Author: TheConversation

By Christopher K. Tong, Associate Professor of Asian Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Every year ahead of the June 4 commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Chinese government tightens online censorship to suppress domestic discussion of the event. Critics, dissidents and international groups anticipate an uptick in cyber activity ranging from emails with malicious links to network attacks in the days and weeks leading up to the anniversary. Much of this cyber activity by Beijing is done covertly. But a recent restructuring of China’s cyberforce and a document leak exposing the activities of Chinese tech firm i-Soon...

By Diane Winston, Professor and Knight Center Chair in Media & Religion, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism In August 1982, Ronald Reagan’s father-in-law was dying. Nancy Reagan’s beloved dad, Loyal Davis, was an atheist. That was a troubling fact to the 40th president. So Reagan penned a private, handwritten note in which he recounted how the prayers of colleagues and friends had cured him of a painful stomach ulcer. Giving hope for what lay beyond, Reagan entreated the older man, “We’ve been promised this is only a part of life and that a greater life, a greater...

By Johanna Richlin, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Maine It can be hard to imagine sometimes why a mother would reject safe and potentially lifesaving vaccines for her child. Popular writing on vaccine skepticism often denigrates white and middle-class mothers who reject some or all recommended vaccines as hysterical, misinformed, zealous or ignorant. Mainstream media and medical providers increasingly dismiss vaccine refusal as a hallmark of American fringe ideology, far-right radicalization or anti-intellectualism. But vaccine skepticism, and the broader medical mistrust and far-reaching anxieties it reflects, is not just a fringe position. Pediatric vaccination rates had already fallen...

By Name Here, Academic title and school goes in this space in italic By September 2020, just six months after COVID-19 triggered shutdowns across the U.S., it was clear that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, had mutated from its original form. The question quickly arose whether existing rapid antigen tests could detect newly emerging variants. Using clinical samples obtained from diagnostic labs throughout the U.S. from 2020 to 2023, the National Institutes of Health, through its Variant Task Force, analyzed the effectiveness of more than 100 rapid antigen test kits on over 300 variants. The vast majority of...

By Katrina Burgess, Professor of Political Economy, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University While campaigning in Iowa last September, former President Donald Trump made a promise to voters if he were elected again: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said. Trump, who made a similar pledge during his first presidential campaign, has recently repeated this promise at rallies across the country. Trump was referring to Operation Wetback, a military-style campaign launched by the Eisenhower administration in the summer of 1954 to end undocumented immigration by deporting...

By Shaun Eaves, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington; Jamey Stutz, Assistant Director Polar Rock Repository, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University; Kevin Norton, Associate Professor in Geochemistry, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington; and Pedro Doll, PhD candidate, University of Canterbury How often do mountains collapse, volcanoes erupt or ice sheets melt? For Earth scientists, these are important questions as we try to improve projections to prepare communities for hazardous events in the future. We rely on instrumental measurements, but such records are often short. To extend...