Zakeera Docrat, Rhodes University and Russell H. Kaschula, Rhodes University Emojis have become ubiquitous in text communication – messages are peppered with smiley faces, hearts and other graphic icons. They were first drawn by graphic designer Shigetaka Kurita, and generated by a […]
Simone Abram, Durham University How do you respond to a crisis? It’s obvious that the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been dramatically different to anything provoked by repeated scientific warnings about climate change. The many organisations that declared climate emergencies throughout […]
Wanda Markotter, University of Pretoria The current COVID-19 outbreak is driven by a novel coronavirus (SARS CoV-2) that is spreading between people. The first human infections were reported at the end of December 2019 in Wuhan, Hubei province in China when a […]
Jeremy Rossman, University of Kent As the coronavirus death toll continues to rise, some have suggested that the approaching warmer spring weather in the northern hemisphere may slow or even stop the spread of the disease. US president Donald Trump echoed this, […]
Julii Brainard, University of East Anglia and Paul Hunter, University of East Anglia One of the strategies the British government will use to control the spread of COVID-19 is self-isolation. In case you are wondering exactly what self-isolation entails, we have provided […]
Edward Parker, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Beate Kampmann, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine For many of us, the threat of coronavirus suddenly feels much closer to home. The last few days have seen a rapid increase […]
Chris Colvin, Queen’s University Belfast and Eoin McLaughlin, University College Cork As news of the global spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) emerged, global financial markets reacted pessimistically and behaved in ways not seen since the 2008 financial crisis. But fully understanding the […]
Brian Labus, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Editor’s note: The World Health Organization has declared that COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, has a higher fatality rate than the flu. As of March 4, 2020, nine deaths have been reported […]
Clint Witchalls, The Conversation The year had barely begun when stories started to emerge of a worrying number of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China, caused by a mysterious new “coronavirus”. The Conversation published its first story on the outbreak on January 13. […]
Adam Taylor, Lancaster University Our brain is the most complex organ in the body. Not only does it control basic life functions like breathing, organ function, and movement, it’s also behind more complex processes – everything from thought, controlling our behaviour and […]
Harun Šiljak, Trinity College Dublin Google reported a remarkable breakthrough towards the end of 2019. The company claimed to have achieved something called quantum supremacy, using a new type of “quantum” computer to perform a benchmark test in 200 seconds. This was […]
Monica Grady, The Open University Katherine Johnson, who has died at the age of 101, was an amazing woman. But up until a few years ago, hardly anyone had heard of her or her achievements. She was a mathematician and she worked […]
Emily Marchant, Swansea University; Charlotte Todd, Swansea University; Gareth Stratton, Swansea University; Michaela James, Swansea University, and Sinead Brophy, Swansea University Children today spend more time sitting than ever before. And research shows that as they grow up, children tend to become […]
Paul McGreevy, University of Sydney Curious Kids is a series for children. Send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au. You might also like the podcast Imagine This, a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on Curious Kids. Hello. My dad says […]
Mark Lorch, University of Hull CC BY-ND Curious Kids is a series by The Conversation, which gives children of all ages the chance to have their questions about the world answered by experts. All questions are welcome: you or an adult can […]
Ruth Dalton, Northumbria University, Newcastle Cities around the world are changing to become more “walkable”. As more and more people move to cities, the benefits of encouraging people to walk are clear. Aside from making the urban environment more pleasant, safer and […]
Louise-Ann Leyland, UCL; Ben Spencer, Oxford Brookes University; Carien van Reekum, University of Reading, and Tim Jones, Oxford Brookes University Getting on your bicycle can give you an enormous sense of freedom and enjoyment. It can increase your independence and knowledge of […]
Hannah Bloomfield, University of Reading CC BY-ND Curious Kids is a series by The Conversation, which gives children of all ages the chance to have their questions about the world answered by experts. All questions are welcome: you or an adult can […]
Roberto Foa, University of Cambridge and Andrew James Klassen, University of Cambridge Global dissatisfaction with democracy has increased over the past 25 years, according to our recent report. Drawing upon the HUMAN Surveys project, the report covered 154 countries, with 77 countries […]
Louis-Philippe Beland, Louisiana State University and Daniel Brent, Louisiana State University Society pays a heavy price for traffic. It leads to lost time, more pollution and increased spending on gasoline. In metropolitan areas, road congestion in 2012 led consumers to waste 2.9 […]
Aysha Bellamy, Royal Holloway CC BY-ND Curious Kids is a series by The Conversation, which gives children of all ages the chance to have their questions about the world answered by experts. All questions are welcome: send them – along with your […]
Nick Longrich, University of Bath Why do we love? At best, it’s a mixed blessing, at worst, a curse. Love makes otherwise intelligent people act like fools; it causes heartache and grief. Lovers break our hearts, family sometimes drive us mad, friends […]
Sometimes it seems as if life is passing us by. When we are children, time ambles by, with endless car journeys and summer holidays which seem to last forever. But as adults, time seems to speed up at a frightening rate, with […]
Richard Kingston, University of Manchester and Ransford A. Acheampong, University of Manchester Since the 1920s, the car has revolutionised the way people travel; eliminating the constraints of distance while offering a personal, fast and convenient way to get from one place to […]
Myrto Mantziara, Bangor University Our behaviour is largely tied to how well we control, organise and carry out movements in the correct order. Take writing, for example. If we didn’t make one stroke after another on a page, we would not be […]
Richard Metcalfe, Swansea University and Max Western, University of Bath On average, people spend over 3,500 days (or 84,000 hours) at work over a lifetime. This makes work the ideal place to encourage and support physical activity and exercise. And a new […]
Gemma Briggs, The Open University; Helen Wells, Keele University, and Leanne Savigar, Keele University The retired football star David Beckham recently received a six-month driving ban after being photographed using his hand-held phone while driving. Unfortunately, Beckham is not alone in apparently […]
Mark Whitehead, Aberystwyth University The number of active users of Facebook (those people who have logged onto the site in the previous month) has reached a historic high of 2.45 billion. To put this in some context, approximately 32% of the global […]
David Higgins, University of Leeds and Tess Somervell, University of Leeds New novels about climate change – climate fiction, or cli-fi – are being published all the time. The nature of the climate crisis is a difficult thing to get across, and […]
Ann John, Swansea University and Sophie Wood, Cardiff University There is ongoing debate about whether eating disorders are more common in modern society. Some say that as young people are both exposed to and share images of themselves in an unprecedented way […]