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Census Campaign executive director Victoria Kovari looks over a Detroit map showing city neighborhoods that were undercounted in the 2010 census. AP Photo/Corey Williams

Census undercounts are normal, but demographers worry this year could be worse

How accurate will the 2020 census be? A demographer explains which communities are hard to count, how the coronavirus could affect the process and what’s at stake.
42% of media coverage of the 2016 election focused on the horserace. Photobank Gallery/Shutterstock.com

Americans are drowning in a sea of polls

Polls have become an essential component of the news coverage of presidential campaigns. That may affect who voters decide to back on an election day.
Emotion recognition technology, an outgrowth of facial recognition technology, continues to advance quickly. Steve Jurvetson/flickr

AI can now read emotions – should it?

A report calls for banning the use of emotion recognition technology. An AI and computer vision researcher explains the potential and why there’s growing concern.
Boris Yeltsin shakes hands with Russia’s most powerful businessmen in Moscow. AP Photo

What is an oligarch?

Oligarchs have made headlines recently as the impeachment hearings against President Donald Trump move forward.
Around 5% of adults and 90% of babies who contract hepatitis B go on to have life-long infection that can only be managed with regular medication. Ronald Rampsch/Shutterstock

We have a vaccine for hepatitis B but here’s why we still need a cure

Babies in Australia have been vaccinated against hepatitis B since May 2000, but 240,000 Australians still live with the disease.
The conductor’s role is to communicate with the performers and their audience. Their role is part artistic, part mathematical. Shutterstock

Explainer: what exactly do musical conductors do?

A conductor’s role is about communication with performers and their audience. They do so using eye contact, dress, and of course, the fabled waving of the arms.
Sculpture of ninth-century Persian scholar Al-Khwarizmi in Khiva, Uzbekistan. Latin discovery of Al-Khwarizmi’s work introduced the numerals 0-9, one of many ways in which Islamic cultures have contributed to Western civilisation. LBM1948/Wikimedia Commons

Explainer: what Western civilisation owes to Islamic cultures

Western civilisation and Islam are sometimes seen as diametrically opposed. Yet Islamic cultures have contributed much to the West, in language, philosophy and literature.
A supporter of Narendra Modi’s BJP party at rally in late March. Jaipla Singh/EPA

India: what’s at stake in the 2019 elections

India heads to the polls in April and May for the world’s biggest democratic exercise. Why the world should be watching this election.
Special counsel Robert Mueller reached no definitive conclusion about whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice in firing FBI Director James Comey or attacking his own investigation. Reuters/Hyungwon Kang, AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Reuters/Jonathan Ernst, Twitter

Trump and obstruction of justice: An explainer

Legally, a person can obstruct justice even if he committed no other crime – though it is harder to prove. It all depends on the intent behind pressuring investigators, say, or firing an FBI director.
Indian soldiers arrive at the wreckage of an an Indian helicopter that crashed on the Indian side of Kashmir on Feb. 27, 2019. AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan

Kashmir conflict is not just a border dispute between India and Pakistan

India and Pakistan have been fighting for control over Kashmir, an 86,000-square-mile territory in the Himalayas, for seven decades. But the people of Kashmir have their own political goals too.

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