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The Conversation: U.S. weekly news quiz
From the editors at The Conversation, an independent news organization based in Boston that publishes articles written by academic experts and edited by a team of journalists.
Monday, November 21, 2022
The Crossword Puzzle

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Friday, September 23, 2022
Very interesting

Do photons wear out? An astrophysicist explains light’s ability to travel vast cosmic distances without losing energy

Light, whether from a star or your flashlight, travels at 186,000 miles per second.
The speed of light is the fastest anything can travel. What happens to a photon from a galaxy 25 million light years away on its journey toward Earth?
Jarred Roberts, University of California, San Diego, The Conversation
2 days ago

Pope Leo XIV’s link to Haiti is part of a broader American story of race, citizenship and migration

Pope Leo XIV appears before thousands of journalists on May 12, 2025, in Vatican City.

Repelled by American racism, thousands of free people of color bounced between New Orleans and Haiti in the 19th century.

Chelsea Stieber, Tulane University, The Conversation
Wednesday, May 14

Could a human enter a black hole to study it?

A person falling into a black hole and being stretched while approaching the black hole

If you are a sci-fi junkie you’ve probably wondered what would happen if you were unlucky enough to fall into a black hole. How well you’d fare all depends on the type of black hole.

Leo Rodriguez, Grinnell College and Shanshan Rodriguez, Grinnell College, The Conversation
Monday, May 12

Space law doesn’t protect historical sites, mining operations and bases on the Moon – a space lawyer describes a framework that could

Craters in the lunar surface are visible in this photo taken during the Apollo 11 mission.

More people will be going to the Moon in coming years, and the way current legal frameworks are written could lead to conflict.

Michelle L.D. Hanlon, University of Mississippi, The Conversation
Monday, May 12

‘Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence’ − an astronomer explains how much evidence scientists need to claim discoveries like extraterrestrial life

The universe is filled with countless galaxies, stars and planets. Astronomers may find life one day, but they will need extraordinary proof.

An astronomer breaks down 3 key components that allow researchers to make groundbreaking discoveries – and decide when results aren’t significant.

Chris Impey, University of Arizona, The Conversation
Friday, April 25

How does your brain create new memories? Neuroscientists discover ‘rules’ for how neurons encode new information

Neurons that fire together sometimes wire together.

As you experience or encounter new things, your brain must encode this information via the right neural networks at the right time.

William Wright, University of California, San Diego and Takaki Komiyama, University of California, San Diego, The Conversation
Friday, April 18
FIFA's global soccer tournament to take America by storm this summer
(BPT) - Everyone's heard the FIFA World Cup 26™ is coming to Canada, Mexico and the United States in 2026, but this summer, sports fans in 11 cities across the United States will be able to …
Friday, April 11
What state seals say about America and what they don't
Spokeo examined State Symbols USA and other resources to explore why state seals are significant and how they help us understand the U.S.
Sandi Hemmerlein
Monday, April 7
The flourishing Black business district in Detroit, Mich., photographed in 1942.
The story of the Great Migration often overlooks Black businesses that built Detroit
Detroit’s Black population grew sixfold from 1910 to 1920, and many businesses that sprouted to welcome the newcomers flourished.
Kendra D. Boyd, Rutgers University, The Conversation
Thursday, March 20
The Sun's distance from Earth allows it to be habitable for life.
Evolving intelligent life took billions of years − but it may not have been as unlikely as many scientists predicted
Humans evolved late in Earth history. While this timing inspired the conclusion that humanlike life is a cosmic improbability, a new study pushes back.
Daniel Brady Mills, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; Jason Wright, Penn State, and Jennifer L. Macalady, Penn State, The Conversation
Monday, February 17
School boycott picketers march across the Brooklyn Bridge to the Board of Education in 1964.
Fighting school segregation didn’t take place just in the South
In the 1950s, Harlem mother Mae Mallory fought a school system that she saw as ‘just as Jim Crow’ as the one she had attended in the South.
Ashley Farmer, The University of Texas at Austin, The Conversation
Thursday, January 30
Abraham Lincoln's first inauguration on March 4, 1861.

Inaugural addresses that newly minted presidents have given over the past 250 years have aimed to do several key things, including unify the country and establish the speaker’s qualifications for the job.
Claire Jerry, Smithsonian Institution, The Conversation
Thursday, January 16
Read more.
President George Washington, left, and his Cabinet: Henry Knox, secretary of war; Alexander Hamilton, secretary of the Treasury; Thomas Jefferson, secretary of state; and Edmund Randolph, attorney general.
When presidents would send handwritten lists of their nominees to the Senate, things were a lot different
The US now faces the likelihood of a bruising and raucous set of confirmation hearings − a clear break from the cooperative system the founders established.
Peter Kastor, Washington University in St. Louis, The Conversation
Monday, January 13
The Aochi family in the Rohwer, Arkansas, detention camp. Photo courtesy of June Aochi Berk
Righting a wrong, name by name − the Irei monument honors Japanese Americans imprisoned by the US government during World War II
The US government locked up nearly 126,000 Japanese Americans from 1942 to 1945, but never kept comprehensive records of all the people subjected to this unjustified incarceration.
Susan H. Kamei, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and Duncan Williams, University of Southern California, The Conversation
Thursday, January 2
An avid traveler, Pearl Young – waving at the top of the stairs – traveled to Hawaii on a UND alumni trip in 1960.
Pearl Young, the first woman to work in a technical role at NASA, overcame barriers and ‘raised hell’ − her legacy continues today
Many of her male colleagues believed Pearl Young had an attitude problem based on her efforts to advocate for herself and her team.
Caitlin Milera, University of North Dakota, The Conversation
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Excavating the new trackway site, with footprints from hominins, birds and other animals visible in foreground. Neil Roach
Fossilized footprints reveal 2 extinct hominin species living side by side 1.5 million years ago
Ancient fossil footprints are the first evidence of two different hominin species − Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei − living in the same place at the same time.
Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Smithsonian Institution; Kevin Hatala, Chatham University, and Purity Kiura, National Museums of Kenya, The Conversation
Monday, December 2, 2024
The election is over − but what is a ‘lame duck’ anyway?
The lame-duck period in the US is longer than in other Western democracies, which tend to make the transition over a period of just days.
Jordan Cash, Michigan State University, The Conversation
Friday, November 8, 2024