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Editor's note
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The Super Bowl should be a tense battle between some of the best athletes in the world. But there’s one problem: the games are usually boring, lopsided affairs. The NFL realized this early on, and Penn State’s Peter Hopsicker and Mark Dyreson tell the story of how the league, in an effort to lure more viewers, transformed the Super Bowl from a battle of gridiron gladiators into a spectacle of singers, fireworks and advertisements.
The Super Bowl is also a good time to reflect on the dangers of under-reported concussions. As Colorado State University researcher Doug Coatsworth writes, thorough research is needed on the culture of various youth sports.
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Nick Lehr
Editor, Arts and Culture
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Top story
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Fireworks go off before Super Bowl XLVIII between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks.
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
Peter M. Hopsicker, Pennsylvania State University; Mark Dyreson, Pennsylvania State University
Recognizing that the game itself is often lopsided and boring, the NFL, through the years, has worked to minimize its significance.
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Science + Technology
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John Carrier, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The problems that cause us to be so frustrated we contemplate throwing a computer can be much more serious than a multimillionaire football coach having a minor tantrum on a Sunday afternoon.
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Alexis Noel, Georgia Institute of Technology; David Hu, Georgia Institute of Technology
How do a frog's tongue and saliva work together to be sticky enough to lift 1.4 times the animal's body weight? Painstaking lab work found their spit switches between two distinct phases to nab prey.
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Timothy Summers, University of Maryland
Cyberdetectives look for digital doors or windows left unlocked, find electronic footprints in the dirt and examine malicious software for clues about who broke in, what they took and why.
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Politics + Society
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Jesse Rhodes, University of Massachusetts Amherst
President Donald Trump is promoting the widely discredited idea of voter fraud. Spreading the myth will make it easier to tighten voter ID laws.
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Charis Kubrin, University of California, Irvine; Graham C. Ousey, College of William & Mary; Lesley Reid, University of Alabama; Robert Adelman, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
Our panel of experts examines whether immigration leads to more crime using data from across 200 metropolitan areas and 20 years of research.
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Health + Medicine
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Nicole Ehrhart, Colorado State University
Dogs are great companions, and they also are proving to be great research subjects for cancer. Here's how our canine friends are pointing to possible treatments in human cancer.
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Electra D. Paskett, The Ohio State University
A vaccine to prevent cancer was long a dream for those who treat the disease. But fewer than half of all girls and even fewer boys have been vaccinated. Cancer specialists hope this will soon change.
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Richard Neubig, Michigan State University
Melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, can usually be cured when caught early. When it has spread, however, it becomes a challenge. Recent findings are bringing hope. Here are a few examples.
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Maureen Miller, Columbia University Medical Center
The defunding of Planned Parenthood is a goal of many in the new administration. Here's a look at the facts about the group, including the number of people it serves and the services it provides.
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Economy + Business
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Charles Hankla, Georgia State University
Trump's 'America first' rhetoric implies that the internationalism and ‘enlightened self-interest’ that built the postwar order was a big mistake. The evidence and basic economics disagree.
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George B. Cunningham, Texas A&M University
Conservative lawmakers are proposing 'bathroom bills' and other measures that discriminate against LGBT individuals. Beyond the moral concerns, there are large economic costs as well.
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Ethics + Religion
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Mathew Schmalz, College of the Holy Cross
A scholar quotes Biblical passages to show how the text affirms – strongly and unequivocally – the obligation to treat strangers with dignity and hospitality.
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Leigh E. Schmidt, Washington University in St Louis
Distrust of the irreligious has been commonplace in the American political discourse from the founding.
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Arts + Culture
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Jaime Schultz, Pennsylvania State University
A recent decision by the International Olympic Committee has cheerleading under consideration for Tokyo 2020. But its very status as a sport has constantly been questioned.
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Ani Kokobobo, University of Kansas
Set during Napoleon's invasion of Russia, the epic novel is a case study in the grassroots strength of ordinary people.
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Education
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Jason Lane, University at Albany, State University of New York
For decades, the US has used international education to support democracy and positive relations with countries. For most of the 1970s, Iran sent more students to America than any other country.
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David Miller, Northwestern University
Recent research raised concerns about girls' stereotypes on their gender's lack of 'brilliance.' But an overlooked finding suggests boys also hold hindering stereotypes about themselves in school.
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Environment + Energy
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Timothy Hyde, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A century before the modern environmental era, experts realized that London's dirty air was corroding its new Parliament building. This insight led to some of the first air pollution laws.
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Nives Dolsak, University of Washington; Aseem Prakash, University of Washington
Two environmental policy experts offer a more politically palatable way to lower carbon emissions – based on consumption, not conventional regulation.
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