Latest news with #TheConversationWeekly
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
How trafficked American guns fuel Mexico's cartel violence
More than two thirds of guns recovered at Mexican crime scenes originate in the U.S. For decades, Mexico has struggled with staggering levels of gun violence fueled in large part by weapons trafficked across its northern border. Now an investigation published by The Conversation has arrived at a new estimate of the scale of this illicit gun trade between the U.S. and Mexico in 2022: 135,000 guns. Investigative journalist Sean Campbell and Topher McDougal, a professor of economic development at the University of San Diego, spent a year combing through multiple databases and court documents and conducting interviews to understand how the flow of guns works. Their investigation reveals where in the U.S. the guns are coming from, what impact these American guns are having in Mexico, and how difficult it is for American law enforcement agencies to prosecute those trafficking guns across the border. Listen to Campbell and McDougal talk about their investigation on The Conversation Weekly podcast. You can read the full investigation here. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Mixing and sound design by Eloise Stevens and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Newsclips in this episode from PBS News, CGTN, France24, ABC 7 and NewsNation. Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available on Apple Podcasts. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Gemma Ware, The Conversation Read more: Guns in America: A liberal gun-owning sociologist offers 5 observations to understand America's culture of firearms Guns bought in the US and trafficked to Mexican drug cartels fuel violence in Mexico and the migration crisis Gun trafficking from the US to Mexico: The drug connection Sean Campbell and Topher McDougal do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
A Michigan research professor explains how NIH funding works − and what it means to suddenly lose a grant
In its first 100 days, the Trump administration has terminated more than US$2 billion in federal grants, according to a public source database compiled by the scientific community, and it is proposing additional cuts that would reduce the $47 billion budget of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, also known as the NIH, by nearly half. The effects of these cuts are being felt at top-tier public research institutions such as the University of Michigan. In fiscal year 2024, of the $2 billion in total research expenditures at the university, $1.2 billion came in through federal research grants, with $762 million from NIH alone. Brady West is a research professor at the University of Michigan who has been writing federal grant proposals for more than two decades. The Conversation U.S. spoke with him about what these cuts could mean for the university and scientific research in the U.S. going forward. This article is adapted from an interview Brady gave for the May 1 episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast. The University of Michigan's research arm includes 'soft money' institutes. What does that mean? Brady West: A soft money institute is one where the salaries are entirely funded by the research grants and contracts that they're able to obtain. This is the case for most of the research arm of the University of Michigan, which includes the Institute for Social Research where I work. The university sets the salary amounts for these positions, and the people filling them − whether faculty, staff or graduate students − have to raise the money to fund their salary. Teaching faculty, on the other hand, usually are paid from general university funds, which might come in from sources such as tuition, rather than grant funding. What is involved in applying for a grant from a federal institution like NIH? West: In my experience, it's an extremely competitive and stressful process. On average, I would estimate that it takes about a year to craft a research proposal from scratch. Applicants do background research, look at all the relevant work that has already been done in the field, summarize the articles that they've written, and sometimes do initial preliminary studies. They have to sell their research as connected to past work but still innovative, something that will move the science forward. Meanwhile, they're working with a team of research administrators, whose jobs at the university are funded by soft money, on things like creating a budget and determining what sort of supplies, equipment and additional personnel will be required for the research project. These administrators also help the applicant format and submit the proposal. How does NIH determine what proposals receive funding? West: Every proposal submitted to NIH gets reviewed by a panel of experts in that particular field, so your peers are the ones reviewing your proposal and deciding whether it should be considered for funding. Each panel is tasked with reviewing and scoring multiple proposals. About half of the proposals receive scores that do not warrant additional discussion for funding. The rest are scrutinized line by line. Those with the best scores, based on their merits as well as agency budgets and priorities, are ultimately awarded grants. All applicants are sent the reviewers' comments, and those not receiving funding may revise their proposal and resubmit. In my experience, few applications get funded the first time they are submitted, and most go through at least one round of revisions. I've found it generally takes about two years from the time you start writing a proposal to the time that you get funded. When did you learn that NIH and other federal grants were being rescinded at the University of Michigan? West: The first notice I received was in mid-February of 2025. I was wrapping up a federally funded study where we were looking at different ways of measuring sexual identity in surveys. That