By Jeffrey C. Dixon, Professor of Sociology, College of the Holy Cross
Do artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT eliminate jobs, create new ones, or both? There’s a lot of speculation regarding this question, but little solid data in the U.S. to answer it.
I’m a sociologist who researches AI, among other topics. Seeking answers to that question and others, I commissioned an online survey by YouGov, a market research agency, to ask 1,250 U.S. workers between July 30 and Aug. 4, 2026, about their experiences with AI and…
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By Matyáš Moravec, Lecturer in Philosophy, Queen's University Belfast
You might be surprised by how many researchers who went on to make important contributions considered whether animals could have telepathy.
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By Jason M. Blazakis, Professor of the Practice and Director of Center on Terrorism, Extremism and Counterterrorism, Middlebury College
Syria was among the first nations to be added to the State Department’s proscribed list. It has been removed under the rule of a former al-Qaida-affiliated militant.
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By Robert Boatright, Professor of Political Science, Clark University; Institute for Humane Studies
If you have seen campaign ads for the midterm elections, you have likely noticed that a major theme this year is corruption.
New Hampshire congressman and Senate candidate Chris Pappas has framed his campaign around his anti-corruption efforts in Congress, claiming that his anti-corruption record includes the fact that he “doesn’t take a dime of corporate PAC money,” opposes congressional stock trading,…
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By Jayash Paudel, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Oklahoma
Canada is a major US supplier of fertilizer ingredients that could get pulled into Trump’s trade war. Farms can go without fertilizer for a while, but not long.
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By Amy Campbell, PhD Candidate, Climate Disaster Economics, SOAS, University of London
When a cyclone destroyed Chompa Munda’s home in coastal Bangladesh in 2019, she and her son went days without food. When the next one came in 2024, her phone lit up hours before it made landfall.
A US$43 (£31) transfer was sent straight to her bank account because a weather forecast had crossed an agreed threshold. She bought food, drinking water and candles, and left for a storm shelter.
Cyclone…
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By Derek Stanford Hutcheson, Professor of Political Science, Malmö University
A recent call by Ukraine’s former defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, for new national elections in Ukraine – which would be the first to take place in the country since 2019 – has sparked a renewed debate about whether it is possible to hold a legitimate vote in wartime.
Under normal circumstances, Ukraine’s parliamentary elections would have been held in October 2023. Presidential elections would have followed in March 2024. But the circumstances are, of course, far from normal.
Almost a fifth…
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By Stephen McVeigh, Professor of History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Swansea University
When Star Trek first appeared on television screens 60 years ago, audiences expected science fiction to offer aliens, monsters and futuristic technology. What they encountered was something far more ambitious.
From its very first broadcast episode on September 8 1966, Star Trek established that its true subject was the exploration of humanity itself. For all its reputation as an action-packed space adventure, the franchise has endured because it repeatedly returned to a universal question: what does it mean…
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By Gerard A. Akindes, Adjunct associate, Northwestern University
Gianni Infantino might have backed down from his proposal to sell a minority stake of Fifa to corporate investors and he may be facing a backlash from all sides, but the steady…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Ecuador's National Assembly in Quito on October 23, 2024. © 2024 Rodrigo Buendia/AFP via Getty Images A new adoption law in Ecuador contains discriminatory provisions targeting lesbian, gay, and bisexual people and threatens to strip many parents of transgender children of their parental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The Reform Law of Various Legal Bodies for the Streamlining of Adoption, which entered into force on August 14, 2026, purports to remove inefficiencies in adoption processes and reduce the amount of time children spend in institutional…
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