News Updates

After Russian drones damaged power lines near a nuclear plant in the Ukrainian region of Khmelnytskyi, the president of Ukraine declared that his country’s air defenses and civil systems were preparing for another winter of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure. Indeed, even after nearly two years of war, the nation still manages to provide a remarkable level of electricity and other technical services to its citizens, Daniel Armanios, Jonas Skovrup Christensen, and Andriy Tymoshenko write in Issues. How Ukraine managed this feat, the authors add, holds lessons for other societies facing threats, whether from war, climate change, or economic disruption.

NASA is set to launch a spacecraft—named Psyche, after the asteroid it will target—to gather clues about how Earth’s innermost core formed. Yet even before the robotic explorer lifts off, the mission is revealing ways to improve how most research is conducted in the United States, the mission’s principal investigator maintains in Issues. A key change, Lindy Elkins-Tanton writes, is moving away from the “hero model” of science and engineering, typically centered around a “big name” scholar, and instead building collaborative teams that embrace a culture in which “each person is valued according to their contribution rather than title.”