Author: TheConversation

By Name Here, Academic title and school goes in this space in italic By September 2020, just six months after COVID-19 triggered shutdowns across the U.S., it was clear that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, had mutated from its original form. The question quickly arose whether existing rapid antigen tests could detect newly emerging variants. Using clinical samples obtained from diagnostic labs throughout the U.S. from 2020 to 2023, the National Institutes of Health, through its Variant Task Force, analyzed the effectiveness of more than 100 rapid antigen test kits on over 300 variants. The vast majority of...

By Katrina Burgess, Professor of Political Economy, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University While campaigning in Iowa last September, former President Donald Trump made a promise to voters if he were elected again: “Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said. Trump, who made a similar pledge during his first presidential campaign, has recently repeated this promise at rallies across the country. Trump was referring to Operation Wetback, a military-style campaign launched by the Eisenhower administration in the summer of 1954 to end undocumented immigration by deporting...

By Shaun Eaves, Senior Lecturer in Physical Geography, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington; Jamey Stutz, Assistant Director Polar Rock Repository, Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, The Ohio State University; Kevin Norton, Associate Professor in Geochemistry, Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington; and Pedro Doll, PhD candidate, University of Canterbury How often do mountains collapse, volcanoes erupt or ice sheets melt? For Earth scientists, these are important questions as we try to improve projections to prepare communities for hazardous events in the future. We rely on instrumental measurements, but such records are often short. To extend...

By Danielle K. Brown, Professor of Journalism, Michigan State University Protest movements can look very different depending on where you stand, both literally and figuratively. For protesters, demonstrations are usually the result of meticulous planning by advocacy groups and leaders aimed at getting a message out to a wider world or to specific institutional targets. To outside onlookers, however, protests can seem disorganized and disruptive, and it can be difficult to see the depth of the effort or their aims. Take the pro-Palestinian protests that have sprung up at campuses across the United States in recent weeks. To the...

By Colleen Murrell, Full Professor in Journalism, Dublin City University Accusations about Israeli censorship of the media went mainstream in the U.S. recently when The New York Times published an opinion piece headlined: “The Israeli Censorship Regime is Growing. That Needs to Stop.” In the piece Jodie Ginsberg, the chief executive of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), wrote: “The high rate of journalists’ deaths and arrests, including a slew in the West Bank; laws allowing its government to shut down foreign news outlets deemed a security risk, which the prime minister has explicitly threatened to use against Al...

By Rodney Benson, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University; and Victor Pickard, C. Edwin Baker Professor of Media Policy and Political Economy, University of Pennsylvania For the journalism industry, 2024 is off to a brutal start. Most spectacularly, the Los Angeles Times recently slashed more than 20% of its newsroom. Though trouble had long been brewing, the layoffs were particularly disheartening because many employees and readers hoped the Times’ billionaire owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, would stay the course in good times and bad – that he would be a steward less interested in turning a profit and...