Without their devices, regular GPS users take longer to negotiate a route, travel more slowly and make larger navigational errors.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Analysis and Comment
Ninety percent of psychology studies come from countries representing less than 15 percent of the world's population. Researchers are realizing that universalizing those findings might not make sense.
Before augmented reality products and apps take over the world, they'll have to get out of their own way.
As fictional inventors make terrible choices on the big screen, real-world tech innovators can learn from their example how not to make the same kinds of ethical mistakes.
It has taken hundreds, if not thousands, of years to create the juicy, shiny produce that you take for granted at the supermarket. But now there is a faster way to domesticate wild fruits and veggies.
Since plants can't pick up and move to greener pastures if conditions are tough, some have evolved interesting and sneaky strategies to make a living.
Countries developing technology that removes or blasts away space junk may appear to be doing a public service. But those same technologies can destroy military and communications satellites.
Cleaning up plastic pollution in the ocean is good – and long overdue. But where will the waste go? Recycling isn't always an option. Bacteria and enzymes could process it, raising new questions.
Researchers tracked adolescents' sleep and scanned their brains. As expected, better sleep went with healthy brain development. Unexpected was the importance of one aspect of where teens slept.
During World War I, Marie Curie left her lab behind, inventing a mobile X-ray unit that could travel to the battlefront and training 150 women to operate these 'Little Curies.'
America's longstanding tradition of isolationism meant that in 1917 U.S. forces needed a lot of support from overseas allies to fight effectively.
Mental health trauma has always been a part of war. Treatments have come a long way over the last century, but we still don't understand why the responses change for different people and times.
Facebook and privacy
For years, watchdogs have warned of the potential problems of sharing data with online companies. The Facebook data crisis has made these concerns much more real. What should be done now?
Influenza 1918–2018
Don't believe these 10 common myths about the 1918 Spanish flu.
Doing science
Four scientists talk through the ways they now build outreach into their work as a way to spread their research's impact – something that wasn't the norm for past generations of academics.
Research and Expert Database
Editors’ Picks
Linguistic clues show how people around the world first developed mathematical thought.
This Speed Read makes the case why you should be nice to spiders you encounter in your home and consider a live-and-let-live policy.
When people see their bodies in 3D, they feel worse about themselves and more negative in general. That might not put shoppers in a buying mood even for clothes that fit better.
Data and privacy issues are tangled up in the DNA reports consumers get from big genetic testing companies – and the third-party sites they turn to in order to glean more from their raw DNA.
Were foreign diplomats and tourists attacked with a 'sonic weapon' – or was it something else? Ultrasound researchers demonstrate a rational, evidence-based explanation.
The FBI and police officials say they need to decrypt secure communications to fight crime. But they have other options, and modern threats make clear the importance of strong encryption.
Victorian attitudes influenced what scientists thought they were observing about sexual behaviors in the animal world. But modern techniques reveal the myth for what it is.
Today's news can often involve mind-bogglingly large numbers. A math professor shares some tricks for understanding it all.
Mathematics and art are generally viewed as very different. But a trip through history – from an Islamic palace to Pollock's paintings – proves the parallels between the two can be uncanny.
Twitter recently blew up with posts wondering about the feline fascination with taped squares on the ground. An animal behavior expert explains it's not magic that draws Fluffy to the #CatSquare.
Let's say you want the perfect mix of friends and strangers at your next party. Mathematicians have been working on a version of this problem for nearly a century, and the answer is complicated.
People who think like hackers have some really good ideas about how to protect digital privacy during turbulent times. We can learn from them.
Most Read past week
- Could consciousness all come down to the way things vibrate?
- Does social media help the government-citizen relationship? Depends who you ask
- Should I kill spiders in my home? An entomologist explains why not to
- From shell-shock to PTSD, a century of invisible war trauma
- Safe, efficient self-driving cars could block walkable, livable communities
Pitch an idea
Got a news tip or article idea for The Conversation?
Our Audience
The Conversation has a monthly audience of 10.7 million users, and reach of 38.2 million through Creative Commons republication.
Want to Write?
Write an article and join a growing community of more than 75,700 academics and researchers from 2,609 institutions.
Make a Donation
The Conversation relies on university, foundation and reader support. If you would like to help us have even better conversations, then you may like to make a one-off or on-going donation.