Preserving Biodiversity
Every issue explores cutting-edge developments in technology, medicine, education, climate change, and much more. Articles provide in-depth analyses of science and technology’s impact on public policy, the economy, and society—bringing today’s best minds to bear on tomorrow’s most critical topics.
Editor's Journal
The Age of Hubris and Complacency
It’s early March. The Dow is getting ready to add a digit. The U.S. military is flexing its muscles in Iraq and Kosovo. The chattering class is contentedly chewing on the paltry… Read More
From the Hill
From the Hill – Spring 1999
President’s budget would cut FY 2000 R&D spending by $1 billion Although the Clinton administration is projecting big surpluses in the federal budget in the coming years, President Clinton’s proposed fiscal year… Read More
Perspectives
Bioweapons from Russia: Stemming the Flow
For nearly two decades, the former Soviet Union and then Russia maintained an offensive biological warfare (BW) program in violation of an international treaty, the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. In… Read MorePlutonium, Nuclear Power, and Nuclear Weapons
Although nuclear power generates a significant portion of the electricity consumed in the United States and several other major industrial nations without producing any air pollution or greenhouse gases, its future is… Read MoreThe Stealth Battleship
During the Cold War, when presidents were informed of a budding crisis, it is said that they often first asked “Where are the carriers?” In the post-Cold War era, the first question… Read More
Features
Archives – Spring 1999
The NAS Building Seventy-five years ago Washington luminaries dedicated the headquarters building of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council. NAS President Albert A. Michelson, the first U.S. Nobel prize winner, presided… Read MoreThe Stockpile Stewardship Charade
By signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968, the United States promised to pursue good-faith negotiations “leading to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear… Read MoreAmerica’s Industrial Resurgence: How Strong, How Durable?
Reports in the late 1980s painted a gloomy picture of U.S. industrial competitiveness. The report of the MIT Commission on Industrial Productivity, perhaps the best known one, opined that “American industry is… Read MoreTraffic Congestion: A Solvable Problem
All over the world, people are choosing to travel by automobile because this flexible mode of travel best meets their needs. But gridlocked expressways threaten to take the mobile out of automobile.… Read MoreThe Price of Biodiversity
Dismayed that their pleas to save the world’s biological diversity seem to be falling on deaf ears, conservation advocates have turned to economic arguments to convince people in the poor nations that… Read MoreFrom Marijuana to Medicine
Voters in several states across the nation were recently asked to decide whether marijuana can be used as a medicine. They made their decisions on the basis of medical anecdotes, beliefs about… Read MoreSaving Marine Biodiversity
For centuries, humanity has seen the sea as an infinite source of food, a boundless sink for pollutants, and a tireless sustainer of coastal habitats. It isn’t. Scientists have mounting evidence of… Read MoreThe State Role in Biodiversity Conservation
The United States today is in the midst of a biodiversity crisis. For a variety of reasons, including habitat loss and degradation and exotic species invasions, fully one-third of our species are… Read MoreSpring 1999 Update
As invasive species threat intensifies, U.S. steps up fight Since our article “Biological Invasions: A Growing Threat” appeared (Issues, Summer 1997), the assault by biological invaders on our nation’s ecosystems has intensified.… Read More
Book Reviews
The Perils of Keeping Secrets
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was the chairman of a recent Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy that provided a searching critique of the government’s system of national security classification. His new… Read More
Collaborative R&D, European Style
Technology Policy in the European Union describes and evaluates European public policies that promote technological innovation and specifically “collaborative efforts at the European level to promote innovation and its diffusion.” The book… Read More
Environmental Activism
Christopher H. Foreman, Jr., a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, argues that the promises offered by the environmental justice movement are relatively modest, whereas its perils are potentially significant. Writing in… Read More