Author: TheConversation

By Jay L. Zagorsky, Associate Professor of Markets, Public Policy and Law, Boston University Should the U.S. get rid of pennies, nickels and dimes? The debate has gone on for years. Many people argue for keeping coins on the grounds of economic fairness. Others call for eliminating them because the government loses money minting low-value coins. One way to resolve the debate is to check whether people are still using small-value coins. And there’s an unlikely source of information showing how much people are using pocket change: the Transportation Security Administration, or TSA. Yes, the same people who screen...

By Rachael Sharman, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of the Sunshine Coast Over recent months, a number of politicians have supported calls to ban social media for children under 16. Currently, kids under 13 are not allowed to use social media. There is some research that suggests social media can be helpful for certain young people by, for example, connecting them with like-minded peers. That said, there are a raft of reasons for this proposed change. The most compelling is evidence showing inappropriate screen time and social media use are linked to poor mental health in children and young...

By Gavin Naylor, Director of Florida Program for Shark Research, University of Florida Human fear of sharks has deep roots. Written works and art from the ancient world contain references to sharks preying on sailors as early as the eighth century B.C.E. Relayed back to land, stories about shark encounters have been embellished and amplified. Together with the fact that from time to time – very rarely – sharks bite humans, people have been primed for centuries to imagine terrifying situations at sea. In 1974, Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel “Jaws” fanned this fear into a wildfire that spread around...

By Ian Afflerbach, Associate Professor of American Literature, University of North Georgia If you follow politics, sports, Hollywood or the arts, you have no doubt heard the insult “sellout” thrown around to describe someone perceived to have betrayed a core principle or shared value in their pursuit of personal gain. The term has recently been hurled at a range of well-known targets: Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows for cooperating with a special counsel investigating election fraud in 2020; Kim Kardashian for advertising her personal brands as a form of women’s empowerment; even former NFL great Deion...

By Philip Klinkner, James S. Sherman Professor of Government, Hamilton College Now that Joe Biden has dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the nominee, it will ultimately be up to Democratic National Convention delegates to formally select a new nominee for their party. This will mark the first time in over 50 years that a major party nominee was selected outside of the democratic process of primaries and caucuses. Many Democrats had already begun discussing how to replace President Biden. They worried that having the convention delegates, the majority of...