By Rachael Jolley, Environment Editor, The Conversation
This roundup of The Conversation’s environment coverage was first published in our award-winning weekly climate action newsletter, Imagine.
In 1968 a photo of the Earth was taken by the crew of Apollo 8 as they orbited the Moon.
It’s hard for us to imagine today what that would feel like for both the crew and the public who first saw the shot of Earth snapped from so far away. All those years ago this was a fantastic, and perhaps shocking, picture taken from somewhere many people would never have imagined humans could go.
That Earthrise shot from 1968,…
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By Ifeoluwa Wuraola, PhD Candidate, Artificial Intelligence, University of Hull
Daniel Marciniak, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Hull
Nina Dethlefs, Professor of Computer Science, Loughborough University
AI tools can help communities respond to floods, heatwaves and other climate emergencies – but only once trained to interpret the nuance of everyday language.
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By Daniel Sims, Associate Professor of First Nations Studies; Adjunct Professor of Education, University of Northern British Columbia
News recently broke about how the RCMP’s security service infiltrated and surveilled Indigenous rights organizations in the 1970s.
Many of the people whose privacy was violated pointed out how these activities highlight the colonial nature of the Canadian state, but another theme also emerged — they weren’t surprised, and had suspected, that they were being watched.
These perceptions have been repeated as the…
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By Jerrid Kruse, Professor of Science Education, Drake University
Some school districts, including ones in Maine, New Mexico, Iowa and Oregon, are shifting to standards-based grading, where students are graded on the skills and concepts they learn instead of points accumulated from assignments and tests throughout the school year.
Jerrid…
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By Ryan Creps, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, University at Buffalo
In 1976, a small Christian college refused to comply with Title IX. The ensuing legal back-and-forth still matters today as the Trump administration places pressure on universities.
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By Mathew Schmalz, Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross
Africa represents the fastest-growing part of the Catholic Church. The pope’s 2026 journey will stop in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Algeria and Angola.
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By Ross Channing Reed, Lecturer in Philosophy, Missouri University of Science and Technology
It may seem like a paradox, but it takes good friends for someone to really understand themselves – and grow in virtue, as Aristotle argued.
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By Rui Du, Assistant Professor of Economics, Oklahoma State University
Corruption crackdowns are bad for businesses that thrive on their proximity to political power centers. In fact, they can change the physical layout of an entire industry.
That is what my colleagues and I found when we looked at the impact of a major Chinese government campaign against corruption on Beijing’s restaurants.
In 2012, the Chinese Communist Party introduced its eight-point regulation…
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By Stephen D. Turner, Associate Professor of Data Science, University of Virginia
Researchers have found that even people with limited experience in biology can use AI to help them create a dangerous pathogen.
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By Hollis Karoly, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Kent Hutchison, Professor of Psychiatry, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Psilocybin falls into a regulatory gray zone, with strict limitations around how it can be studied. As a result, very little is known about its health risks, despite its surging popularity.
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