It appears to have been just bad luck that one British newspaper, The Independent, chose April 1 as the day to publish James Vincent’s science report about a significant animal-to-human communication breakthrough. I hope it worries animal researchers at least as much as it worries me that I had to do some reading around and […] … learn more→

Higher education in the United States is not prepared to lead the future of study abroad. It is mired in past assumptions and internal professional disputes disconnected from public demand and opportunity. And despite “cosmetic” tweaks to traditional programs, what is potentially the future of education abroad eludes us. American colleges are not accommodating a […] … learn more→

The International Court of Justice’s ruling this week that Japan’s Southern Ocean whaling program is not scientific does not represent an ultimate victory over whaling. The finer points of the court’s judgement remind us that the 60-year-old International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, which underpins the International Whaling Commission (IWC), still allows significant whaling […] … learn more→

The UK news media has been buzzing with reports of air pollution alerts associated, at least in part, with the long-range transport of dust from the Sahara. Colleagues from Africa have asked why we in the UK are worried about the health effects of a relatively rare occurrence of this long-range dust all the way […] … learn more→

Problems with for-profit colleges are receiving a great deal of attention in education news, and most of the conversation revolves around increasingly modest federal \”gainful employment\” rules that judge college programs based on their graduates’ debt levels. The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities is aggressively lobbying lawmakers to further weaken the standards to […] … learn more→

A few weeks ago I had a meeting with my PhD supervisors. Gave them draft chapters, chapter outlines and results enough for a couple more. I asked them, in their experience, if they thought it could be submitted by mid next year and what advice they’d give me if I went for it. Straight off […] … learn more→

For those following a strict diet to lose weight, a new study proposes that there may just be merit in the idea of ‘weekend cheating’ in loosening the bounds of food self-control. Making concerted dietary changes and having them stick long term to help with weight loss is tough. Just how many people fall off […] … learn more→

When it comes to the topic of conservative Christian home schooling, the term “politically tolerant” usually doesn’t spring to mind. Even while the home schooling phenomenon continues to grow and diversify2 in the United States, the image of conservative Christian home schoolers as either Machiavellian partisans or reclusive fundamentalists still holds considerable sway in broader […] … learn more→

I teach in an M.A. program in history at a small liberal-arts college. We have a strong track record of placing our students in good doctoral programs. Because we do not offer a Ph.D., however, we are also free to be candid about why going on to a doctorate might not make much sense in […] … learn more→