News Updates

A new United Nations–led study on climate change finds that the oceans are rising and warming at an unprecedented pace, potentially leading to problems such as extreme coastal flooding and major losses of marine life. Perhaps more reason to consider an outside-the-box proposal in Issues that the US government restructure the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with added funding redirected from NASA since “solutions to the world’s energy, food, environmental, and other problems are far more likely to be found in nearby oceans than in distant space.”

Although college students in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—often get higher-paying first jobs, students in liberal arts generally catch up, largely because their “soft skills,” such as problem-solving, critical thinking, and adaptability, have long-run value in a range of careers. In Issues, the chair and study director on a major report, Branches from the Same Tree, recently laid out why and how higher education must do more to integrate across disciplines to better prepare students for work, life, and citizenship.

As vaping-related illnesses make headlines and prompt bans on e-cigarettes, some observers worry about regulatory overkill that would reverse some of the gains that have been made against traditional smoking. In Issues, a public health specialist argues that vaping should be regulated with a “harm reduction” approach that mitigates the dangers of the habit while moving people away from more dangerous cigarette addictions.

Space ventures are involving more countries and more private companies than ever, and the US government must adjust accordingly, an analyst recently noted in Issues. NASA is responding by upping its support for companies pursuing diverse space activities, in an effort to tap into projected innovations and cost savings. But progress is not always smooth, as officials of a small Pittsburgh-based start-up developing a lunar lander observed in a live-stream broadcast of India’s last-minute failure to land a spacecraft safely on the moon.

Groups of indigenous people in Canada are arguing over expansion of a pipeline that carries crude oil from Alberta’s oil sand deposits to the coast for processing, with some opposing the pipeline for environmental reasons and others trying to buy a stake in it so they can tap projected economic gains and help control its operation. In an online article for Issues, a communications researcher takes a broader look at development of the oil sands, the controversies emerging, the role of public opinion, and possible lessons for climate policy-making.

New York Times columnist David Brooks argues that the United States needs to push beyond what he calls exclusive meritocracy—the education, economic, and social system geared to a tiny slice of the population—and strive for a more open meritocracy that helps a diverse array of people succeed. He cites Arizona State University as a model of what can be done in higher education. In Issues, leaders of the school have described how its institutional design and operating practices meet the dual obligations of equity and excellence without compromising on either.

Countries and corporations have only limited time to start adapting to climate change, an international commission recently concluded, also noting that investing $1.8 trillion by 2030 in five key areas would yield $7.1 trillion in benefits. Issues has explored some of what should be done, with analysts proposing national priorities to guide US actions and drawing a list of ways to increase the technical and institutional resiliency of the nation’s infrastructure—one of the key areas cited—to meet the extreme weather events expected with climate change.

With advocates arguing that autonomous vehicles promise to improve public safety, the Washington Post has posted an interactive simulation that lets you drive one—and experience all that can go wrong. In Issues, two information scientists have pointed to shortcomings in the current technology as one reason, among others, why society should not be “sold” solely by the safety argument, but should demand a broader discussion about autonomous vehicles that includes consideration of their full array of possible uses and outcomes.

A high-ranking member of a US House intelligence and counterterrorism subcommittee has accused the Navy of withholding requested information on reported sightings of “unidentified aerial phenomena,” worried that any such mysterious craft could pose a threat to US forces or territory. In Issues recently, a journalist took a hard look at the history of unidentified flying objects, in public parlance, concluding that evidence for their very existence is lacking, but adding that the military “may well have its own good reason for keeping the UFO story alive.”

The recent and rapid spread of advanced information technologies is opening the United States to new types of threats—what a scholar writing in Issues called weaponized narratives—intended to disrupt its institutions, culture, and resiliency. And the Defense Department is ramping up the alert level. Its high-tech research agency is launching a project to repel “large-scale, automated disinformation attacks” by developing software that can spot false news stories, malicious social media posts, and deep-fake videos before they go viral.

Manufacturing in the Midwest appears to be slowing, as noted here and here, in just the states that helped elect President Trump in 2016 and are poised to be major political battlegrounds in the next election. In Issues, a leading scholar and former government adviser surveyed the decline in manufacturing that energized Trump voters, ultimately concluding that politics aside, a strong manufacturing sector is a crucial element of an inclusive economy that can undergird a better future for all, and policy-makers should recognize this reality and address it with energy.