Trump keeps eyeing Greenland’s oil and minerals. A geoscientist explains why melting ice, unstable fjords and climate-driven hazards make mining and drilling there extraordinarily risky, expensive and potentially deadly ⬇️
The Conversation
Greenland’s melting ice and landslide-prone fjords make the oil and minerals Trump is eyeing dangerous to extract
Melting ice, thawing permafrost and crumbling fjord walls are just a few of the risks climate change poses for those living and working in Greenland.
“Regime change” ≠ just removing a leader. The U.S. seizure of Nicolás Maduro has revived the term, often as shorthand for ending Venezuela’s crisis. But in foreign policy, the term ‘regime change’ means an outside power remaking a country’s political system — not simply replacing one person with another. That distinction matters and history shows it’s where real instability often begins.
The Conversation
Regime change means different things to different people. Either way, it hasn’t happened in Venezuela … yet
Talk of regime change brings up uncomfortable memories of the chaos after the overthrow of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein.
The U.S. childhood vaccine schedule is not a list doctors randomly decided on. It evolved over decades in response to deadly outbreaks, hard lessons and rigorous research. Rolling it back, says infectious disease specialist Dr. Jake Scott, risks relearning those lessons the hard way.
The Conversation
RFK Jr. guts the US childhood vaccine schedule despite its decades-long safety record
In an unprecedented move, health officials cut the number of vaccines routinely recommended for children from 17 to 11.
What makes your clean, minty mouth taste so gross when it meets OJ? A psychologist who has spent more than 40 years researching the science of how people experience taste and flavor explains what happens:
The Conversation
Why does orange juice taste bad after you brush your teeth?
Sour acidic tastes turn bitter after you brush your teeth with toothpaste.
92% of adults view museums as nonpartisan sources of education. This rare level of confidence gives museums both an opportunity and a responsibility to model how people might think and listen together, explains one museum director.
The Conversation
How museums can help rebuild trust in a divided America
As social divisions grow, museums provide forums for civic connection and discourse across political and cultural lines.
“Environmental amnesia” lets critics focus on costs of laws, while forgetting why these laws were needed and the real benefits they delivered, according to an environmental law professor. The “Documerica” project shows in clear photographic evidence how dirty the U.S. used to be.
The Conversation
The US used to be really dirty – environmental cleanup laws have made a huge difference
Critics of environmental protection laws may have forgotten how much progress has been made.
When cities burn, plastics, electronics, cleaning chemicals and more create a toxic brew. An environmental health scientist studying the #LAFires found that some chemicals can be more concentrated indoors than outside, posing real health risks.
The Conversation
LA fires 1 year later: Chemicals from smoke lingered inside homes long after the wildfires were out – studies tracked the harm
When cities burn, plastics, electronics, cleaning chemicals and much more create a toxic brew. Studies launched during the LA fires a year ago show...
Today’s voters don’t evaluate scandal as citizens: they evaluate it as fans. Democrats and Republicans both seek to punish misdeeds by the other side but rationalize them for their own team, explains a professor who has written a book on how politicians survive scandal.
The Conversation
Voters shrug off scandals, paying a price in lost trust
Scandals don’t have the resonance they used to. Both parties could do more to police offenders within their own ranks.
Months of preparation and intelligence gathering went into the US mission to seize Venezuela’s president. A military strategist and former Latin America policy adviser to the U.S. State Department breaks down what we know about the planning and execution:
The Conversation
How Maduro’s capture went down – a military strategist explains what goes into a successful special op
Months of preparation and intelligence gathering went into the mission to seize Venezuela’s president in Caracas.
“If Washington governs by force in Venezuela, it will repeat the failures of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya: Power can topple regimes, but it cannot create political authority. Outside rule invites resistance, not stability.” - Monica Duffy Toft, Tufts University, scholar of international security