The latest

Gallery

Richard Misrach, Entrance, Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository (under construction), Nevada, 1994, pigment print. Courtesy of the artist and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, © Richard Misrach.

Out of Site: Survey Science and the Hidden West

Artists explore visual technologies to revise our understanding of remote Western lands that are both within and without modern society.

Read More

Poem

Shonagh Rae’s illustration for "The Ants"

The Ants

Nothing is more important to the ant
whose exoskeleton has been breached
by mushroom spores that are now
controlling his nervous system …Read More

The Ongoing Transformation

Minimizing Cannabis’s Harms to Public Health

Yasmin Hurd discusses the complex landscape of modern cannabis products, what’s known about their public health impacts, and strategies policymakers could use to minimize harms.Read More

Mycoses

Foiling the Growing Threat of Fungal Pathogens

Climate change, changing migration patterns, and our agriculture system have created a perfect environment for fungal pathogens to thrive.

Read More

The Shuttle Program

the people's spaceship

Attempting a Democratic Technology

John M. Logsdon reviews Amy Paige Kaminsky’s book about the development of and justification for NASA’s space shuttle program.

Read More

STEM Education

Nurturing Deeper Ways of Knowing in Science

Efforts to diversify representation in science and engineering require initiatives that increase diversity of thought as well.

Read More

Future Tense Fiction

Rey Velasquez Sagcal's illustration for "Mothering the Bay"

Mothering the Bay

When a busy BART train suddenly screeches to a stop deep under the San Francisco Bay, passengers turn to personalized AI agents to understand what’s happened—but they begin to realize that those agents may obscure more than they illuminate.

Read More

The Winter Issue

Winter 2025 ISSUES IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Join the Conversation

Social Media

Follow us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Podcast

Listen to The Ongoing Transformation for conversations with today’s most exciting thinkers.

See Episodes

Forum

Read responses to our published essays from experts around the world.

Read Forum

Attend Events

Connect with our dynamic community of experts and policy-makers.

See Events

Forum

In response to essays published in Issues, our readers weigh in on critical topics in policy related to science, technology, and society.

The Future of Nuclear Power

The US Department of Energy and big tech companies such as Google and Amazon have announced their support for the development of advanced nuclear reactors. Do their efforts prefigure a nuclear renaissance? And what would such a renewal of the nuclear sector mean for society?

Nuclear Innovation

An Ambidextrous Approach to Nuclear Energy Innovation

An Ambidextrous Approach to Nuclear Energy Innovation

Tension between the promise of new nuclear technologies and uncertainty about their feasibility requires a diversified, balanced research portfolio that can be adjusted locally in concert with global progress.Read More

Engineering Education

Educating Engineers for a New Nuclear Age

Radical designs for fission and fusion energy systems require engineers who are grounded in technical knowledge, adept at engaging communities in participatory design, and fluent in ethical, equity-centered communication.Read More

Decentralized Nuclear?

Can Nuclear Power Go Local?

With origins in the Cold War military-industrial complex, nuclear power struggles to reinvent itself as part of the inclusive, democratic future envisioned by progressives.Read More

Nuclear Waste

nuclear regulatory commission

Deep Time: The End of an Engagement

For all its flaws, US nuclear waste policy at least relied on a sense of a moral responsibility toward the present and future. That may now be changing.Read More

Browse our recent issues