The Conversation U.S. - News written by researchers and scientists to help you understand

A torrent of muddy floodwater rushes through a Nepalese valley, with houses along the banks and lush green hills and mist-covered mountains in the background.

Floods in Nepal-Tibet disrupt pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a sacred mountain with centuries of evolving tradition

Catherine Hartmann, University of Wyoming

A row of men kneeling in prayer, their faces out of view, with their hands resting on their legs.

In Texas, ordinary Muslim religious practices are increasingly being treated as political threats

Asma Uddin, Michigan State University

When a mountain falls: How ice and rock triggered Nepal’s catastrophic flood – and why climate change is raising the risks

Umesh Haritashya, University of Dayton

Houses covered in mud, several blocks from a river.

Yiddish’s ‘revival’ points to its resilience as a portable homeland – and a global reach, from Russia to Mexico to the US

Ilan Stavans, Amherst College

A woman in blue running clothes snaps a picture of a large yellow sculpture in a park by a river.

How does Salmonella contaminate everything under the sun? A food safety specialist explains how you can stop its spread

Kimberly Baker, Clemson University

Illustration of cylindrical bacteria floating all around a carton of eggs, with the egg in the center cracked and leaking

Worms navigate narrow paths faster than wide ones – these findings could inform robot design

K. R. Prathyusha, University of Colorado Boulder

What would you see if you had one eye on the back of your head and the other in the front?

Abigail Witmer, The Ohio State University

View from behind of a child's head with sunglasses on the back.

Indictments against a top extremism researcher and the SPLC force a reckoning on research ethics – an extremism scholar reflects on the field’s challenges

Arie Perliger, UMass Lowell

A crowd of people at a rally, fighting each other.

Trust is a behavior, not a credential – and that explains the Rodgers-Fauci divide

John C. Besley, Michigan State University

Aaron Rodgers, wearing his Steelers jersey, stands on a field.

A black fungus is thriving in the midst of Ireland’s whiskey boom – we need to know more about it

Jenny Lawler, Dublin City University

Get context to understand the news, in your inbox daily or weekly

Subscribe to our newsletters

Two lower elementary school students work on laptops

Federal stimulus money bought new technology for Philly students, but many schools lost track of where items went

Suzanne McLeod, Binghamton University, State University of New York and Kathryn Blackman, Binghamton University, State University of New York

Young man wearing a black sweatshirt pours yellow pills into his open palm while seated in front of a computer monitor and keyboard.

Professional gaming is brutal on the body – inside the growing field of treating esports injuries

Erica D. Henn, Temple University

A map labeling Lake Ontario as 'Lake America' is displayed in the Oval Office as President Donald Trump presents an executive order.

Lake Ontario to Lake America – who gets to decide what goes on maps?

Innisfree McKinnon, University of Wisconsin-Stout Polytechnic

Making the Fed more accountable to Congress and the public may be just what it needs to fend off Trump’s threats to its independence

Simon Bowmaker, New York University and Paul Wachtel, New York University

The seal of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors, set in the floor at the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, D.C., id depicted in a photo close-up.

Dolly Parton was more than a musical idol – for some fans, she was a spiritual icon

Sarah Dees, Iowa State University

A heap of flowers, notes and photos lie on top of a star-shaped stone that says 'Dolly Parton.'

Dolly Parton took control of her career by making men the butt of the joke

Stephanie Vander Wel, University at Buffalo

Woman with billowing, blonde hair gazes to her left while slyly grinning.

Galápagos corals show El Niño events are more extreme now than in past 1,000 years – here’s how my team made the discovery

Julia Cole, University of Michigan

A scuba diver takes a coral sample from the ocean bottom.

US-Canada trade war deepens as Trump revives Depression-era trade tool – what’s at stake for consumers and the midterms

Kent Jones, Babson College

Two flags – one red and white with a red maple leaf, the other with white stars on a blue background and red and white stripes – wave next to a bridge with cars on it.

