What do gorilla suits and blowfish fallacies have to do with climate change?
Laser-like focus on a tiny, unimportant detail can mean you miss the gorilla in the room – a tactic climate change deniers use to cast doubt on the science.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Analysis and Comment
Allison Davis: Forgotten black scholar studied – and faced – structural racism in 1940s America
His landmark contributions to anthropology have faded from memory, despite real-world policy impact during the mid-20th century.
Are you really anonymous online? Your friends on Twitter may give you away
You might think you're anonymous when you're browsing the web. But a new study shows that browsing history can often be tied to your real-world identity.
What Facebook Live means for journalism
Facebook Live – and other live-video streaming services – change how we bear witness to events, and challenge how we think about visual information.
Should scientists engage in activism?
In the wake of the Flint water crisis and with a new notably anti-science president, U.S. scientists are reevaluating how to navigate the tension between speaking out and a fear of losing research funding.
Does an anomaly in the Earth’s magnetic field portend a coming pole reversal?
Are we headed to a magnetic reversal and all the global disruption that would bring? Enter archaeomagnetism. A look at the archaeological record in southern Africa provides some clues.
Defining dual-use research: When scientific advances can both help and hurt humanity
A scientific breakthrough in a vacuum may be free of ethical implications. But many developments can be used for good or evil, or both. There's a fine balance on what to control and to what extent.
Hunting hackers: An ethical hacker explains how to track down the bad guys
Cyberdetectives look for digital doors or windows left unlocked, find electronic footprints in the dirt and examine malicious software for clues about who broke in, what they took and why.
The frog tongue is a high-speed adhesive
How do a frog's tongue and saliva work together to be sticky enough to lift 1.4 times the animal's body weight? Painstaking lab work found their spit switches between two distinct phases to nab prey.
Why Bill Belichick cast down his tablet
The problems that cause us to be so frustrated we contemplate throwing a computer can be much more serious than a multimillionaire football coach having a minor tantrum on a Sunday afternoon.
How Florida is helping train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals
Governments, academic institutions and private companies are all spending millions of dollars. But the most effective solutions to the cybersecurity labor shortage will not be found individually.
It’s pedal to the metal for driverless cars
Together, three recent events mark a crucial turning point in the development of autonomous cars: They are both safer and more advanced than ever before.
What drones may come: The future of unmanned flight approaches
Get a taste of a drone-enabled future by looking at innovations and explorations from researchers, students and employees at one of the nation's largest university systems.
SmallSat revolution: Tiny satellites poised to make big contributions to essential science
As technology advances, tiny satellites no bigger than a loaf of bread have advanced from just proving they work to being big contributors in answering science questions.
Far beyond crime-ridden depravity, darknets are key strongholds of freedom of expression online
Our psychological biases mean order matters when we judge items in sequence
How to secure a smartphone for the tweeter-in-chief
Understanding net neutrality: Seven essential reads
Overcoming ‘cyber-fatigue’ requires users to step up for security
History of science
Before Nobels: Gifts to and from rich patrons were early science’s currency
People have always known science would advance faster with various incentives and rewards. As modern experimental science took off, these took the form of gifts and favors to and from wealthy elites.
Jesuits as science missionaries for the Catholic Church
As a Jesuit, Pope Francis is part of a long tradition of religious men of science. Will his leadership influence the Catholic Church's stance on contemporary scientific issues?
The most influential scientist you may never have heard of
Gaze at Alexander Von Humboldt’s 1814 self-portrait and you peer into the eyes of a man who sought to see and understand everything.
Gaming
Family matters: how video games help successful aging
Gaming is a way to connect to family members. Those relationships can improve mental and physical well-being, in addition to creating meaningful personal bonds.
Playing at torture, a not so trivial pursuit
Does including torture or other human rights violations in video games trivialize the actions? Or might it force us to think more critically about them?
Play video games, advance science
We recently set up a Foldit competition between gamers, undergraduate students and professional scientists. The winner might surprise you – and offer important possibilities for scientific research.
Doing science
How computers broke science – and what we can do to fix it
Virtually every researcher relies on computers to collect or analyze data. But when computers are opaque black boxes that manipulate data, it's impossible to replicate studies – a core value for science.
Research and Expert Database
Editors’ Picks
Why do groundhogs emerge on February 2 if it’s not to predict the weather?
It's all about mating success.
Is Google’s eagerness to answer questions promoting more falsehood online?
When a search query is loaded with implicit false assumptions, Google's results don't always promote the truth.
The factories of the past are turning into the data centers of the future
Data centers are taking over the factories where workers once processed checks, baked bread and printed Bibles. What will the rise of the information-based economy mean for American cities?
When ‘energy’ drinks actually contained radioactive energy
Back in the early 1900s, if you felt a bit sluggish you could reach for a beverage enhanced with radioactive elements to really add some pep to your step. It wouldn't be a healthy choice, though.
‘Spearphishing’ roiled the presidential campaign – here’s how to protect yourself
Despite years of public information efforts, even simple cyberattacks still succeed. Here are five steps to avoiding having your emails appear on WikiLeaks.
‘Even though I am a girl…’: John Glenn’s fan mail and sexism in the early space program
Letters from would-be girl astronauts in the 1960s tell part of the complicated story of sexism – in both NASA and the US at large – at the dawn of the space age.
New genetically engineered American chestnut will help restore the decimated, iconic tree
Adding a single wheat gene helps the American chestnut withstand a fungal pathogen that nearly wiped these hardwood trees out of the eastern forests they once dominated.
The unknown crocodiles
Slow, lazy, stupid? It's time to update your impression of the crocodilians. These animals are up to amazing things that we're only beginning to observe and recognize.
Protect your privacy during turbulent times: A hacker’s guide to being cyber-safe
People who think like hackers have some really good ideas about how to protect digital privacy during turbulent times. We can learn from them.
The future of genetic enhancement is not in the West
Regulations, funding and public opinion around genetically enhancing future generations vary from country to country. Here's why China may be poised to be the pioneer.
What happens when LIGO texts you to say it’s detected one of Einstein’s predicted gravitational waves
Here's a LIGO insider's description of how he got the news of a phenomenon that had first been theorized 100 years ago.
Deep underground, smartphones can save miners’ lives
Mine communications are complex, slow and unreliable. The solution to keeping miners safe, and rescuing them when disaster strikes, might just be in their hands already.
How could we build an invisibility cloak to hide Earth from an alien civilization?
There are technological ways to hide a planet from intergalactic detection – as well as ways to signal that we're just sitting here, eager for contact.
Most Read past week
- Does an anomaly in the Earth’s magnetic field portend a coming pole reversal?
- Should scientists engage in activism?
- Are you really anonymous online? Your friends on Twitter may give you away
- It’s pedal to the metal for driverless cars
- Hunting hackers: An ethical hacker explains how to track down the bad guys
Pitch an idea
Got a news tip or article idea for The Conversation?
Our Audience
The Conversation has a monthly audience of 3.7 million users, and reach of 35 million through Creative Commons republication.
Want to Write?
Write an article and join a growing community of more than 46,000 academics and researchers from 1,930 institutions.
Make a Donation
The Conversation relies on university, foundation and reader support. If you would like to help us have even better conversations, then you may like to make a one-off or on-going donation.