Author: TheConversation

By Austin Sarat, Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College Nasty, divisive elections are nothing new in the United States. As someone who teaches and writes about the importance of historical memory in American law and politics, I believe the 2020 election will rival the ugliest America has ever witnessed. There are lessons that can be learned from examining this election’s parallels with two previous presidential elections – 1860 and 1968 – both of which left America deeply divided. Slavery and geography in 1860 In the lead-up to the 1860 election, the nation was splintered by the question...

By Christopher Boone, Dean and Professor of Sustainability, Arizona State University Since 1970, more Americans have lived in the suburbs than central cities. In 2010, suburbanites outnumbered city and rural dwellers combined for the first time. We Americans live in a suburban nation. Despite several concerted efforts by city governments to lure residents, suburbanization continues largely unabated. Census figures from earlier this year show that suburbs of warm climate “Sun Belt” cities in the South and West continue to grow, while cities in the cold climate “Snow Belt” of the Midwest and Northeast decline. Smaller metropolitan areas with fewer...

By Deepak Ray, Senior scientist, University of Minnesota Farmers are used to dealing with weather, but climate change is making it harder by altering temperature and rainfall patterns, as in this year’s unusually cool and wet spring in the Midwest. In a recently published study, I worked with other scientists to see whether climate change was measurably affecting crop productivity and global food security. To analyze these questions, a team of researchers led by the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment spent four years collecting information on crop productivity from around the world. We focused on the top...

By Roya Ijadi-Maghsoodi, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California In 2010, the Obama administration announced the ambitious goal of ending homelessness among veterans. Since then, the number of homeless veterans fell by almost 50 percent nationwide. Yet statistics are only part of the story. What is missing from federal and state statistics, the media and the minds of many Americans, is the story of homeless veteran families. Through my work as a researcher and physician caring for women and homeless veterans, I see these families. I hear about their struggles to find housing in safe...

By Jean Twenge, Professor of Psychology, San Diego State University We’d all like to be a little happier. The problem is that much of what determines happiness is outside of our control. Some of us are genetically predisposed to see the world through rose-colored glasses, while others have a generally negative outlook. Bad things happen, to us and in the world. People can be unkind, and jobs can be tedious. But we do have some control over how we spend our leisure time. That’s one reason why it’s worth asking which leisure time activities are linked to happiness, and...

By Scott Shackelford, Associate Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Director, Ostrom Workshop Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance; Cybersecurity Program Chair, IU-Bloomington, Indiana University High-profile data breaches at national retail companies get a lot of media coverage, but cybercriminals are increasingly going after community groups, schools, small businesses, and municipal governments. Just in the Midwest, hospitals, libraries, voter registration systems and police departments have fallen victim to one type of digital hijacking or another. Cybercrime is not just a concern for corporate technology departments. Schools, scout troops, Rotary clubs and religious organizations need to know what to look...