BERJAYA

a large missile just beginning to lift off from a desert landscape

How far can Iran’s ballistic missiles reach? A defense expert explains how the missiles work, and what Iran can and can’t hit

Iain Boyd, University of Colorado Boulder

two teenagers with trays of food at a self-serve cafeteria display

Irrational decision or helpful evolutionary adaptation? A philosopher on the rationality wars behind ‘nudge’ policy

Alejandro Hortal-Sánchez, Wake Forest University; University of North Carolina – Greensboro

Growing up during Sri Lanka’s civil war taught me that getting along with people across divides is a virtue we can learn

Eranda Jayawickreme, Wake Forest University

Men wearing white turbans and red skirts wave clusters of feathers as they dance outside at night.

How the National Security Council typically functions to plan and fully assess risks when presidents consider going to war

Gregory F. Treverton, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Several men and one woman dressed in white stand before a table.

The world’s great fish migrations are collapsing – that’s a problem for millions of people

Zeb Hogan, University of Nevada, Reno

Is it ‘Ih-ran’ or ‘E-ron’? Inside the politics of pronunciation

Valerie M. Fridland, University of Nevada, Reno

A green megaphone with military gun and bullet rendering.

‘Vas Madness’ shows the power of messaging on men’s contraceptive decisions

Jenna Vinson, UMass Lowell

Man sitting on couch next to a basketball holding a beer and pretzels

Oil price surge is hurting African economies: scholars in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa take stock

Stephen Onyeiwu, Allegheny College; Ibrahima Thiam, Université Iba Der Thiam de Thiès; Rod Crompton, University of the Witwatersrand; Tsegay Tekleselassie, Wellesley College, and XN Iraki, University of Nairobi

Women seated behind piles of fresh produce on the ground in a marketplace

Psychological toll of betrayal trauma may help explain why women kept silent for decades after alleged abuse by civil rights icon Cesar Chavez

Anne P. DePrince, University of Denver

A dark-haired man talking to a huge crowd of people.

Over 400 million barrels will be added to the oil market soon – what are strategic reserves and what can they do?

Scott L. Montgomery, University of Washington

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Woman sits at table with eyes closed and fingers on temples

Workplace relief is coming for employees with symptoms of menstruation, perimenopause and menopause in Philly

Ann Juliano, Villanova University

An illustration of optical fibers, shown as winding bright lines of light.

60 years of fiber optics: How a carrier of light you can’t see underlies much of the modern world

John Ballato, Clemson University

What an ancient devotional text means for the women of Nepal

Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz, Penn State

Hundreds of women dressed in red sit closely together, many with heads bowed and one hand raised in a gesture of ritual offering.

Drones paired with AI could help search-and-rescue teams find missing persons faster

Adeel Khalid, Kennesaw State University

How dolphins communicate – new discoveries from a long-term study in Sarasota, Florida

Laela Sayigh, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

50 years ago, Karen Quinlan’s coma sparked the movement for patients’ rights near the end of life

Robert S. Olick, SUNY Upstate Medical University

Someone in a brown sweater holds the hand of someone lying in a hospital bed.

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a large outdoor structure with angled sides containing octagonal patterns

A web of sensors: How the US spots missiles and drones from Iran

Aaron Brynildson, University of Mississippi

Immigrant kids can attend school regardless of citizenship – some states are challenging this standard

William McCorkle, College of Charleston

A woman walks along the sidewalk, holding a child's hand, near a sign that says Ellsworth Avenue School.

Why many older adults skip hard candy – how aging can change chewing and swallowing

Sundeep Venkatesan, Binghamton University, State University of New York

A grandmother and her granddaughter sitting at a table with bowls of Easter candy.

What Betsy Ross’ real story tells us about women’s work in the Revolution − and why it still matters 250 years later

Marla Miller, UMass Amherst

An illustration of a group of men and women in colonial dress with the man in the center holding a U.S. flag with 13 stars

The ever-evolving Latino vote is rapidly shifting away from Trump and Republicans

Matt A. Barreto, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and Gary M. Segura, UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs

A man holds a campaign sign in front of a display of various campaign posters and the U.S. flag.

