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

Iraq war’s aftermath was a disaster for the US – the Iran war is headed in the same direction

Farah N. Jan, University of Pennsylvania

US is less prone to oil price shocks than in past decades

Amy Myers Jaffe, New York University; Tufts University

People fill their cars with fuel at a gas station.

War in Middle East brings uncertainty and higher energy costs to already weakening US economy

Michael Klein, Tufts University

an obscured skyline can be seen as smoke rises

A man in a blue suit on a stasge in front of flags, pointing at an audience.

I’ve studied MAGA rhetoric for a decade, and this is what I see in Hegseth’s boasts, action-movie one-liners and gloating over dominance

Casey Ryan Kelly, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Alaska’s glacial lakes are expanding, increasing the risk of destructive outburst floods

Dan McGrath, Colorado State University

Lakes the color of turquoise gem stones stand out against the white glaciers that send meltwater into them.

Arming a Kurdish insurgency would be a risky endeavor – for both the US and Iran’s minority Kurds

John Calabrese, American University

A man with a beard holds a green white and red flag.

Silicone wristbands can help scientists track people’s exposure to pollutants like ‘forever chemicals’

Yaw Edu Essandoh, Indiana University

An overhead shot of a person placing a black silicone wristband around their wrist. They are also wearing an orange and pink wristband.

Big beautiful refund? 5 tax code changes that may put more money in your pocket

Jim Franklin, Western Governors University School of Business

A hand holds an envelope with a check from the US treasury inside.

Abandoned Pennsylvania mines and waste-heat recycling could make the state’s massive new data centers far more sustainable

Wangda Zuo, Penn State

Social media can draw attention to atrocities – a key factor in reducing risk of recurrence

Arnaud Kurze, Montclair State University and Eric Wiebelhaus-Brahm, Binghamton University, State University of New York

A protester holds a placard saying '#SaveAleppo' and '#FreeSyria'

What James Madison can teach Americans about religious freedom today

Corey D. B. Walker, Wake Forest University

A historical painting shows a group of formally dressed men in long coats, breeches and white wigs gathered in discussion, with one seated at a table while others stand around having conversations.

Mobile clinics offer a practical way to improve health care access in maternity care deserts

Adetola F. Louis-Jacques, University of Florida; Arielle Ayotte, University of Florida, and Michelle Nall, University of Florida

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Illustration of a person's transparent abdomen with organs outlined, a short curl highlighted in red

What does the appendix do? Biologists explain the complicated evolution of this inconvenient organ

Phil Starks, Tufts University and Lilia Goncharova, Tufts University

China’s muted response over war in Iran reflects Beijing’s delicate calculus as a concerned onlooker

John Calabrese, American University

Why do mountaintops stay snowy, even though they’re closer to the Sun?

Allie Mazurek, Colorado State University

A father and his young daughters walk through a field of wildflowers with a snow-covered mountain ahead.

Today’s obsession with authenticity isn’t new – being true to yourself has troubled philosophers for centuries

Kenneth Andrew Andres Leonardo, Hamilton College

A young Asian woman looks up into a beam of light as she holds a smartphone.

How Instagram addictiveness lawsuit could reshape social media – platform design meets product liability

Carolina Rossini, UMass Amherst

a teen girl weaing pajamas looks at a phone while sitting on a bed in a dark room

Persian Gulf desalination plants could become military targets in regional war

Michael Christopher Low, University of Utah

Two people stand on a large concrete platform overlooking a wide swath of flowing water.

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A young Venezuelan miner works in an open pit gold mine in Bolivar State, Venezuela, in 2023.

Venezuela’s fragile environment faces rising risks as US pushes for oil and critical minerals and illegal gold mining spreads

Antonio Machado Allison, Wesleyan University

When unpaid cooking, cleaning and child care get a dollar value, income inequality in the US shrinks – but the gap has grown since 1965

Leila Gautham, University of Leeds and Nancy Folbre, UMass Amherst

Woman looks at a messy living room on a sunny day.

Public health needs steady budgets – and federal funding uncertainty causes real harms, even if the money is later restored

Max Crowley, Penn State

A health care worker with the South Carolina Department of Public Health talks to a patient outside a mobile clinic offering free measles vaccinations in February 2026.

When Washington and the states are in conflict, the ultimate winner is not always certain

Kenneth Michael White, Kennesaw State University

A group of students block access to a building under a banned that reads, "ICE off campus."