Communicating uncertainty in research is hard, so we worked on how best to do it – here’s what you can watch out for

Matthew Facciani, Yale University; Aleeza Gerstein, University of Manitoba; Kristi Heather Kenyon, University of Winnipeg, and S. Michelle Driedger, University of Manitoba

A woman wearing a lab coat presenting scientific research.

Immigration enforcement is supplying a long-standing economic market for prisoners

Ella Siegrist, Washington University in St. Louis

A small red birdhouse hangs on a chain-link fence topped with razor wire outside a stone building.

Nepal-Tibet floods: when disaster strikes before communities recover from previous climate extremes, crisis escalates

Taha Rezaei, University of Exeter and Mark Maslin, UCL

Read all our latest articles

Latest videos

A white girl and a Black girl play with colorful toys while sitting on the floor

Watch

Are baby boys born less social than girls?

U.S.-Iran war

Men in army fatigues stand with large guns.

A new Houthi front and expanded Iranian attacks risk sinking Gulf nations’ choke-point workaround and widening shipping risks

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University

Amid grinding war, protesting Ukrainians still want their voices and values heard at home

Sarah Wilson Sokhey, University of Colorado Boulder; Gerard Toal, Virginia Tech, and John O’Loughlin, University of Colorado Boulder

A protester holds up a sign saying 'We support Fedorov.'

The danger of US-Iran ceasefire agreement is what it leaves out

Monica Duffy Toft, Tufts University

Several ships appear with a motorboat on a stretch of ocean.

Trump’s US-Iran ceasefire deal is a costly return to prewar conditions – and resolving nuclear questions will run into the ‘indivisibility problem’

Farah N. Jan, University of Pennsylvania

How are Saudis viewing the US-Iran war? Our polling suggests Gulf kingdom is split on key issues

Robert Kubinec, University of South Carolina and Alexis Montambault-Trudelle, Université Laval

A group of people in traditional Saudi dress walk up stairs.

Extreme weather and natural disasters

A young man on a dusty road with many sheep behind him.

Relentless heat and drought take a toll on herders’ physical and mental health, in Kenya and the US

Anne Pisor, Penn State and Bonface Osindi, Washington State University

Severe flooding raises deadly overdose risk in rural Appalachia, study finds – and the harm lasts for years

Kristina P. Brant, Penn State

An office building and two houses partially filled with flood water with a mountain in the background.

Colorado River water conservation efforts get only halfway to a solution

Sarah Porter, Arizona State University

A person stands at an overlook, from which a lake is visible in the distance, with a wide dry area all around it.

Dealing with disasters increasingly requires a smartphone – losing access can be a nightmare, but there are ways to prepare

Lee Ann Rawlins Williams, University of North Dakota

A woman standing knee-deep in flood water puts a hand to her forehead while trying to make a call.

Ancient forests took 100,000 years to recover from past global warming – Wyoming fossils reveal what happened

Regan E. Dunn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Are you an academic expert who wants to share your knowledge?

Pitch an article

International

In taking Syria off state sponsor of terrorism list, US is putting its faith in al-Qaida alumni – that presents risks and opportunities

Jason M. Blazakis, Middlebury College

Why the US-Canada trade war could change how American farmers grow their crops for years

Jayash Paudel, University of Oklahoma

a field with long rows of green soybean plants at sunrise, with some indistinguishable buildings on the horizon

Crocodiles as prison guards: Israeli moat plan dehumanizes Palestinian prisoners

Irus Braverman, University at Buffalo

A seemingly technical change to international student visas could disrupt teaching and research at US universities

Abigail Boggs, Wesleyan University

A cartoon image shows three people wearing graduation caps and pulling suitcases walking past a blue circles with other circles nearby it with an airplane nearby it.

Antarctic krill fishing is now concentrated in the exact pattern conservation rules were designed to prevent

Kim S. Bernard, Oregon State University

A large ship in the middle of the ocean has booms out with lines running into the water.

