The ISSUES Interview
“There’s a Real Urgency to Be Ready When That Bioconvergence Happens.”
Senator Todd Young shares his vision for how emerging biotechnologies can revolutionize agriculture, industry, and warfighting.
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The Latest
The Ongoing Transformation
What Does a Cormorant Feel?
Brandon Keim discusses animal personhood, movements around animal representation, and cormorants—one named Cosmos in particular.
Book Review
Documenting a Carbon Bust
Maron E. Greenleaf’s research in Forest Lost: Producing Green Capitalism in the Brazilian Amazon “demonstrates how the rhetoric of sustainability, efficiency, and market-driven conservation often obscures the material consequences and lived experience of these policies.”
The Ongoing Transformation
Neil Chilson Helps Turn Knowledge Into Benefits for Humanity
Neil Chilson, head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute, discusses what it’s like to work at a policy think tank, the questions about artificial intelligence that motivate his work, and why he is optimistic about our technological future.
Risk Assessment
How Dual Use Puts Research Under the Microscope
A recent case in Norway demonstrates how dual-use controls can constrict international scientific collaboration without offering commensurate protections.
Research Proposals
Proposals as Partnerships
As grantmakers and universities strive for more engaged and societally responsive research, the proposal process could be a place for innovation—and an avenue for institutional change.
Skilled Technical Workforce
Retooling the Definition of the Skilled Technical Workforce
Why don’t job classification systems recognize what skills today’s occupations really require?
Real Numbers
What We Learned From 25,775 Environmental Lawsuits
Lawsuits play a critical role in enforcing and upholding environmental laws. Whose concerns are prioritized? What environmental harms are litigated—and which are overlooked?
The Ongoing Transformation
How ADHD Affects Adults
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is the second most prevalent psychiatric disorder in adults. David Goodman explains how ADHD affects adults, the complexities in how it’s diagnosed and treated, and open questions for research in the field.
Open Science
Let Unfunded Grant Applications See the Light of Day
Showing which proposals do and don’t receive federal funding can improve research and advance open science.
Preparing for the Bioconvergence
Vol. XLI, No. 4, Summer 2025
How can Americans “engage with biotechnology the same way they do with cell phones and computers”? In an interview for the Summer 2025 issue, Senator Todd Young explains why the emerging bioeconomy should be understood as an urgent opportunity as well as a potential military and security vulnerability. As chair of the National Security Commission on the Emerging Bioeconomy, Young is optimistic that both parties are willing to foster the bioindustries of the future in order to create “a more informed, empowered, and resilient society capable of leveraging science and technology to solve a wide range of global challenges.”
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Forum
In response to essays published in Issues, our readers weigh in on critical topics in policy related to science, technology, and society.
Summer 2025
If Your Snark Be a Boojum
A Discussion of
The Strange New Politics of Science
Responses By
Science By Those Who Made It Happen
A Discussion of
Using Storytelling to Investigate Scientific Questions
Response By
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Tunnel Fever
On the floor of the Arctic Ocean, an isolated roadside bar buried in a vast network of tunnels is staffed by a claustrophobic waitress who dreams of life above the surface. When a pair of outlaws tries to rob the bar, its patrons and employees are forced to work together to stave them off—pushing the boundaries of survival and trust in extreme environments.
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Resisting Tunnel Vision
To work toward better climate policy and governance, we need to expand our vision of what’s possible.
Response
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All That Burns Unseen
When a government worker is charged with collecting data from the fire-ravaged community she grew up in, she gets help from an unexpected ally: a fire-fighting drone.
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Firefighting Chemicals Are Dangerous for the Environment. Can That Change?
A journalist who covers wildfires responds to Premee Mohamed’s “All That Burns Unseen.”
Response
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The Limits of Heat Resilience
How resilient to extreme heat can humans really be? Our bodies have a limit—and our response to climate change should reflect that.
Response
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The Shade Technician
In a heat-sieged city whose residents have become functionally nocturnal, an essential worker labors during the day to fix private shade structures designed to provide shelter from the grueling sun for anyone who can pay.
Climate change poses a significant threat to human health. Extreme heat, stronger storms, new pathogens, food and water insecurity, and many other stressors pose dangers to human well-being. In addition, these health risks are not evenly distributed: They will affect society’s most vulnerable people most. What can be done to keep all people healthy on a warmer planet?
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Foiling the Growing Threat of Fungal Pathogens
Climate change, changing migration patterns, and our agriculture system have created a perfect environment for fungal pathogens to thrive.
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Channels for Arctic Diplomacy
Illustration by Shonagh Rae During the summer of 2016, in Russia’s arctic Yamal Peninsula, a heat wave resurfaced anthrax bacteria long buried in the permafrost. The bacteria then killed thousands of reindeer… Read More
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Behind the Bougainvillea Curtain: Wildfires and Inequality
More equitable approaches to preparation and relief efforts for wildfires and other disasters must include undocumented Latino and Indigenous migrants.
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A Climate Equity Agenda Informed by Community Brilliance
With every heat wave and flood, the failure to translate climate science into insight and action puts the health and well-being of people in vulnerable communities at risk. Intentional partnerships between residents, scientists, government, industry, and philanthropy can fix this disconnect.
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