The Conversation

Fires in the Amazon rainforest have captured attention worldwide in recent days. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in 2019, pledged in his campaign to reduce environmental protection and increase agricultural development in the Amazon, and he appears to have followed through on that promise.

Legal briefs, in even the most high profile cases, rarely make headlines. They are technical documents intended to persuade judges in a case about particular points of law. In American law schools, students now take courses to help them master the arcane genre of brief writing. Their persuasiveness depends on carefully marshaling legal precedents and complex, factual arguments. As a result, they seldom interest anyone outside the legal community. On Aug. 12, we witnessed a rare exception.

Why do people cheat? When we hear that a poor person scammed others out of money, we may attribute this behavior to their poverty, rationalizing that the person violated ethics and the law because they needed the money.But the rich and powerful also cheat: falsifying loan applications, evading taxes, and running Ponzi schemes that defraud investors of millions.

Around the world thousands of people are on organ donor waiting lists. While some of those people will receive the organ transplants they need in time, the sad reality is that many will die waiting. But controversial new research may provide a way to address this crisis.Japan has recently overturned its ban on the creation of human-animal hybrids, or “chimeras”, and approved a request by researchers from the University of Tokyo to create a human-mouse hybrid.

Since the first use of electric lamps in the 19th century, society hasn’t looked back. Homes and streets are lit at all hours so that people can go about their business when they’d once have been asleep. Besides the obvious benefits to societies and the economy, there’s growing awareness of the negative impact of artificial light.Light pollution has been blamed for wasting energy, disrupting wildlife behavior and harming mental health. One aspect has avoided the spotlight though. Namely, that light not only allows one to see, but also to be seen. This could well attract unwelcome attention – and not just from moths.

Could Lyme disease in the U.S. be the result of an accidental release from a secret bioweapons experiment? Could the military have specifically engineered the Lyme disease bacterium to be more insidious and destructive – and then let it somehow escape the lab and spread in nature? Is this why 300,000 Americans are diagnosed annually with this potentially debilitating disease?

Last week saw the release of the rebooted The Lion King, an attempt to capitalize on the billion-dollar success of the 1994 original. With a star-studded cast, the reboot closely follows the plot of the first movie (spoilers to follow, obviously).Mufasa, king of the lions (and of every other creature in his territory), raises his son Simba to follow in his footsteps. But Mufasa is murdered by his jealous brother Scar, and his young heir is chased into the desert. Years pass, and eventually Simba reclaims his rightful place as the ruler of Pride Rock.

The Morrison government has introduced new legislation responding to recent protests by animal rights activists in Australia. The bill –named The Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019 – will tighten up existing laws, creating harsher penalties for those who incite others to trespass on farms.Minister for Agriculture Bridget McKenzie and Attorney-General Christian Porter have said this legislation will deliver on the government’s

Do you feel like nutritionists are always changing their minds? Do you want science-based information about diet but don’t know whom or what to believe?If you’re nodding in agreement, you’re not alone: More than 80% of Americans are befuddled.Yet it’s a lament that’s getting quite tiring – if you’re a nutrition scientist, that is. So much so that I refocused my career to shine scientific light on today’s critical food conversations, which have profound impacts on public health and the environment. My mantra: From farm to fork, what we eat matters.

Most people use toothbrushes, toothpaste and dental floss to clean their teeth, but their use is by no means universal. Many indigenous groups, as well as people in developing countries, use traditional techniques to clean their teeth. Some of these techniques are more effective than others. Many people in the Middle East, and some parts of South and Southeast Asia, use twigs from the arak tree (known as miswak) to clean their teeth. They fray the end of the twig, dampen the resulting bristles with water or rosewater and then rub the bristles against their teeth (see video below). The wood of the arak tree (Salvadora persica) has a high concentration of fluoride and other antimicrobial components that prevent tooth decay.

From the Trump administration’s Muslim travel ban to its family separation policy, many Americans object to the White House’s hardline immigration policies as a historical aberration out of sync with U.S. values.Having explored the evolution of these policies and their consequences as both a practitioner of immigration law and scholar of U.S.-Latin American relations, I disagree.

Many people who are old enough to have experienced the first moon landing will vividly remember what it was like watching Neil Armstrong utter his famous quote: That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”. Half a century later, the event is still one of the top achievements of humankind. Despite the rapid technological advances since then, astronauts haven’t actually been back to the moon since 1972.This seems surprising. After all, when we reflect on this historic event, it is often said that we now have more computing power in our pocket than the computer aboard Apollo 11 did. But is that true? And, if so, how much more powerful are our phones?