New research in health and science

Hand wearing white nitrile glove holding a vial labeled (CANCER mRNA vaccine) between two fingers

Cancer vaccines could transform treatment and prevention – but misinformation about mRNA vaccines threatens their potential

Dannell D. Boatman, West Virginia University

Using thunderquakes to X-ray Earth – a new study shows urban seismology in action

Nolan Roth, The Ohio State University and Tieyuan Zhu, Penn State

Lightning turns the sky purple over a city, with buildings in the foreground and apartment lights on.

New therapies help people with schizophrenia – but access is woefully inadequate

Matthew Kurtz, Wesleyan University

Senior Asian woman leaning forward on a couch during a therapy session, looking concerned.

Quitting alcohol changes the brain and can increase the risk of compulsive drinking – new research in mice

Danny G. Winder, UMass Chan Medical School and Marie Doyle, UMass Chan Medical School

Exploring the Moon will require rovers that can think for themselves – an upcoming NASA mission will test whether they can

Wanjiku Chebet Kanjumba, University of Florida

An illustration of three small robotic rovers, which have a flat body, solar panel wings and four wheels.

Artificial intelligence

Dot dot dot symbols inside speech bubbles hover above humanoid chatbot robot working at computer.

I surveyed workers to see if AI had caused job losses and was surprised by the findings

Jeffrey C. Dixon, College of the Holy Cross

Disappearing lakes and AI are helping scientists map Arctic permafrost thaw in near-real time

Anna Liljedahl, University of Alaska Fairbanks and Ingmar Nitze, Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research

A scientists carrying a rifle walks along a trough pond that has drained.

The importance of teaching students what AI can’t do

Billy J. Stratton, University of Denver

Colorful painting of a young woman lying on her back in the grass, propping her head up with one of her hands.

AI companies look to the ocean as a place to put more data centers

Nir Kshetri, University of North Carolina – Greensboro

A large cylinder covered in marine debris is hosed off while sitting on a barge.

Teens are turning to AI chatbots for emotional support – here’s how to keep kids safe

Phoebe S. Moore, UMass Chan Medical School; Megan Kelly, UMass Chan Medical School, and Yael Dvir, UMass Chan Medical School

Teen holding smartphone with chat conversation late at night at home.

Our partners and funders

The Conversation is a nonprofit organization and our work is made possible by the generosity of our readers, foundations, and university and college members. They make it possible for us to bring this journalism to the public without paywalls or licensing fees.

View all our partners and funders

View all our Founding Partners

View all our Funding Partners

View all our Member Partners

Find out more about us

The Conversation U.S. - News written by researchers and scientists to help you understand

Top stories

Floods in Nepal-Tibet disrupt pilgrimage to Mount Kailash, a sacred mountain with centuries of evolving tradition

In Texas, ordinary Muslim religious practices are increasingly being treated as political threats

When a mountain falls: How ice and rock triggered Nepal’s catastrophic flood – and why climate change is raising the risks

Yiddish’s ‘revival’ points to its resilience as a portable homeland – and a global reach, from Russia to Mexico to the US

How does Salmonella contaminate everything under the sun? A food safety specialist explains how you can stop its spread

Worms navigate narrow paths faster than wide ones – these findings could inform robot design

What would you see if you had one eye on the back of your head and the other in the front?

Indictments against a top extremism researcher and the SPLC force a reckoning on research ethics – an extremism scholar reflects on the field’s challenges

Trust is a behavior, not a credential – and that explains the Rodgers-Fauci divide

A black fungus is thriving in the midst of Ireland’s whiskey boom – we need to know more about it

Get context to understand the news, in your inbox daily or weekly

Federal stimulus money bought new technology for Philly students, but many schools lost track of where items went

Professional gaming is brutal on the body – inside the growing field of treating esports injuries

Lake Ontario to Lake America – who gets to decide what goes on maps?

Making the Fed more accountable to Congress and the public may be just what it needs to fend off Trump’s threats to its independence

Dolly Parton was more than a musical idol – for some fans, she was a spiritual icon

Dolly Parton took control of her career by making men the butt of the joke

Galápagos corals show El Niño events are more extreme now than in past 1,000 years – here’s how my team made the discovery

US-Canada trade war deepens as Trump revives Depression-era trade tool – what’s at stake for consumers and the midterms

Communicating uncertainty in research is hard, so we worked on how best to do it – here’s what you can watch out for

Immigration enforcement is supplying a long-standing economic market for prisoners

Nepal-Tibet floods: when disaster strikes before communities recover from previous climate extremes, crisis escalates

Latest videos

Are baby boys born less social than girls?

