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The Conversation

From Swift to Springsteen to Al Jolson, candidates keep trying to use celebrities to change voters’ songs

  • Written by Matt Harris, Associate Professor of Political Science, Park University

It’s 2016 all over again. And 2020, for that matter. Democrats are staring at what looks to be another coin flip election between their party’s nominee and Donald Trump.

In an election that could come down to a few hundred thousand votes in a handful of states, every voter matters – no matter how you reach them. With that in...

Read more: From Swift to Springsteen to Al Jolson, candidates keep trying to use celebrities to change...

Trump’s musical interlude is a twist on the long tradition of candidates enlisting musicians’ support, from Al Jolson to Springsteen to Swift

  • Written by Matt Harris, Associate Professor of Political Science, Park University
imageDonald Trump dances to the song "Y.M.C.A." with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, during a town hall event in Pennsylvania on Oct. 14, 2024. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Donald Trump made liberal use of music in what’s being called a “surreal” or “bizarre” town hall meeting on Oct. 14, 2024, in...

Read more: Trump’s musical interlude is a twist on the long tradition of candidates enlisting musicians’...

As OpenAI attracts billions in new investment, its goal of balancing profit with purpose is getting more challenging to pull off

  • Written by Alnoor Ebrahim, Thomas Schmidheiny Professor of International Business, Tufts University
imageWhat's in store for OpenAI is the subject of many anonymously sourced reports.AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company that developed the popular ChatGPT chatbot and the text-to-art program Dall-E, is at a crossroads. On Oct. 2, 2024, it announced that it had obtained US$6.6 billion in new funding from investors and that...

Read more: As OpenAI attracts billions in new investment, its goal of balancing profit with purpose is...

Scientists around the world report millions of new discoveries every year − but this explosive research growth wasn’t what experts predicted

  • Written by David P. Baker, Professor of Sociology, Education and Demography, Penn State
imageThe number of research studies published globally has risen exponentially in the past decades. AP Photo/Frank Augstein, file

Millions of scientific papers are published globally every year. These papers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine present discoveries that range from the mundane to the profound.

Since 1900, the numbe...

Read more: Scientists around the world report millions of new discoveries every year − but this explosive...

Atmospheric rivers are shifting poleward, reshaping global weather patterns

  • Written by Zhe Li, Postdoctoral Researcher in Earth System Science, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
imageAtmospheric rivers are long filaments of moisture that curve poleward. Several are visible in this satellite image.Bin Guan, NASA/JPL-Caltech and UCLA

Atmospheric rivers – those long, narrow bands of water vapor in the sky that bring heavy rain and storms to the U.S. West Coast and many other regions – are shifting toward higher...

Read more: Atmospheric rivers are shifting poleward, reshaping global weather patterns

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is a Halloween visitor from the spooky Oort Cloud − the invisible bubble that’s home to countless space objects

  • Written by James Wray, Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology
imageView of the Tsuchinshan-ATLAS comet on Sept. 30, 2024, from Monfrague National Park in Spain.Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images

The human mind may find it difficult to conceptualize: a cosmic cloud so colossal it surrounds the Sun and eight planets as it extends trillions of miles into deep space.

The spherical shell known as the Oort...

Read more: Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is a Halloween visitor from the spooky Oort Cloud − the invisible bubble...

Vatican synod is opening the door a bit wider for Catholic women − but they’ve been knocking for more than 100 years

  • Written by Carol E. Harrison, Professor of History, University of South Carolina
imageSister Nathalie Becquart, the first female undersecretary at the Vatican's Synod of Bishops, walks to the Vatican on May 29, 2023. AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino

In 2021, Sister Nathalie Becquart became the first woman to vote at any Vatican meeting when Pope Francis appointed her undersecretary to the synod, a gathering of bishops whose second...

Read more: Vatican synod is opening the door a bit wider for Catholic women − but they’ve been knocking for...

Happiness class is helping clinically depressed school teachers become emotionally healthy − with a cheery assist from Aristotle

  • Written by John Sommers-Flanagan, Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Counseling, University of Montana
imageThis course is more than just suggesting that you 'cheer up' and 'look on the bright side.'akinbostanci/E+ via Getty Imagesimage

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Title of Course

Evidence-Based Happiness for Teachers

What prompted the idea for the course?

I was...

Read more: Happiness class is helping clinically depressed school teachers become emotionally healthy − with...

Swing-state GOP leaders amplified election denial in 2020 − and may do so again

  • Written by Sadie Dempsey, Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
imageWill local Republican Parties again serve as megaphones for election disinformation, as they did in 2020?AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File

With the 2024 election just weeks away, former President Donald Trump continues to spread false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. He also insists without evidence that the same may happen this year.

In a Sept. 7,...

