The Conversation

The debate over wind turbines is heated, so it's best to rely on solid science. Fir0002/Flagstaffotos/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-NCBy Jacqui Hoepner, Australian National University and Will J Grant, Australian National University

From hashtag to the streets. The All-Nite Images, CC BY-SABy Imaani El-Burki, Lehigh University

A Western diet may be negatively affecting your brain not just your belly. Jams, CC BY-NC-SABy Terry Davidson, American University and Camille Sample, American University

Hurricane Sandy pummeled cities along the east coast in 2012, causing billions of dollars in damage. ShutterstockBy Delavane Diaz, Stanford UniversityClimate change is as much an economic problem as an environmental one.The effects of climate change, such as damage from more severe weather or health problems from higher temperatures, will impose a cost on society. On the other hand, moving away from a fossil fuel-based energy system will require significant investments into low-carbon technologies. How does society determine which efforts are most cost-effective?

Look lively! Stokkete/ShutterstockBy Clive Brown, University of LeedsAfter a very drawn out and fraught construction, the Philharmonie de Paris is finally open. The 2,400 seat concert hall was conceived with ambitious plans to democratize classical music, and is situated, in line with these aims, on the boundary between the city’s affluent center and its banlieues. Whether it will succeed in these ambitions remains to be seen.

Leaky blood vessels in the lung can lead to acute respiratory distress. ShutterstockBy Jalees Rehman, University of Illinois at Chicago

They're suspected al-Shabaab militants – but probably not ivory traders. UN, CC BY-NC-SABy Diogo Veríssimo, Georgia State UniversityIt is often said that if something is repeated often enough, it becomes accepted as true. This has certainly been the case for the link between terrorism and the poaching of elephants for the ivory trade.

Can the promise of free community college be delivered? President Obama at Pellissippi State College in Knoxville, TN Kevin Lamarque/ReutersBy Donald E. Heller, Michigan State UniversityLast week, President Barack Obama announced a proposal to guarantee that students could attend a community college for free for their first two years. The announcement was one in a series of previews of domestic policy proposals he is planning to include in his State of the Union speech later this month.

Scientists propose a new, potentially more accurate way, to measure the rate of sea level rise. ShutterstockBy Carling Hay, Harvard UniversityWhen you ask yourself what the biggest unanswered scientific questions are, “how did sea levels change over the past 100 years?” is unlikely to appear at the top of your list.

By Monica Grady, The Open UniversityLanding a spacecraft on a celestial body, whether it be the moon, Mars or a comet, is not easy. The European Space Agency found out the hard way in 2003 when its robot Beagle2, which was supposed to send back a signal after landing on Mars, didn’t do so.But more than a decade after it went missing, the UK Space Agency has announced that the the elusive Beagle2 lander has been re-discovered.

The sex ratio in your community may affect what you're looking for in a relationship. ShutterstockBy Ryan Schacht, University of Utah and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, University of California, Davis

By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology at University of Adelaide.A paper has just been released that will raise health concerns about Bisphenol A again. The paper, “Low-dose exposure to bisphenol A and replacement bisphenol S induces precocious hypothalamic neurogenesis in embryonic zebrafish” was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This is a very interesting paper, but in terms of implications for human health everything hinges on what “low dose” means.