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U.S.-Iran war

A black cloud rises next to an apartment bloc.

Israeli action in Lebanon risks repeating history’s mistakes — and torpedoing a historic moment for dialogue

Asher Kaufman, University of Notre Dame

Overconfidence is how wars are lost − lessons from Vietnam, Afghanistan and Ukraine for the war in Iran were ignored

Monica Duffy Toft, Tufts University

Plumes of black smoke rising from fires at oil tanks.

Targeting of energy facilities turned Iran war into worst-case scenario for Gulf states

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Rice University

Who are Iran’s new leaders? A look at 6 the US placed a bounty on – 2 of whom are already dead

Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Information is a battlefield: 4 questions you can ask to judge the reliability of news reports and social posts about the US-Iran war

Andrea Hickerson, University of Mississippi

Several men in suit and ties watch another man speak while on a podium.

When GPS lies at sea: How electronic warfare is threatening ships and their crews

Anna Raymaker, Georgia Institute of Technology

view along the deck of a oil super tanker at sea with sunset in the background

Iran’s missile mayhem show the limits of Middle East defences

Michael J. Armstrong, Brock University

A large black plume of smoke spewing from a warehouse in an industrial area.

Iran will respond to US-Israeli strikes as existential threats to the regime – because they are

Javed Ali, University of Michigan

The US is using repurposed Iranian drone technology to attack Iran – a military expert explains why

Arun Dawson, King's College London

The Iranian Shahed-136 attack drone in flight.

Philosophy and ethics

Hands type on a keyboard, as the words 'credit score' and a colored chart float above.

Moral metrics: Are corporate algorithms becoming our new moral authorities?

Beth DuFault, University of Portland

Paul Ehrlich, often called alarmist for dire warnings about human harms to the Earth, believed scientists had a responsibility to speak out

William J. (Bill) Kovarik, Radford University

A man in a chambray shirt and sun hat stands outdoors, feeding a bird from his hand.

What an ancient Chinese philosopher can teach us about Americans’ obsession with college rankings

Stephen Chen, Wellesley College

A girl in a red skirt looks up at a wall full of Chinese script in large characters, against a white background.

Iran war and other tough topics give K-12 teachers chance to teach students how, not what, to think

Boaz Dvir, Penn State

A large crowd of people stand in a street with red, white and green flags and a large billboard that shows a man wearing a robe, waving to people holding their arms up to him.

I was teaching virtue and knowledge while lying on the side

Katherine Moses, University of Mississippi

A woman drives a car at night with her eyes visible through the rearview mirror.

Extreme weather and natural disasters

Lakes the color of turquoise gem stones stand out against the white glaciers that send meltwater into them.

Alaska’s glacial lakes are expanding, increasing the risk of destructive outburst floods

Dan McGrath, Colorado State University

Making sense of a chaotic planet: How understanding weather and climate risks depends on supercomputers like NCAR’s

Antonios Mamalakis, University of Virginia

Warming winters are disrupting the hidden world of fungi – the result can shift mountain grasslands to scrub

Stephanie Kivlin, University of Tennessee; Aimee Classen, University of Michigan, and Lara A. Souza, University of Oklahoma

An outdoor view of a lake, snow on trees and mountains in the background

Sixth year of drought in Texas and Oklahoma leaves ranchers facing wildfires and bracing for another tough year

Joel Lisonbee, University of Colorado Boulder and William Baule, Texas A&M University

A farmer walks toward cattle in a very dry landscape under a blue sky.

Tahoe avalanche: What causes snow slopes to collapse? A physicist and skier explains, with tips for surviving

Nathalie Vriend, University of Colorado Boulder

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ICE and immigration

Black woman wearing a medical mask holds sign that reads, "ICE Out Of Pennsylvania."

ICE buys $87M warehouse in Pennsylvania − can local officials block a detention facility?

Aaron Walayat, University of Dayton

Why ICE’s body camera policies make the videos unlikely to improve accountability and transparency

Stephanie Lessing, UMass Boston

When ICE sweeps a community, public health pays a price – and recovery will likely take years

Nicole L. Novak, University of Iowa and William D. Lopez, University of Michigan

People in winter hats hold signs protesting against ICE in Minneapolis.

