery D. Long, Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College

The Hindu god Ganesha.Anant Nath Sharma, CC BY-NC-ND

A recent ad from the meat industry in Australia, seeking to promote lamb as a food that people from a wide range of religious backgrounds can consume, has given offense to many Hindus in Australia and internationally.

In Australia, the ad prompted a complaint by the High Commission of India. In the...

Saving amphibians from a deadly fungus means acting without knowing all the answers

Written by Brittany A. Mosher, Postdoctoral Researcher, Colorado State University

A male boreal toad waits for opportunities to mate near a Colorado mountain lake. Brittany Mosher, CC BY-ND

The calls of frogs on warm nights in the spring are a welcome sound, telling listeners that the seasons are changing and summer is coming. Today, however, ponds that once echoed with the chirps, chuckles and calls of frogs and toads are...

How the latest effort to repeal Obamacare would affect millions

Written by Simon Haeder, Assistant Professor of Political Science, West Virginia University

From left, Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., hold a press conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017. AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

At the end of July, the nation held its collective breath as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) looked poised...

Flood insurance is broken. Here are some ways to fix it

Written by Robert W. Klein, Director, Center for RMI Research, Associate Professor, Risk Management and Insurance, Georgia State University

Immokalee, Florida sustained heavy damage during Hurricane Irma. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

Hundreds of thousands of Americans whose homes were damaged or destroyed by flooding from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma don’t know how they will pay for repairs, rebuilding or replacement. Likewise, the nation as a whole needs a plan for fixing the deeply...