News Updates

9/27/17 – Though Australia has been active in space for decades, and was among the first countries to launch a satellite, it has never had a national space agency—until now. In announcing the new agency, an official said it would help the nation keep up with the “global space industry” that is “growing rapidly.” In Issues, an analyst recently surveyed the worldwide expansion of space activities by governments and private companies, adding a caution that the United States will need to adjust its policies to changing conditions.

9/26/17 – Congress is investigating Russia’s alleged use of social media to influence the 2016 US presidential campaign, and Facebook has handed over more than 3,000 ads believed to have played a role. Attacks on the United States using such “weaponized narratives” are likely to expand, a researcher who studies emerging technologies recently explained in Issues, as adversaries experiment with new ways to undermine the nation’s beliefs and values.

9/20/17 – Two new scientific achievements illustrate the wide-ranging potential of the gene-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9: the first-ever manipulation of a key gene in human embryos that yielded fundamental insight into how single cells transform into complex babies, and the laboratory creation of colorful butterfly wings that may offer clues in evolutionary biology. The advances also suggest the array of social concerns accompanying the new technology, as covered recently by Issues in a series of articles.

9/19/17 – Three environmental groups are now suing the US government for delaying higher fines for automakers whose new vehicles don’t meet fuel economy standards. The delay seemingly aligns with federal plans to consider lowering the standards for the 2021-2025 model years. But two leaders of a major energy study maintain in Issues that fuel economy standards, combined with carefully crafted fuel taxes, represent the nation’s most practical bet for cutting energy use and funding infrastructure in the transportation sector.

9/17/17 – In a report on efforts in Maine to grow a classically hybridized and healthy strain of the blight-devastated American chestnut tree, a Portland-based newspaper also examines the prospects of genetically modified versions that carry a useful gene taken from wheat. In Issues, a philosopher considers the genetically modified candidates from her camp, concluding that public debates about their value will likely turn on both metaphysical and practical considerations.

9/12/17 – As Texas and the Southeast still reel from hurricane waters, the primary focus remains on meeting residents’ immediate needs. But from a broader perspective, an environmentalist has explained in Issues his hope that flood events can serve as a “teachable moment” that spurs people and governments in coastal communities to fundamentally rethink how they make local land-use decisions in the face of predicted rising sea levels. And at the website The Conversation, two experienced analysts offer a set of practical rules for designing infrastructure to better cope with extreme weather events.

9/8/17 – A major US investment bank reported recently that China will soon catch up with the United States in developing and applying artificial intelligence to drive economic progress. In Issues, a scholar at a leading Chinese university has suggested that his country’s recent and continuing progress in various areas of science and technology is linked strongly to the support of large numbers of government officials at all levels who have some form of technical education.

9/5/17 – A city official in San Francisco has called for a tax on robots that automate jobs and put people out of work, saying that “it’s important to think now about how people will earn a living as more U.S. jobs are lost to automation.” In Issues, an economic analyst surveyed the kinds of jobs that robots and information technology might fill over the next two decades, but noted that with careful planning humans can find ways of interacting with their automated creations to the benefit of workers and society alike.

9/5/17 – As floodwaters still plague Houston after Hurricane Harvey, two water-resource specialists say that a report on the Great Flood of 1993 in the upper Midwest showed policy makers how to mitigate or prevent severe flooding, but the advice went largely unheeded. In Issues, another pair of experts commenting five years after that report pointed out a host of actions still needed—many of them missing even today—and stressed that the key would be adopting a more informed kind of flood management that involves working with the forces of nature instead of simply trying to eliminate them.

9/3/17 – To meaningfully reduce the number of people incarcerated in the United States, more attention should be paid to paroling inmates convicted of violent crimes “who may have been dangerous in the past” but “are no longer a threat to public safety,” a criminal justice scholar argues in the Atlantic. Two expert analysts recently made a similar case in Issues as part of their analysis of mass incarceration and what states have learned about reforming the correctional and judicial systems.

9/1/17 – Recent conflicts in the United States stirred by extreme right-wing protestors have been featured on social media recently as a Russia-based network cranked out alarmism and disinformation, according to a group that monitors such messages. In Issues, a scholar of emerging technologies says use of “weaponized narratives” is increasingly common, providing an ideal asymmetric strategy for adversaries to attack US beliefs and values that support the nation’s culture and resiliency.