Inside the murky world of Twitter bots – and why they matter

Biden on Taiwan: Did he really commit US forces to stopping any invasion by China? An expert explains why, on balance, probably not

Meredith Oyen, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Biden’s suggestion that the US is prepared to intervene militarily if Taiwan was invaded was quickly walked back by White House officials.

The big exodus of Ukrainian refugees isn’t an accident – it’s part of Putin’s plan to destabilize Europe

Mark A. Grey, University of Northern Iowa

Putin has a history of forcing civilians to migrate during a conflict, part of a broader strategy to overwhelm other countries with new refugees and destabilize their economies.

The Catholic Church’s views on exorcism have changed – a religious studies scholar explains why

Joseph P. Laycock, Texas State University

In the 1960s, the Catholic Church sought to downplay demonic possession, but its views since then have changed.

Protestants and the pill: How US Christians helped make birth control mainstream

Samira Mehta, University of Colorado Boulder

Conservative Christians have cheered restrictions on some birth control. But many decades ago, Christian leaders’ support helped contraceptives become acceptable in the first place.

What is a medication, or medical, abortion? 5 questions answered by 3 doctors

Lauren Owens, University of Michigan; Claire Brindis, University of California, San Francisco; Daniel Grossman, University of California, San Francisco

Three experts answer questions about the effectiveness, safety and side effects of medication abortion.

Scientists at Work: How pharmacists and community health workers build trust with Cambodian genocide survivors

Christina Polomoff, University of Connecticut

Studying medication use in a traumatized population of immigrants required pharmacists to listen to and learn from trusted community health workers.

Why the cost of climate change can’t be boiled down to one right number, despite some economists’ best attempts

Matthew E. Kahn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Human behaviors shift. Policies change. New technology arrives and evolves. All those changes and more are hard to predict, and they affect tomorrow’s costs.

Nuclear isomers were discovered 100 years ago, and physicists are still unraveling their mysteries

Artemis Spyrou, Michigan State University; Dennis Mücher, University of Guelph

Nuclear isomers are rare versions of elements with properties that mystified physicists when first discovered. Isomers are now used in medicine and astronomy, and researchers are set to discover thousands more of them.

Yorkicystis, the 500 million-year-old relative of starfish that lost its skeleton

Samuel Zamora, Instituto Geológico y Minero de España (IGME - CSIC)

The discovery of a unique 510 million-year-old fossil in a Pennsylvania churchyard offers new clues into how early life evolved on Earth.

Did Australia just make a move to the left?

David Bowie and the birth of environmentalism: 50 years on, how Ziggy Stardust and the first UN climate summit changed our vision of the future

When is a species really extinct?