The Conversation

Synthetic sex in yeast promises safer medicines for people

Written by Ian Haydon, Doctoral Student in Biochemistry, University of Washington

What can mating yeast tell us about new drugs?Conor Lawless, CC BY

Our old friend Saccharomyces cerevisiae – the yeast that’s helped people bake bread and brew beer for millennia – has just had its sex life upgraded.

Bioengineers at the University of Washington have reprogrammed the mating habits of this single-celled organism,...

What Chinese philosophers can teach us about dealing with our own grief

Written by Alexus McLeod, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Asian/Asian American Studies, University of Connecticut

Confucius sculpture, Nanjing, China.Kevinsmithnyc, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

November 2 is All Souls’ Day, when many Christians honor the dead. As much as we all know about the inevitability of death, we are often unable to deal with the loss of a loved one.

Our modern-day worldview could also make us believe that loss is something we...

How Lincoln's embrace of embalming birthed the American funeral industry

Written by Brian Walsh, Assistant Professor of Communications, Elon University

An illustrated depiction of a scene of Lincoln lying in state.Internet Archive Book Images

If you died 200 years ago in America, your family would wash and dress your body and place it in a bed surrounded by candles to dampen the smell of decomposition.

Your immediate family and friends would visit your house over the course of the next week, few...

How has air quality been affected by the US fracking boom?

Written by Gunnar W. Schade, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University

Fracking has led to an increase in truck traffic, one of the reasons for worsening trends on air quality in areas with oil and gas drilling.AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

Urban air pollution in the U.S. has been decreasing near continuously since the 1970s.

Federal regulations, notably the Clean Air Act passed by President Nixon, to reduce toxic air...

How has the US fracking boom affected air pollution in shale areas?

Written by Gunnar W. Schade, Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University

Fracking has led to an increase in truck traffic, one of the reasons for worsening trends on air quality in areas with oil and gas drilling.AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

Urban air pollution in the U.S. has been decreasing near continuously since the 1970s.

Federal regulations, notably the Clean Air Act passed by President Nixon, to reduce toxic air...

What the charges against Manafort, Gates and Papadopoulos could mean for Trump

Written by Rachel Caufield, Associate Professor of Political Science, Drake University

Five months into Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of cooperation between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, Americans are seeing the first legal maneuvers in the case.

Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates surrendered to U.S. District Court on...

Will wildfires leave lasting economic scars on California's vital wine country?

Written by Liz Thach, Professor of Management and Wine Business, Sonoma State University

A wildfire burns behind a winery in Santa Rosa, California.AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Now that the wildfires that have swept through the vineyards, forests and towns of Northern California’s wine country since Oct. 8 have been virtually contained, it’s time to assess the damage.

So far they have destroyed more than 8,400 structures in Napa,...

How the dead danced with the living in medieval society

Written by Ashby Kinch, Professor of English, The University of Montana

Detail of figures from the Dance Macabre, Meslay-le-Grenet, from late 15th-century France. Ashby Kinch, CC BY

In the Halloween season, American culture briefly participates in an ancient tradition of making the world of the dead visible to the living: Children dress as skeletons, teens go to horror movies and adults play the part of ghosts in...

Measuring the implicit biases we may not even be aware we have

Written by Kate Ratliff, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Florida

Introspection won't necessarily reveal what's going on in there.Photo by Septian simon on Unsplash, CC BY

When most people think of bias, they imagine an intentional thought or action – for example, a conscious belief that women are worse than men at math or a deliberate decision to pull someone over because of his or her race. Gender and...

The misguided campaign to remove a Thomas Hart Benton mural

Written by Henry Adams, Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History, Case Western Reserve University

Thomas Hart Benton's murals at the Indiana University Auditorium depict the social history of the state.Joseph, CC BY-NC-SA

In recent years, people have protested the racism of Confederate statues, Hollywood and sports mascots.

But a curious campaign has taken place on Indiana University’s Bloomington campus. Students have circulated petitions...