Author: TheConversation

By Morgan Marietta, Professor of Political Science, University of Texas at Arlington In a 2006 episode of the television show “Boston Legal,” conservative lawyer Denny Crane asserted that he had a constitutional right to carry a concealed firearm: “And the Supreme Court is going to say so, just as soon as they overturn Roe v. Wade.” That was a joke, an unimaginable event, when the show aired 17 years ago. Then in 2022, the court announced both changes, shifting the butt of a joke to the law of the land in a brief span of years – and signaling...

By Kathleen Sexsmith, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, Penn State; Francisco Alfredo Reyes, Ph.D. Candidate in Rural Sociology & International Agriculture and Development, Penn State; and Megan A. M. Griffin, Student Community Engagement Specialist, Connecticut College Television crime shows often are set in cities, but in its third season, ABC’s “American Crime” took a different tack. It opened on a tomato farm in North Carolina, where it showed a young woman being brutally raped in a field by her supervisor. “People die all the time on that farm. Nobody cares. Women get raped, regular,” another character tells a police...

By Robert Yablon, Associate Professor of Law, Co-Director of the State Democracy Research Initiative, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Derek Clinger, Senior Staff Attorney, State Democracy Research Initiative, University of Wisconsin-Madison Wisconsin’s April 2023 state Supreme Court election was historic. It was the nation’s most expensive judicial race ever, with over US$50 million in total spending, and it broke turnout records for an off-cycle spring election. Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee circuit court judge and self-described progressive, won an 11-percentage point victory, shifting the court’s ideological balance of power at a moment when major legal clashes over abortion and redistricting are...

By Kevin J. Krizek, Professor of Environmental Design, University of Colorado Boulder Deadly traffic incidents have declined in most developed countries in recent years. But in the U.S. they are becoming more common. Deaths in motor vehicle crashes rose more than 33% from 2011 to 2021. Since 2010, pedestrian deaths nationwide have climbed a shocking 77%, compared with a 25% increase in all other types of traffic fatalities. Light trucks injure pedestrians more severely than passenger cars in crashes, and the size of cars and trucks sold in the U.S. continues to swell. Some current models, such as the...

By Kwong Ming (KM) Tse, Senior lecturer in Department of Mechanical Engineering and Product Design Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology If you ride a bike and want to cut your risk of traumatic head injury, you should wear a helmet. A major review of 40 different studies and 64,000 injured cyclists worldwide showed wearing a bicycle helmet reduces the risk of serious head injury by nearly 70%. But there is a bewildering array of designs out there. How do you know if yours is up to scratch or when it’s time to replace it? I am a head injury...

By Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State University The Federal Trade Commission has launched an investigation of ChatGPT maker OpenAI for potential violations of consumer protection laws. The FTC sent the company a 20-page demand for information in the week of July 10, 2023. The move comes as European regulators have begun to take action, and Congress is working on legislation to regulate the artificial intelligence industry. The FTC has asked OpenAI to provide details of all complaints the company has received from users regarding “false, misleading, disparaging, or harmful” statements put out by OpenAI, and whether...