News Updates

For research at the National Institutes of Health that led to the COVID-19 vaccines, Kizzmekia Corbett, an African American immunologist, has been named one of two Federal Employees of the Year. In Issues, Freeman A. Hrabowski III and Peter H. Henderson of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, write that Corbett also exemplifies gains from expanding participation of underrepresented groups in science. They further propose that their school’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program, which has helped Corbett and numerous other underrepresented students succeed, models how the nation can replicate effective minority-serving programs and in turn tackle fundamental scientific and health problems.

Power outages such as the one that hit Texas last winter illustrate that states are failing to fortify the electric grid against severe weather caused by climate change, the Washington Post reports. In Issues, Adam Briggle provides a philosopher’s view of the situation. He argues that although technological improvements are needed, such as better weatherization and more storage capacity, we also “should be thinking about both resilience of the grid and freedom from the grid.” Consuming energy beyond a certain level does not make people “happier, healthier, smarter, or longer-lived,” he writes, while increasing capacity raises the stakes for when delivery systems fail.

A Swiss firm has opened in Iceland what it says is the world’s largest plant to remove carbon dioxide from the air, using a technology called direct air capture, and store it underground. In Issues, Evvan Morton and her colleagues highlight the importance of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide accumulations, but argue that other removal technologies likely hold greater promise. The writers also note that new policies will be needed to guide such practical matters as where the technologies should be used, who should be responsible for or benefit economically from the removal, and how to manage unexpected harm from these efforts.

The pharmaceutical firm Merck reportedly plans to charge Americans more than $700 for a new COVID-19 drug that costs less than $18 to produce and whose development the US government partly subsidized. Bhaven N. Sampat saw it coming. In reviewing in Issues how drug discovery and pricing have evolved, he observes that “the current system succeeds at getting taxpayer-funded research developed and commercialized, but fails at making drugs affordable.” As an alternative approach, he suggests government might fund not only basic research but also the necessary development work, including clinical trials, then disseminate the results at cost.

Captain James T. Kirk—or actually William Shatner, who famously played the Star Trek hero in movies and on television—blasted into space aboard a rocket operated by Blue Origin, the company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The launch marks the latest in what Bhavya Lal calls in Issues “a profound shift” in the US space enterprise: the privatization of functions previously considered inherently governmental. “Ultimately,” she writes, “these new incentives within the private sector will likely push the boundary of the art-of-the-possible in space beyond what government managers can envision, and the footprint of space activities will grow apace.”

For the first time, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved sales of a type of electronic cigarette—one that tastes like tobacco—citing evidence that the product can help adult smokers quit or significantly reduce their use of conventional cigarettes. Lynn T. Kozlowski would go further. She argues in Issues that states and municipalities should be allowed to move “decisively beyond the serious limitations of federal tobacco law” and test a variety of policy options, especially varying age restrictions on e-cigarettes, to identify the best ways of reducing tobacco’s harm to both individuals and society.