The latest

Will It Scale?

Omar Al-Ubaydli, John A. List

Scaling failures are often dismissed as unforeseeable, but it is possible to understand why inventions fail at scale and prevent them. It requires asking—before research begins—why an idea would fail at scale. This process, called “option C thinking,” asks social scientists to consider the big picture and design larger-scale experiments.Read More

Government Science

natalie aviles on the national cancer institute (nci)

How Federal Science Agencies Innovate in the Public Interest

Natalie B. Aviles

The National Cancer Institute offers a compelling illustration of why allowing expert scientists the discretion to broadly interpret their agency’s statutory mission enables a brand of scientific innovation marked by a commitment to serving the public good.Read More

The Ongoing Transformation

A Cutting-Edge Bureaucracy

Natalie B. Aviles, Jason Lloyd

On our latest podcast episode, Natalie Aviles argues that some of the most significant scientific and health innovations of the past century have come from scientist-bureaucrats at government research institutes.Read More

Book Review

MUSIC AND MIND Cover

Sound Therapy

Susan M. Fitzpatrick

After Susan Fitzpatrick developed tinnitus, she was surprised to discover that the sound of the spring cicadas provided temporary relief. “In the music of these insects,” she writes, “I found solace. If the singing cicadas could give me back my peace of mind, what healing powers can be found in the transcendent sounds comprising the music created by gifted artists?”Read More

Poetry and Medicine

Lewis Thomas. Photograph by Bernard Gotfryd, courtesy the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The Lives of Lewis Thomas

Joseph J. Fins

When Joseph Fins was a medical student, the physician-humanist and writer Lewis Thomas gave a lecture to his class. Fins recalls that Thomas offered a lesson that “helped shape my career as a physician and bioethicist, as well as my sense of the fragility of life and the obligations of care.”Read More

Future Tense Fiction

"A Time Between" illustration by Rey Velasquez Sacgal

A Time Between

Kevin Galvin

Detectives digging into evidence of a tragic death find themselves confronted with two different versions of the past—and, perhaps, the present.

Read More

The FALL Issue

Fall 2024 Issues in Science and Technology cover
SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Join the Conversation

Social Media

Follow us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Podcast

Listen to The Ongoing Transformation for conversations with today’s most exciting thinkers.

See Episodes

Forum

Read responses to our published essays from experts around the world.

Read Forum

Attend Events

Connect with our dynamic community of experts and policy-makers.

See Events

Forum

In response to essays published in Issues, our readers weigh in on critical topics in policy related to science, technology, and society.

The Future of Nuclear Power

The US Department of Energy and big tech companies such as Google and Amazon have announced their support for the development of advanced nuclear reactors. Do their efforts prefigure a nuclear renaissance? And what would such a renewal of the nuclear sector mean for society?

Nuclear Innovation

An Ambidextrous Approach to Nuclear Energy Innovation

An Ambidextrous Approach to Nuclear Energy Innovation

Florian Metzler, Jonah Messinger

Tension between the promise of new nuclear technologies and uncertainty about their feasibility requires a diversified, balanced research portfolio that can be adjusted locally in concert with global progress.Read More

Engineering Education

Educating Engineers for a New Nuclear Age

Aditi Verma, Katie Snyder, Shanna Daly

Radical designs for fission and fusion energy systems require engineers who are grounded in technical knowledge, adept at engaging communities in participatory design, and fluent in ethical, equity-centered communication.Read More

Decentralized Nuclear?

Can Nuclear Power Go Local?

Jessica Lovering, Suzanne Hobbs Baker

With origins in the Cold War military-industrial complex, nuclear power struggles to reinvent itself as part of the inclusive, democratic future envisioned by progressives.Read More

Nuclear Waste

nuclear regulatory commission

Deep Time: The End of an Engagement

Başak Saraç-Lesavre

For all its flaws, US nuclear waste policy at least relied on a sense of a moral responsibility toward the present and future. That may now be changing.Read More

News

Connecting today’s headlines with deeper policy analyses from the Issues archives.

The Future of Scientist-Bureaucrats

Biodesigning Solutions for Plastics Pollution

Preparing for a Nuclear Renaissance

Including Workers in Technology Development

Browse our recent issues