The Conversation 
Herpreet Thind, UMass Lowell The popularity of yoga has grown tremendously in the past decade. More than 10% of U.S. adults have practiced yoga at some point in their lives. Yoga practitioners spend on average US$90 a month, and the yoga industry is worth more than $80 billion worldwide. Yoga mixes physical exercise with meditation
Taylor Grasso, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Detox diets are often touted as a way to cleanse the body after the excess food and drinks that come with the holidays. These diets promise quick results and can particularly entice people around the new year, when there tends to be a renewed focus on health
Christina Mair, University of Pittsburgh This month, millions of Americans are taking part in “Dry January” in an effort to forgo alcohol for a month and cleanse themselves of the excesses of the holiday season. Alcohol is the most widely used drug in the world, including in the U.S. In 2020, nearly 70% of people
Wendy Tzou, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Damar Hamlin, a safety for the Buffalo Bills, collapsed on the field during a Monday night football game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Jan. 2, 2023. Medical staff gave Hamlin CPR and shocked him with a defibrillator, restarting his heart’s normal rhythm. News outlets immediately began speculating
Mathew Schmalz, College of the Holy Cross Benedict XVI leaves behind a complex legacy as a Pope and theologian. To many observers, Benedict, who died on Dec. 31, 2022 at the age of 95, was known for criticizing what he saw as the modern world’s rejection of God and Christianity’s timeless truths. But as a
Jabari M. Evans, University of South Carolina For most college football coaches, the move from a mid-major conference to a Power Five conference would be met with widespread praise. Not so for Deion Sanders. When the Pro Football Hall of Famer announced he would be leaving Jackson State University, where he has coached the football
David W. Stowe, Michigan State University In American culture, Christmas is supposed to be synonymous with joy. The familiar carols proclaim this message, with “Joy to the World” resounding in thousands of churches, while its secular counterpart exhorts listeners to have “A Holly Jolly Christmas.” ‘Joy to the World’ may be one of the most
Derek T. Muller, University of Iowa Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., center, and Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, right, take cover as protesters disrupt the joint session of Congress to certify the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, 2021. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Presidential elections are complicated. All 50 states and the District of Columbia
Rachel Diamond, Adler University Preventable failures in U.S. maternal health care result in far too many pregnancy-related deaths. Each year, approximately 700 parents die from pregnancy and childbirth complications. As such, the U.S. maternal mortality rate is more than double that of most other developed countries. The Department of Health and Human Services declared maternal
Rachel Diamond, Adler University Preventable failures in U.S. maternal health care result in far too many pregnancy-related deaths. Each year, approximately 700 parents die from pregnancy and childbirth complications. As such, the U.S. maternal mortality rate is more than double that of most other developed countries. The Department of Health and Human Services declared maternal
Troy Bickham, Texas A&M University Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. Why did turkey become the national Thanksgiving go-to dish? Gianna, age 10, Phoenix, Arizona Have you ever wondered why Thanksgiving revolves around turkey and not
By Michael A. Rawlins, UMass Amherst It’s hard for most people to imagine more than 5 feet of snow in one storm, like parts of the Buffalo area saw over the weekend, but these extreme snowfall events sometimes happen along the eastern edges of the Great Lakes. The phenomenon is called “lake-effect snow,” and the
Miriam Seifter, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Adam Sopko, University of Wisconsin-Madison The run-up to Election Day is often a contentious time. In recent years, it has also become a litigious time – parties increasingly turn to courts to resolve disputes about the rules for voting. This year, our research shows a significant uptick of those
Svetla Ben-Itzhak, Air University On Sept. 26, 2022, NASA plans to change an asteroid’s orbit. The large binary asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos currently pose no threat to Earth. But by crashing a 1,340-pound (610-kilogram) probe into Didymos’ moon at a speed of approximately 14,000 mph (22,500 kph), NASA is going to complete the
Andrew Newman, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York) If you went to high school in the United States anytime since the 1960s, you were likely assigned some of the following books: Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” “Julius Caesar” and “Macbeth”; John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”; F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”; Harper
David Shiffman, Arizona State University Sharks are some of the most ecologically important and most threatened animals on Earth. Recent reports show that up to one-third of all known species of sharks and their relatives, rays, are threatened with extinction. Unsustainable overfishing is the biggest threat by far. Losing sharks can disrupt coastal food webs
Mitchell Nathanson, Villanova School of Law When the Major League Baseball Players Association sent union authorization cards to approximately 5,000 minor league players in an attempt to unionize them, I was both surprised and not surprised at all. If any industry is crying out for unionization, it’s this one. Minor league baseball players are subject