study was funded by a $160,000 grant from NIH. I received a notice from administrators for the National Center for Health Statistics – part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – that maintains the data I was working with. The email said my work was being reviewed for compliance with the president's executive orders and would be paused. I was lucky, because that particular grant was set to end at the end of February, so the project was nearly finished, and the paper was already written. And then over the following weeks, it was like a waterfall. I started hearing from colleagues who were working on grants related to climate change, vaccination, vaccine hesitancy, sexual identity, gender identity, DEI – all of the work related to that, I just heard story after story of these grants being ended on the spot. What does this mean for the researchers who lost their funding? What will they do now? West: These terminations put jobs at risk – not only the research faculty, but also the teams who were working on these projects and the administrators who helped format and submit the grants. One of my Ph.D. students received an email from NIH that simply said his grant has been terminated. So his source of support as a graduate student at the University of Michigan was gone in an instant. The University of Michigan has developed a new research funding program where you can apply for support if you've had your grant terminated, and your local department can help share the costs. My student is waiting to hear if he will receive some of that funding. This is a welcome development, but only a short-term solution to this problem. So right now, everybody's pivoting. Your first thought is, how can I write a proposal that's not going to have certain keywords in it? And that's just not a good way to do science. The University of Michigan is committed to doing the best possible science, but it's going to require some adaptation in terms of how to think about the proposal process. And, honestly, for the immediate future, part of being a scientist in the U.S. is getting a firm understanding of what the current administration wants to fund. Are you or your colleagues considering leaving the university? West: That's the million-dollar question. Do you decide to pack up your family and move to a different country? Do you shift to private industry? Do you wait it out for the next administration and hope that things swing back in a direction that's going to support the kind of work that you're doing? Those are the kinds of career decisions that people have to think about. Is the U.S. going to lose a lot of top-tier faculty at top-tier universities like the University of Michigan because of what's going on? That's a significant concern. Read more of our stories about Michigan. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Brady Thomas West, University of Michigan Read more: US colleges and universities have billions stashed away in endowments − a higher ed finance expert explains what they are Endowments aren't blank checks – but universities can rely on them more heavily in turbulent times Reducing diversity, equity and inclusion to a catchphrase undermines its true purpose Brady Thomas West has received funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Science Foundation.
Yahoo
24-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Scam Factories: the inside story of Southeast Asia's brutal fraud compounds
Scam Factories is a special multimedia and podcast series by The Conversation that explores the inner workings of Southeast Asia's brutal scam compounds. The Conversation's digital storytelling and podcast teams collaborated with three researchers: Ivan Franceschini, a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne; Ling Li, a PhD candidate at Ca' Foscari University of Venice; and Mark Bo, an independent researcher. The researchers have spent the past few years interviewing nearly 100 survivors of these compounds and documenting the rise of the industry in Southeast Asia for a forthcoming book. Scam Factories will unfold across three multimedia articles and three podcast episodes this week. We'll update this page as more is published. Our first article explores how people are lured into the industry and what life is like inside the compounds, where scammers are forced to work long hours and are often subjected to violence. And in our first podcast episode, No skills required, our researchers travel to a village in Cambodia called Chrey Thom to see what these compounds look like. And we hear from two survivors, a Ugandan man we're calling George and a Malaysian woman we're calling Lee, about how they were recruited into compounds in Laos and Myanmar. Listen on The Conversation Weekly podcast. The Conversation contacted all the companies mentioned in this series for a comment, except Jinshui, which we couldn't contact. We did not receive a response from any of them. The podcast series was written and produced by Gemma Ware with production assistance from Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany. Sound design by Michelle Macklem. Leila Goldstein was our producer in Cambodia and Halima Athumani recorded for us in Uganda. Hui Lin helped us with Chinese translation. Photos by Roun Ry, KDA, Halima Athumani and Ivan Franceschini. Justin Bergman at The Conversation in Australia edited the articles in the series and Matt Garrow worked on the graphical elements of the stories. Series oversight and editing help from Ashlynne McGhee. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Where support for Germany's far-right AFD is growing and why