What are those orange balls on some power lines?

Election law expert explains SCOTUS mail-in voting ruling

What to do when returning home after a fire

Hidden DNA clues in the environment

Join the 1,746 readers who give monthly to fund fact-based journalism

More from The Conversation

We’ll send great stories, direct to your phone

Our most interesting articles about science, health, the environment and technology

Our work is made possible by readers like you

Get one great story in your inbox every afternoon

U.S.-Iran war

A new Houthi front and expanded Iranian attacks risk sinking Gulf nations’ choke-point workaround and widening shipping risks

Amid grinding war, protesting Ukrainians still want their voices and values heard at home

The danger of US-Iran ceasefire agreement is what it leaves out

Trump’s US-Iran ceasefire deal is a costly return to prewar conditions – and resolving nuclear questions will run into the ‘indivisibility problem’

How are Saudis viewing the US-Iran war? Our polling suggests Gulf kingdom is split on key issues

Extreme weather and natural disasters

Relentless heat and drought take a toll on herders’ physical and mental health, in Kenya and the US

Severe flooding raises deadly overdose risk in rural Appalachia, study finds – and the harm lasts for years

Colorado River water conservation efforts get only halfway to a solution

Dealing with disasters increasingly requires a smartphone – losing access can be a nightmare, but there are ways to prepare

Ancient forests took 100,000 years to recover from past global warming – Wyoming fossils reveal what happened

Are you an academic expert who wants to share your knowledge?

International

In taking Syria off state sponsor of terrorism list, US is putting its faith in al-Qaida alumni – that presents risks and opportunities

Why the US-Canada trade war could change how American farmers grow their crops for years

Crocodiles as prison guards: Israeli moat plan dehumanizes Palestinian prisoners

A seemingly technical change to international student visas could disrupt teaching and research at US universities

Antarctic krill fishing is now concentrated in the exact pattern conservation rules were designed to prevent

New research in health and science

Cancer vaccines could transform treatment and prevention – but misinformation about mRNA vaccines threatens their potential

Using thunderquakes to X-ray Earth – a new study shows urban seismology in action

New therapies help people with schizophrenia – but access is woefully inadequate

Quitting alcohol changes the brain and can increase the risk of compulsive drinking – new research in mice

Exploring the Moon will require rovers that can think for themselves – an upcoming NASA mission will test whether they can

Artificial intelligence

I surveyed workers to see if AI had caused job losses and was surprised by the findings

Disappearing lakes and AI are helping scientists map Arctic permafrost thaw in near-real time

The importance of teaching students what AI can’t do

AI companies look to the ocean as a place to put more data centers

Teens are turning to AI chatbots for emotional support – here’s how to keep kids safe

You might also like…

‘Mad honey’ that can stop your heart is now being sold online worldwide

NASA is gearing up to launch its next flagship space telescope – combining spy technology with sophisticated infrared detectors

Breakthrough drug nearly doubles survival with advanced pancreatic cancer – an oncologist explains how daraxonrasib overcame an ‘undruggable’ disease

I’m part of the team writing the next bible of psychiatry – for the first time, the DSM will use biology to understand mental disorders

Stop trying to maintain constant productivity: Your ability to cope with stress changes with the seasons and your own biological clocks

Most read this week

I’m part of the team writing the next bible of psychiatry – for the first time, the DSM will use biology to understand mental disorders

‘Mad honey’ that can stop your heart is now being sold online worldwide

Many Americans are moving away from congregations, but not necessarily from religion – movies, plays, art and social media fill the gap

Lake Ontario to Lake America – who gets to decide what goes on maps?

Why French officials placed a Muslim war memorial in the intellectual heart of Paris in the 20th century

Antarctic krill fishing is now concentrated in the exact pattern conservation rules were designed to prevent