How the 9/11 terrorist attacks shaped ICE’s immigration strategy

Pawan Dhingra, Amherst College

A man dressed in military gear and holding a rifle is surrounded by tear gas.

A terrorism label that comes before the facts can turn ‘domestic terrorism’ into a useless designation

Brian O'Neill, Georgia Institute of Technology

A woman speaks in front of a podium as an image of a gun appears on a video screen behind her.

Trump administration

A man in a suit uses scissors to cut strings holding money bags up.

Tax changes taking effect in 2026 may boost the number of donors but lead to the US missing out on an estimated $5.7B a year in charitable giving

Jon Bergdoll, Indiana University and Patrick Rooney, Indiana University

In its hunt for critical minerals, the US is misconstruing what is and is not America’s

Coalter G Lathrop, Duke University

A photo of a mechanical claw from a submersible and surrounding seafloor that appears almost paved in nodules.

Congress still has ways to throttle back Trump’s war with Iran – and to ask questions

SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor, University of Virginia and Charlie Hunt, Boise State University

A photo of the US Capitol dome and an Iranian flag superimposed on it.

Venezuela’s fragile environment faces rising risks as US pushes for oil and critical minerals and illegal gold mining spreads

Antonio Machado Allison, Wesleyan University

A young Venezuelan miner works in an open pit gold mine in Bolivar State, Venezuela, in 2023.

Trump offered a restrictive deal to universities that almost all rejected – but the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education may not be entirely dead

Fred L. Pincus, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

A cartoon image shows a person looking inside a bird cage that has books in it

International

Trump’s ‘Venezuela solution’ to Cuba would see the island nation returned to a client state

Joseph J. Gonzalez, Appalachian State University

Kurdish gains in Syria could disappear without international support − just as they did in Iraq decades ago

Lily Hindy, University of California, Los Angeles

Two people gesture toward an approaching military vehicle.

China’s muted response over war in Iran reflects Beijing’s delicate calculus as a concerned onlooker

John Calabrese, American University

Hezbollah − degraded, weakened but not yet disarmed − destabilizes Lebanon once again

Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College

Far from random, China’s global port network is clustering near the world’s riskiest trade routes

Dylan Spencer, Georgia Southern University; Gohar Petrossian, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Stephen Pires, Florida International University

The silhouettes of container cranes against a sunset

New research in health and science

Middle-aged man reviewing a financial document in front of his laptop.

Health insurance jargon can be frustrating and confusing – here’s how to navigate it

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, UMass Amherst and Michal Horný, UMass Amherst

Power outages in heat waves and storms can threaten the lives of medical device users – we looked at who is most at risk

Matthew D. Dean, University of California, Irvine and Katherine Asmussen, University of Tennessee

An older adult writes while using a machine with a face mask that assists with breathing.

Millions of CT scans are done every year – most leave important data behind

Peter Gunderman, Indiana University

Doctor running CT scan from the next room, with patient entering a CT scanner in the background.

Researchers develop biodegradable, plant-based packaging from natural fibers – new research

J. Carson Meredith, Georgia Institute of Technology

Crumpled up plastic wrap against a black background

My research on wheelchair basketball challenges one of the biggest assumptions about sex differences in sports

Leanne Snyder, Loyola University Chicago

Players from Spain's and Australia wheelchair basketball team during the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games

Artificial intelligence

cartoon of a woman and a humanoid robot talking to each other

How AI English and human English differ – and how to decide when to use artificial language

Laura Aull, University of Michigan

More and more teachers and students are using AI – even though it might do more harm than good

Tal Slemrod, California State University, Chico

A circle that says AI has a graduation cap on it hovers above a desk, which has books, an apple and a small tree on it in a cartoon image.

With AI finishing your sentences, what will happen to your unique voice on the page?

Gayle Rogers, University of Pittsburgh

A hand holding a pencil and writing binary code on lined paper.

The long history of silent meditation retreats and the individuals who helped shape them

Daniel M. Stuart, University of South Carolina

A brightly lit pagoda standing within a green-painted wall, surrounded by trees.

A writing professor’s new task in the age of AI: Teaching students when to struggle

Kristi Girdharry, Babson College

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