Read more: Swing-state GOP leaders amplified election denial in 2020 − and may do so again

San Francisco is suing the EPA over how specific water pollution permits should be

  • Written by Robin Kundis Craig, Professor of Law, University of Kansas
imageBaker Beach and other San Francisco city beaches are sometimes closed for swimming due to sewage discharges.Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images

The U.S. Supreme Court will test how flexible the EPA and states can be in regulating water pollution under the Clean Water Act when it hears oral argument in City and County of San Francisco v....

Read more: San Francisco is suing the EPA over how specific water pollution permits should be

More Articles ...

  1. Millions of people across the US use well water, but very few test it often enough to make sure it’s safe
  2. If you think grocery prices take a big bite out of your paycheck in the US, check out the rest of the world
  3. Evacuating in disasters like Hurricane Milton isn’t simple – there are reasons people stay in harm’s way, and it’s not just stubbornness
  4. Evacuating in disasters like Hurricane Milton isn’t simple – there are reasons people stay in harm’s way
  5. US inflation rate fell to 2.4% in September − here’s what that means for interest rates and markets
  6. Is childproofing the internet constitutional? A tech law expert draws out the issues
  7. Medicare vs. Medicare Advantage: sales pitches are often from biased sources, the choices can be overwhelming and impartial help is not equally available to all
  8. Charging, not range, is becoming a top concern for electric car drivers
  9. LGBTQ rights: Where do Harris and Trump stand?
  10. Why Trump accuses people of wrongdoing he himself committed − an explanation of projection
  11. Caitlin Clark, Christine Brennan and how racial stereotypes persist in the media’s WNBA coverage
  12. A realistic statue of Mary giving birth was criticized, then vandalized − but saints and artists have often reimagined Christ’s birth
  13. ‘Cajun Navy’ volunteers who participate in search-and-rescue operations after hurricanes are forming long-lasting organizations
  14. Machine learning cracked the protein-folding problem and won the 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry
  15. Buyer beware: Off-brand Ozempic, Zepbound and other weight loss products carry undisclosed risks for consumers
  16. Columbus who? Decolonizing the calendar in Latin America
  17. Blitz of political attack ads in Pennsylvania and other swing states may be doing candidates and voters more harm than good
  18. How a subfield of physics led to breakthroughs in AI – and from there to this year’s Nobel Prize
  19. Misspoke: The long and winding road to becoming a political weasel word
  20. DEA could reclassify marijuana to a less restrictive category – a drug policy expert weighs the pros and cons
  21. So you don’t like Trump or Harris – here’s why it’s still best to vote for one of them
  22. Though home to about 50 white extremist groups, Ohio’s social and political landscape is undergoing rapid racial change
  23. The woman who revolutionized the fantasy genre is finally getting her due
  24. 5 kinds of American evangelicals and their voting patterns
  25. Harris proposes that Medicare cover more in-home health care, filling a large gap for older Americans and their caregivers
  26. Nobel Prize in physics spotlights key breakthroughs in AI revolution − making machines that learn
  27. How foreign operations are manipulating social media to influence your views
  28. Trump and Harris are sharply divided on science, but share common ground on US technology policy
  29. Can Montana’s ‘last rural Democrat’ survive another election?
  30. Is it COVID-19? Flu? At-home rapid tests could help you and your doctor decide on a treatment plan
  31. Kamala Harris has spoken of her racial backgrounds − but a shared identity isn’t enough to attract supporters
  32. ‘No antidote for bad polls’: Recalling the New York Times’ 1956 election experiment in shoe-leather reporting
  33. Why wildfires started by human activities can be more destructive and harder to contain
  34. European court ruling finds just cause to award soccer players greater freedom of movement
  35. Swing state voters along the Great Lakes love cleaner water and beaches − and candidates from both parties have long fished for support there
  36. Hurricane Milton explodes into a powerful Category 5 storm as it heads for Florida − here’s how rapid intensification works
  37. Many stable atoms have ‘magic numbers’ of protons and neutrons − 75 years ago, 2 physicists discovered their special properties
  38. MicroRNA is the Nobel-winning master regulator of the genome – researchers are learning to treat disease by harnessing how it controls genes
  39. How Hurricane Helene became a deadly disaster across six states
  40. Air pollution inside Philly’s subway is much worse than on the streets
  41. When and why do girls start forming cliques?
  42. NASA wants to send humans to Mars in the 2030s − a crewed mission could unlock some of the red planet’s geologic mysteries
  43. Why would people vote for Kamala Harris? 5 things to understand about why her supporters back her
  44. How a newspaper revolution sparked protesters and influencers, disinformation and the Civil War
  45. A year ago, the hostages were a rallying point for solidarity in Israel – now, their families are symbols of the country’s sharp divides
  46. Colleges could benefit from taking a data-driven look at hostility toward Jews on campus
  47. Palestinians want to choose their own leaders – a year of war has distanced them further from this democratic goal
  48. A year of escalating conflict in the Middle East has ushered in a new era of regional displacement
  49. Dockworkers pause strike after Biden administration’s appeal to patriotism hits the mark
  50. A year after Hamas attack, more continuity than change for the Palestinians and Israel