Prakash Nagarkatti, University of South Carolina and Mitzi Nagarkatti, University of South Carolina On Sept. 1, 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed the use of updated COVID-19 booster shots that are specifically tailored to combat the two most prevalent omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5. The decision comes just a day after the
Jack Burns, University of Colorado Boulder NASA’s Artemis 1 mission is poised to take a key step toward returning humans to the Moon after a half-century hiatus. The mission, scheduled to launch on Monday, Aug. 29, 2022, is a shakedown cruise – sans crew – for NASA’s Space Launch System and Orion Crew Capsule. The
Charles R. Hunt, Boise State University Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz has garnered a lot of media attention recently, thanks to the Fetterman campaign’s relentless trolling of his opponent, mainly for being a resident of neighboring New Jersey rather than the state he’s running to represent. Fetterman has
By W. Larry Kenney, Penn State; Daniel Vecellio, Penn State; Rachel Cottle, Penn State, and S. Tony Wolf, Penn State Heat waves are becoming supercharged as the climate changes – lasting longer, becoming more frequent and getting just plain hotter. One question a lot of people are asking is: “When will it get too hot
By Garret Martin, American University School of International Service Boris Johnson, the now outgoing prime minister of the United Kingdom, had wanted to follow in the footsteps of his idol Winston Churchill and be remembered as a leader of consequence. He aspired to greatness and desired to stay in office longer than the 11 years
By Laura Antkowiak, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Experts predict increased economic hardship now that the U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade in its Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision. Three-quarters of abortion patients in the United States have incomes that place them below or just barely above the federal poverty line
Morgan Marietta, UMass Lowell With its decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol v. Bruen on June 23, 2022, the Supreme Court has announced that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right. The core argument of the decision is that gun rights are to be treated the same as other hallowed rights like
Kris Manjapra, Tufts University The actual day was June 19, 1865, and it was the Black dockworkers in Galveston, Texas, who first heard the word that freedom for the enslaved had come. There were speeches, sermons and shared meals, mostly held at Black churches, the safest places to have such celebrations. The perils of unjust
By D. Brian Blank, Mississippi State University The Federal Reserve on June 15, 2022, lifted interest rates by 0.75 percentage point, the third hike this year and the largest since 1994. The move is aimed at countering the fastest pace of inflation in over 40 years. Wall Street had been expecting a half-point increase, but
By Ekaterina Romanova, University of Florida Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, public opinion polls have shown Russians overwhelmingly supporting the action, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has called a “special military operation.” The polls show support ranging from 58% to 80% – but my statistical analysis of polling data
Morgan Marietta, UMass Lowell Draft opinions circulated among Supreme Court justices are meant to allow for deliberation and editing before a final version is released. They are not the last word, nor ready for public reaction. But on the evening of May 2, 2022, Politico published a bombshell: a leaked draft of an opinion, written
Matt Williams, The Conversation The phrase “in a historic vote” gets thrown around a lot in journalism – and it isn’t always warranted. But shortly after 2 p.m. EDT on April 7, 2022, a Senate roll call confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the next U.S. Supreme Court justice – the first Black woman to sit
Written by William Hauk – Associate Professor of Economics, University of South Carolina Americans may be tempted to view the war in Ukraine as an unfortunate, but far away, crisis. As an economist, I know the world is too connected for the U.S. to go unaffected. On Feb. 22, 2022, President Joe Biden warned Americans that a Russian
Brian P. McCullough, Texas A&M University and Lance Warwick, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Watching skiers compete almost entirely on artificially made snow at the 2022 Winter Olympics, we found it hard not to think about climate change and what it will mean for the future of the winter sports industry – and who will
Written by Hannah L. Schacter – Assistant Professor of Psychology, Wayne State University Online school during the COVID-19 pandemic was hard on many teens, but new research I co-authored has found a potential silver lining: Students were bullied less during remote instruction than while attending classes in person. We learned this by surveying 388 ninth graders at U.S. high schools.
Aram Goudsouzian, University of Memphis In the summer of 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. introduced the keynote speaker for the 10th-anniversary convention banquet of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Their guest, he said, was his “soul brother.” “He has carved for himself an imperishable niche in the annals of our nation’s history,” King told the
Kristine Nolin, University of Richmond A quick walk down the drink aisle of any corner store reveals the incredible ingenuity of food scientists in search of sweet flavors. In some drinks you’ll find sugar. A diet soda might have an artificial or natural low-calorie sweetener. And found in nearly everything else is high fructose corn
By Frank Dobson, Vanderbilt University On Dec. 26, millions throughout the world’s African community will start weeklong celebrations of Kwanzaa. There will be daily ceremonies with food, decorations and other cultural objects, such as the kinara, which holds seven candles. At many Kwanzaa ceremonies, there is also African drumming and dancing. It is a time
