Category: Academic Reportage

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ernest Freeberg, Professor of History, University of Tennessee Eureka, what an idea! TU IS/iStock/Getty Images Plus 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. Who invented the light bulb?…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – USA – By Ted Powers, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of California, Davis The Rapa Nui people are mostly invisible in the origin story of rapamycin. Posnov/Moment via Getty Images An antibiotic discovered on Easter Island in 1964 sparked a billion-dollar pharmaceutical success story. Yet the history…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Sally Jane Brown, Curator, West Virginia University Do the seemingly endless doorways represent a woman trapped in domesticity or infinite ways out? Philadelphia Museum of Art When American artist Dorothea Tanning painted “Birthday” in 1942, she announced her arrival – an artistic birth, as she…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Susanna Ashton, Professor of English, Clemson University A monument to survival and perseverance has survived, by happenstance, to share its stories today. Courtesy of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) at Old Salem From the ages of 12 to about 22, Harriet Jacobs…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Timothy Naimi, Director, Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research; Professor, School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria Research has revealed a steep increase in liver disease in recent years. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence of health harms from alcohol, including drinking at levels…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Fenwick McKelvey, Associate Professor in Information and Communication Technology Policy, Concordia University In the rush to cash in on the generative artificial intelligence gold rush, one possible outcome of AI’s future rarely gets discussed: what if the technology never works well enough to replace your co-workers,…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Crystal Gail Fraser, Associate Professor, Dept. of History, Classics, & Religion and the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta In the early 1920s, on the banks of the Peel River next to the community of Fort McPherson in the Northwest Territories, Dinjii Zhuh (Gwich’in) families…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Caroline Southey, Founding Editor, Africa, The Conversation US president Donald Trump’s address to the annual gathering of the United Nations general assembly in late September 2025 set a new low in international relations. Trump delivered a broadside attack on multilateralism – the effort to solve the…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jeffrey Morris, Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Biases in designing a study can weaken how well the evidence supports the conclusion. FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images At a Senate hearing on Sept. 9, 2025, on the corruption of science, witnesses presented…

Source: ForeignAffairs4 Source: The Conversation – USA – By Betty Medsger, Professor Emeritus of Journalism, San Francisco State University The building in Media, Penn. where burglars in 1971 found evidence of decades of FBI abuses against citizens. Betty Medsger As a candidate last year, Donald Trump promised retribution against his perceived enemies. As president, he…