Germany is holding an election on February 23 and the contest is attracting an unusual amount of attention. That's because the far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) is polling in second place on 20% of the national vote. Should the party end up with a vote share on this scale, it would be its best ever result in a national election. It would change the face of the German parliament and force mainstream parties into difficult questions about their longstanding refusal to work with extreme parties. The AFD's roots are in nationalistic and racist movements. It continues to take an ultra anti-immigration stance and, in this election, is calling for 'demigration' – effectively the deportation of migrants. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Rolf Frankenberger, an expert on right-wing extremism at the University of Tübingen in Germany, explains where the AFD draws its support from and what type of Germany it wants to return to. Frankenburger has found two clear trends in the geographical distribution of AfD voting. The first is common among far-right parties around the world: ' There are always exceptions, of course, but the main pattern is that around the big cities like Berlin, like Hamburg, Bremen, Hanover, Münster, Stuttgart, Munich, Frankfurt in these cities and their direct environment and suburbs, the AFD is less important. Whereas in the specific rural areas, like in Saxonia, in the Erzgebirge, in Baden-Württemberg, in the Black Forest, in Rhineland Palatinate, in the more rural areas, they have their strongholds.' The second, however, is unique to Germany. Support for the AFD is far more concentrated in the east of Germany. This region was the part of the country that made up the communist German Democratic Republic between 1949 and 1990, before German reunification. 'Reunification in Germany produced winners and losers. And in the view of many East German people – and much of it is true – there are inequalities that were produced by reunification.' These divisions are being exploited to push what Frankenburger terms a form of white supremacist, traditionalist 'Völkisch nationalism' – not a term that is well understood outside of Germany but which resonates heavily in domestic politics. 'And so the AFD comes in and says 'hey, there's something wrong with the state, there's something wrong with democracy, and there's something wrong with our heritage. So we have a strong German heritage. We have an identity, we have an idea and all the others are trying to destroy it'. So it's a kind of protest.' To find out more about narratives pushed by the AFD, listen to the interview with Rolf Frankenberger on The Conversation Weekly podcast. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware. Sound design was by Michelle Macklem, and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Clips in this episode from AFP News, AfD in English, DW News and Al Jazeera English. Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Rolf Frankenberger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
How close are quantum computers to being really useful? Podcast
Quantum computers have the potential to solve big scientific problems that are beyond the reach of today's most powerful supercomputers, such as discovering new antibiotics or developing new materials. But to achieve these breakthroughs, quantum computers will need to perform better than today's best classical computers at solving real-world problems. And they're not quite there yet. So what is still holding quantum computing back from becoming useful? In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to quantum computing expert Daniel Lidar at the University of Southern California in the US about what problems scientists are still wrestling with when it comes to scaling up quantum computing, and how close they are to overcoming them. Quantum computers harness the power of quantum mechanics, the laws that govern subatomic particles. Instead of the classical bits of information used by microchips inside traditional computers, which are either a 0 or a 1, the chips in quantum computers use qubits, which can be both 0 and 1 at the same time or anywhere in between. Daniel Lidar explains: 'Put a lot of these qubits together and all of a sudden you have a computer that can simultaneously represent many, many different possibilities … and that is the starting point for the speed up that we can get from quantum computing.' One of the biggest problems scientist face is how to scale up quantum computing power. Qubits are notoriously prone to errors – which means that they can quickly revert to being either a 0 or a 1, and so lose their advantage over classical computers. Scientists have focused on trying to solve these errors through the concept of redundancy – linking strings of physical qubits together into what's called a 'logical qubit' to try and maximise the number of steps in a computation. And, little by little, they're getting there. In December 2024, Google announced that its new quantum chip, Willow, had demonstrated what's called 'beyond breakeven', when its logical qubits worked better than the constituent parts and even kept on improving as it scaled up. Lidar says right now the development of this technology is happening very fast: 'For quantum computing to scale and to take off is going to still take some real science breakthroughs, some real engineering breakthroughs, and probably overcoming some yet unforeseen surprises before we get to the point of true quantum utility. With that caution in mind, I think it's still very fair to say that we are going to see truly functional, practical quantum computers kicking into gear, helping us solve real-life problems, within the next decade or so.' Listen to Lidar explain more about how quantum computers and quantum error correction works on The Conversation Weekly podcast. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Gemma Ware with assistance from Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany. Sound design was by Michelle Macklem, and theme music by Neeta Sarl. Clips in this episode from Google Quantum AI and 10 Hours Channel. You can find us on Instagram at theconversationdotcom or via e-mail. You can also subscribe to The Conversation's free daily e-mail here. Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Daniel Lidar receives funding from the NSF, DARPA, ARO, and DOE.