Measuring poverty on a spectrum instead of an arbitrary line conveys a more accurate picture of inequality

Olivier Sterck, University of Oxford

A hand draws steps that ascend, ending with a big dollar sign.

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U.S.-Iran war

Flames at an oil facility in the UAE after Iranian drone attack.

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The Gulf’s delicate balancing act between the US and Iran is now in flames

Gemma Ware, The Conversation

Operational secrecy kept the US from making evacuation plans – and that means Americans in the Mideast could wait days

Donald Heflin, Tufts University

An electronic billboard with a list of cancelled flights to the Middle East.

CIA agents successfully executed a plan for regime change in Iran in 1953 – but Trump hasn’t revealed any signs of a plan

Gregory F. Treverton, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Several men walk amid the rubble of a building.

‘Destruction is not the same as political success’: US bombing of Iran shows little evidence of endgame strategy

Farah N. Jan, University of Pennsylvania

Iran’s targeting of airport, ports and hotels in reaction to US strikes has forced Gulf nations onto front lines of a war they want no part in

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University

a white yacht sails forward in the open water as dark smoke billows in the skyline in the background

Iran’s missile mayhem show the limits of Middle East defences

Michael J. Armstrong, Brock University

A large black plume of smoke spewing from a warehouse in an industrial area.

Iran will respond to US-Israeli strikes as existential threats to the regime – because they are

Javed Ali, University of Michigan

The US is using repurposed Iranian drone technology to attack Iran – a military expert explains why

Arun Dawson, King's College London

The Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone in flight.

Welcome to the ‘gray zone’ − home to nefarious international acts that fall short of outright conflict

Andrew Latham, Macalester College

Philosophy and ethics

Graphic of a fish confronting a fish-shaped school of much smaller fishes

‘Learning to be humble meant taming my need to stand out from the group’ – a humility scholar explains how he became more grounded

Barret Michalec, Arizona State University

I’m a philosopher who tries to see the best in others – but I know there are limits

Mark Schroeder, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Two cartoon faces with hollow heads, and a spool of thread or yarn running between them.

Meekness isn’t weakness – once considered positive, it’s one of the ‘undersung virtues’ that deserve defense today

Timothy J. Pawl, University of St. Thomas

A bearded man seems to speak gently as he holds an upset, angry-looking toddler.

How business students learn to make ethical decisions by studying a soup kitchen in one of America’s toughest neighborhoods

Tim Swift, St. Joseph's University

Large group of people gather outside a building with a religious mural

More than a feeling – thinking about love as a virtue can change how we respond to hate

Tucker J. Gregor, University of Iowa

The word 'love' is written in a red heart shape, surrounded by the word 'hate' written many times.

Extreme weather and natural disasters

Making sense of a chaotic planet: How understanding weather and climate risks depends on supercomputers like NCAR’s

Antonios Mamalakis, University of Virginia

Warming winters are disrupting the hidden world of fungi – the result can shift mountain grasslands to scrub

Stephanie Kivlin, University of Tennessee; Aimee Classen, University of Michigan, and Lara A. Souza, University of Oklahoma

An outdoor view of a lake, snow on trees and mountains in the background

Tahoe avalanche: What causes snow slopes to collapse? A physicist and skier explains, with tips for surviving

Nathalie Vriend, University of Colorado Boulder

Sixth year of drought in Texas and Oklahoma leaves ranchers facing wildfires and bracing for another tough year

Joel Lisonbee, University of Colorado Boulder and William Baule, Texas A&M University

A farmer walks toward cattle in a very dry landscape under a blue sky.

Data centers told to pitch in as storms and cold weather boost power demand

Nikki Luke, University of Tennessee and Conor Harrison, University of South Carolina

A downed tree blocks a snowy road and touches power lines.

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ICE and immigration

Why ICE’s body camera policies make the videos unlikely to improve accountability and transparency

Stephanie Lessing, UMass Boston

When ICE sweeps a community, public health pays a price – and recovery will likely take years

Nicole L. Novak, University of Iowa and William D. Lopez, University of Michigan

People in winter hats hold signs protesting against ICE in Minneapolis.

How the 9/11 terrorist attacks shaped ICE’s immigration strategy

Pawan Dhingra, Amherst College

A man dressed in military gear and holding a rifle is surrounded by tear gas.

A terrorism label that comes before the facts can turn ‘domestic terrorism’ into a useless designation

Brian O'Neill, Georgia Institute of Technology

A woman speaks in front of a podium as an image of a gun appears on a video screen behind her.

