Is academic freedom a license to provoke without consequences?
Bruce Barry, Vanderbilt University
Does academic freedom entitle university professors to be as provocative as they wish when expressing their views on issues of the...
How to save California’s precious groundwater, the ‘dark matter’ of our water world
Graham Fogg, University of California, Davis
As California suffers its fourth year of drought, much of the attention is focused on the state’s groundwater –...
How do you haha? LOL through the ages
Lauren Collister, University of Pittsburgh
Laughter is uniquely human. Sometimes deliberate, sometimes uncontrollable, we laugh out loud to signal our reaction to a range of...
Rival fantasies: Dungeons & Dragons players and their religious critics actually have a lot...
Joseph P Laycock, Texas State University
Religion-fueled conspiracy theories continue to pervade our culture.
Today, some claim energy drinks are Satanic plots. Others argue that shape-shifting...
Social media’s charts and metrics turn us into quantified digital versions of ourselves
Jefferson Pooley, Muhlenberg College
Earlier this month, LinkedIn announced an update to its users’ already-teeming profile view. The social network now lets you track and...
Can we unlearn social biases while we sleep?
Xiaoqing Hu, University of Texas at Austin
Your brain does a lot when you are asleep. It’s when you consolidate memories and integrate the things...
Increased typhoon intensity linked to ocean warming
Wei Mei, University of California, San Diego
Every year, typhoons over the western North Pacific – the equivalent to hurricanes in the North Atlantic –...
Guns on campus: there will be no artist or doctor once the trigger is...
Jeffrey Alan Lockwood, University of Wyoming
As a rational academic, living in one of the most conservative states, where legislators are planning to allow firearms...
