Fake Banner
Marshall McLuhan Hated TV But He Might Like AI

Today’s large language models (LLMs) process information across disciplines at unprecedented...

Protein Is Key To Helping Older People Prevent Muscle Injuries

More and more people over the age of 50 are taking up physical exercise. Medical associations resoundingly...

The 'Still Explosions' Of Lichens On Stone

Lichens on stone, those “still explosions” as the great American poet Elizabeth Bishop named...

Legal American Owners Don't Create Gun Epidemics, Smuggling By Mexican Drug Cartels Does

Illegal firearm trafficking is inseparable from the illegal drug trade: Weapons are often bought...

User picture.
The ConversationRSS Feed of this column.

The Conversation is an independent source of news and views, funded by the academic and research community and delivered direct to the public. The Conversation launched in Australia in March 2011.... Read More »

Blogroll

Today, women will celebrate Galentine’s Day, a holiday trumpeting the joys of female friendships.

The holiday can trace its origins to a 2010 episode of “Parks and Rec,” in which the main character, Leslie Knope, decides that the day before Valentine’s Day should be an opportunity to celebrate the platonic love among women, ideally with booze and breakfast food.

In the years since the episode aired, the fictional holiday has caught on in the real world.

As we lick our Valentine card envelopes and slip into something more comfortable, it’s a good time to ponder our sexual relationships.

Have you ever used a public charging station to charge your mobile phone when it runs out of battery? If so, watch out for “juice jacking”.

Cybercriminals are on the prowl to infect your mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers and access your personal data, or install malware while you charge them.

Specifically, juice jacking is a cyber attack in which criminals use publicly accessible USB charging ports or cables to install malicious software on your mobile device and/or steal personal data from it.

Despite flying being the single fastest way to grow our individual carbon footprint, people still want to fly. Passenger numbers even grew by 3.3% globally last year alone. The hype around “Flygskam” – a global movement championed by climate activist Greta Thunberg that encourages people to stop traveling by plane – seems to have attracted more media attention than actual followers.

The Handmaid’s Tale is a TV series based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood that presents a dystopian vision of a male-dominated society known as Gilead.

Widespread infertility means that the few fertile women who remain have been enslaved as handmaids and assigned to Gilead’s leaders to produce their future offspring. The series follows the struggles of June, who was separated from her family and forced to become a handmaid.

But just what is a reference to the evolutionist Charles Darwin doing in an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale?

The opioid crisis and deaths related to e-cigarette use among teenagers have dominated news headlines recently. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 34 people had died as a result of vaping and, in 2017, opioid addiction was responsible for more than 47,000 deaths in the U.S. Opioid addiction has been declared a public health emergency.