Why the ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ have echoed with public support – unlike the campus of Kent State in 1970

Gregory P. Magarian, Washington University in St. Louis

A line of men in military uniforms, wearing gas masks and holding guns.

Trump administration

A cartoon image shows a person looking inside a bird cage that has books in it

Trump offered a restrictive deal to universities that almost all rejected – but the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education may not be entirely dead

Fred L. Pincus, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Congress once fought to limit a president’s war powers − more than 50 years later, its successors are less willing to assert their authority

Sarah Burns, Rochester Institute of Technology; Institute for Humane Studies

The rubble of a building destroyed in airstrikes.

Kansas revoked transgender people’s IDs overnight – researchers anticipate cascading health and social consequences

Jae A. Puckett, Michigan State University; L. Zachary DuBois, University of Oregon, and Noelle Martin, Michigan State University

Silhouette of person dressed as Statue of Liberty holding a transgender flag up against a blue sky, the Supreme Court looming in distance

Supreme Court rules against Trump’s emergency tariffs – but leaves key questions unanswered

Kent Jones, Babson College

A group of people carry umbrellas as they walk past a big white building.

TrumpRx, Trump Kennedy Center, Trump National Parks passes − government free speech allows the president to name things after himself

Jason Zenor, State University of New York Oswego

Workmen using lifts add Donald Trump's name to the facade of the Kennedy Center.

International

Hezbollah − degraded, weakened but not yet disarmed − destabilizes Lebanon once again

Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College

Far from random, China’s global port network is clustering near the world’s riskiest trade routes

Dylan Spencer, Georgia Southern University; Gohar Petrossian, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Stephen Pires, Florida International University

The silhouettes of container cranes against a sunset

La Jefa: the wife of slain drug kingpin El Mencho and the women at the heart of the cartels

Adriana Marin, Coventry University

A stock image of a Latino woman putting a wad of US dollars in her pocket.

How to prevent elections from being stolen − lessons from around the world for the US

Shelley Inglis, Rutgers University

hands are seen holding a roll of i voted stickers in the left and a single one in the right

South Korea’s birth rate is rising – but the population is still shrinking

Gemma Ware, The Conversation

New research in health and science

Two female trauma team members and one male assess a patient in a hospital room.

Trauma patients recover faster when medical teams know each other well, new study finds

Linda Argote, Carnegie Mellon University and Jeremy M. Kahn, University of Pittsburgh

Free 10-minute online programs aimed at overcoming depression led to real improvements – new research

Benjamin Kaveladze, Dartmouth College

Cartoon of a middle-aged woman walking out of a cage that has rain clouds and lightning balloons into a blue, cloudy sky.

Coffee crops are dying from a fungus with species-jumping genes – researchers are ‘resurrecting’ their genomes to understand how and why

Lily Peck, University of California, Los Angeles

Close-up of person picking coffee berries

Probability underlies much of the modern world – an engineering professor explains how it actually works

Zachary del Rosario, Olin College of Engineering

FDA’s abrupt flip-flop on Moderna’s mRNA flu shot highlights growing risks to drug-makers of investing in vaccines

Ana Santos Rutschman, Villanova University

Artificial intelligence

in the foreground a red sign with skull and crossbones, in the background a person wearing protective gear coineeling in a field

Researchers are combining drones and AI to make removing land mines faster and safer

Sagar Lekhak, Rochester Institute of Technology

AI and 3D printing help researchers create heat- and pressure-resistant materials for aerospace and defense applications

Houlong Zhuang, Arizona State University and Vitor Rielli, UNSW Sydney

A small aircraft streaking across the sky, with a large plume of smoke coming from its exhaust.

Artists and writers are often hesitant to disclose they’ve collaborated with AI – and those fears may be justified

Joel Carnevale, Florida International University

Digital art piece displaying a human hand, an X-ray of a hand and a wire frame hand, all overlayed.

‘Probably’ doesn’t mean the same thing to your AI as it does to you

Mayank Kejriwal, University of Southern California

an illustration depicting a man in a business suit with hands on hips next to a humanoid robot that is pointing up to an arrow that is at the end of a jagged line that shifts upwards from left to right

The greatest risk of AI in higher education isn’t cheating – it’s the erosion of learning itself

Nir Eisikovits, UMass Boston and Jacob Burley, UMass Boston

Picture of university teacher in empty classroom.

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