News Updates

Waymo, a leader in developing self-driving vehicles, and Daimler, the automotive manufacturer, are partnering to develop heavy-duty autonomous trucks. The trucks could operate along specific long-haul routes and use a network of distribution depots located near the highways. But a sociologist who studies automation recently argued in Issues that choices made by the public and policy-makers, rather than headline-generating developments in self-driving vehicle technologies, will have a far greater influence on how these systems are implemented—and what they mean for the quality and wages of trucking jobs.

The new gene-editing tool CRISPR, whose discoverers just won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is looking promising as the basis for rapid, accurate, and inexpensive tests to spot coronavirus infections. Though more development remains, “I believe we’ll see an impact during the current pandemic,” says Jennifer Doudna, a University of California-Berkeley chemist who helped pioneer the technology. In a recent Issues interview, she surveyed the potential benefits of CRISPR for human health, agriculture, and industry, while also calling for public input to ensure its responsible use.

They have no products to sell yet, and little chance of generating much revenue any time soon, but several start-up companies trying to enter the electric vehicle race are already gaining major investors. Sound familiar? Overhyping new technologies has become commonplace, an independent consultant recently argued in Issues, cautioning that this irrational exuberance is causing economic losses and slowing innovation. He calls on investors and national policy leaders to recognize hype, avoid its negative effects, and evaluate the economic promise of emerging technologies in more realistic ways.

In the latest foreign campaign to use social media to disrupt US society, Iran blasted a batch of false emails to Democratic voters, the government just announced, in apparent hope of swinging the upcoming election in President Trump’s favor. In a look behind the disinformation battle lines, a scholar of emerging technologies examined in Issues why the United States is particularly vulnerable to attacks that use the latest communication tools combined with insights from the cognitive and behavioral sciences, and what the nation can do to prevent or counter them.

The Department of Energy has announced plans to help fund development and construction of two new types of nuclear reactors—said to be simpler, cheaper, and safer than conventional ones—in hopes of jumpstarting the US nuclear power industry. To be co-funded by private companies, the efforts follow a broader road map for nuclear rejuvenation laid out in Issues by a leading energy scholar, who added that this innovation agenda “would be a clear departure from more than three decades of controversy, timidity, and indecision in US nuclear energy policy.”

A federal judge has ruled against expanding online voting by US citizens living overseas, including military members, reflecting arguments that it could make elections more vulnerable to hacking. The decision aligns with an Issues online exclusive by an expert on voting systems who helped on the National Academies’ 2018 report Securing the Vote: Protecting American Democracy, which recommended, among other things, that elections be conducted using paper ballots that voters mark by hand or machine in order to produce a verifiable audit trail that can reveal outside manipulation.

The White House reportedly blocked a rule proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that would require employees and passengers to wear masks on all commercial and public transit vehicles in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus. In an insider’s look at one particular transit sector—buses—a union safety official recently described in an Issues online exclusive how COVID-19 disproportionally affects drivers and passengers, why their plight has been routinely ignored, and what technical and policy options can make buses safer for all.

One of the nation’s largest internet providers is phasing out DSL service in rural areas, cutting this older, slower “digital subscriber line” technology that for hundreds of thousands of people remains their only way to obtain broadband access. The social effects could be substantial. In Issues, an expert on information technology and its impact on society recently explored the numerous beneficial ways that young people use the internet, concluding that lack of broadband access is a greater threat to their well-being than too much access.

Jennifer A. Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, and Emmanuelle Charpentier, a French researcher, have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a gene-editing tool called CRISPR/Cas9 that, says a Nobel official, “has not only revolutionized basic science, but also resulted in innovative crops and will lead to groundbreaking new medical treatments.” In a recent Issues interview, Doudna reflected on how the new technology is already being used, emphasizing her hope that gene editing will be pursued responsibly, with proper consideration by society of its ethical implications.

The federal government will spend $90 billion over the coming year on information technology programs, so it’s timely that the Government Accountability Office has released a comprehensive guide to help agencies best apply what is called the Agile methodology for software development and management. The GAO’s Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics team helped prepare the guide, and its chief scientist recently detailed in Issues how the team works to provide Congress with independent analysis across a range of topics, including COVID-19, that can dramatically affect daily life.

The two main drugs given to President Trump after he developed COVID-19 have not been proven effective or safe, say two British researchers now studying them in controlled clinical trials, adding that no matter the president’s outcome, “When we come to treat the next patient hospitalized with Covid, we will still be none the wiser about the usefulness of those drugs.” An Issues online exclusive earlier cited this US testing gap, arguing that a “rush to offer unproven treatments outside of well-designed clinical studies” undermines science and endangers patients.