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Yayoi Kusama’s lifelong struggle with her mental health is the most well-known explanation for her quest to paint “infinity,” which she famously called “self-obliteration.” However, early paintings such as “Pacific Ocean” (1958) reveal other sources of inspiration. Audrey Storm, PhD candidate in art history at USC Dornsife, explains the way travel also shaped Kusama's art.

Scientists have long known that the vagus nerve helps regulate digestion, hunger and feelings of fullness. A new study, published in Nature Communications, has now uncovered evidence that signals traveling from the gut through the vagus nerve can also help to form memories. Read more about the research >>

Sincere thanks and reciprocation are part of the glue that binds us in human relationships. But sometimes you’re just not feeling it.

USC Dornsife philosopher Mark Schroeder explains how shifting the way you interpret someone's act of kindness can help you better appreciate their generosity.

Mexico is the United States’ top trading partner, both as the largest source of U.S. imports and the largest market for its exports. Given these ties, the stakes will be high on July 1, when U.S., Mexico and Canada begin a required review of the 2020 trade deal underpinning their economic relationship. Pamela K. Starr, a scholar of U.S.-Mexico trade relations, digs into what might come out of this discussion.

Meet Michelle Commander, the Deputy Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. The daughter of factory workers, she grew up in South Carolina where she was an avid book worm who frequently read a novel a day.

Commander was previously a deputy director at New York’s Schomberg Center for Research in Black Culture, housed in the former Harlem Public Library. Since 2023, she's overseen exhibits, fundraising and publications at the NMAAHC, which has welcomed 13 million visitors since it opened.

“Ultimately, I hope people leave with a fuller understanding of both struggle and triumph — and a sense of shared humanity,” she says.

On June 24, two massive earthquake pulses devastated northern Venezuela, killing more than 500 people and trapping thousands more. USC Dornsife geophysicist Sylvain Barbot explains what we know about the earthquakes, including what warnings they carry for regions with similar faults.

• The magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 seismic pulses less than 40 seconds apart. Researchers are still determining whether these were two separate earthquakes or a single rupture with two distinct pulses.
• The same type of transform (strike-slip) fault responsible for the Venezuela disaster is similar to California's San Andreas Fault, which is also capable of producing devastating magnitude 7+ earthquakes.
• The danger isn't over: the earthquake has increased the risk of landslides for months or even years, meaning future rainstorms could trigger additional destruction.

Dads today are spending dramatically more time with their kids than they did a generation ago. According to some estimates, the average time dads spend caring for their kids each day has quadrupled over the past 50 years.

But there’s a less encouraging trend tucked into these gains. More is being asked of dads — and moms, for that matter — because the extended family and community networks that once supported childrearing have shrunk or deteriorated.

There's also a class divide. College-educated dads are now spending 46 more minutes with their kids each day compared with noncollege-educated dads. In part, it’s because benefits such as universal paid paternity leave and stable, flexible work options are available only to dads with good jobs.

Darby Saxbe, professor of psychology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, explores the growing importance of fatherhood, and what's driving these changes.

Only one portrait of Pocahontas from her lifetime exists, and it speaks volumes about how the English saw colonization, says USC Dornsife historian Peter Mancall.

"Seeing Pocahontas poised on a chair, wearing an elegant hat and holding a quill pen, the English had assumed that Native Americans would embrace the colonizers’ ways. March 1622 proved them wrong."

Read his analysis of her portrait.

From very early on, writers have seen their craft as something more than just putting words to a page. From Enheduanna, the first named author on record, to Plato and Aristotle, writing has been portrayed and defined in ways that suggest AI may not be “writing” at all. If not, what should we call AI text?

USC Dornsife writing professor Ryan Leack considers what ancient authors would have thought of AI writing and proposes a new term for this form of text.