Ever wonder why people can’t use their feet like chimpanzees, easily grasping things with our toes just as easily as we do with our fingers? A biological anthropologist explains:
The Conversation
Why can’t I wiggle my toes one at a time, like my fingers?
What muscles feet have, how your brain controls them, and how humans evolved all play a part in why people can’t easily move individual toes.
When George W. Bush called Iran, Iraq and North Korea an "axis of evil," he wasn't describing reality. He was creating a reality in the public imagination. An international relations scholar explains how this metaphor has shaped geopolitics for decades.
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From evil to upheaval and beyond: How the ‘axis’ metaphor shaped modern geopolitics
Using ‘axis’ to describe a grouping of countries tends to link them to a sordid past – but not always.
Recent statements by a new Fed governor highlights how the Federal Reserve technically has a mandate to keep long-term interest rates, like mortgage rates, moderate. An economist explains why this goal is already embedded in the Fed’s other two goals.
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How keeping down borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans is built into the Fed’s ‘dual mandate’
Recent news reports highlighted how the Fed technically has a third mandate – moderate long-term interest rates. An economist explains how the ob...
Netflix acquiring Warner Bros. follows Disney's $71.3 billion purchase of 21st Century Fox and Amazon's acquisition of MGM. US industries have traditionally consolidated into 3 to 5 main players. This acquisition would combine the biggest streaming service with the 4th largest, HBO Max.
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Netflix-Warner deal would drive streaming market further down the road of ‘Big 3’ domination
US industries have traditionally consolidated into 3 to 5 main players. When it comes to streaming, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney are the top trio.
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Obituaries reveal shifting cultural values across time and place. Here’s what psychology researchers found when they sifted through 38 million published from 1998 to 2024
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What 38 million obituaries reveal about how Americans define a ‘life well lived’
Obituaries reveal shifting cultural values across time and place. Here’s a glimpse into how the moral vocabulary has evolved over several decades.
Human trafficking victims are typically exploited by someone they know or trust over months or years through manipulation and coercion, not kidnapping. Florida's new reporting system is revealing just how common the crime actually is.
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Florida’s new reporting system is shining a light on human trafficking in the Sunshine State
Florida’s new unified human trafficking database allows criminologists to determine the scope of the problem and find patterns of exploitation.
Why can’t I wiggle my toes one at a time, like my fingers?
The Conversation
Why can’t I wiggle my toes one at a time, like my fingers?
What muscles feet have, how your brain controls them, and how humans evolved all play a part in why people can’t easily move individual toes.
Frank Gehry, the architect of the unconventional, the accidental, and the inspiring, has died at 96
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Frank Gehry, the architect of the unconventional, the accidental, and the inspiring, has died at 96
Frank Gehry, who has died at 96, leaves a powerful legacy, visible in many major cities, in the media, in galleries and in popular culture.
Sanctuary policies have tripled since 2016, yet body camera videos from Chicago to California show local police acting as #immigration enforcers anyway. A law professor explains why the gap between what sanctuary laws promise and what actually happens on the ground is so wide.
The Conversation
Are sanctuary policing policies no more than a public relations facade?
In a new book based on hours of body-cam footage, a legal scholar shows how local police in sanctuary jurisdictions still help ICE − and why true...
Vaccine committee votes to scrap universal hepatitis B shots for newborns despite outcry from children’s health experts
The Conversation
Vaccine committee votes to scrap universal hepatitis B shots for newborns despite outcry from children’s health experts
The decision undoes a highly effective 34-year prevention strategy that has nearly eliminated early childhood hepatitis B infections in the U.S.