Looking Back, Looking Forward
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.
Perspectives
Still Underserved
Much has happened during the past decade that has affected the quality of education received by underrepresented minority groups (African Americans, Alaska Natives, American Indians, Mexican Americans, and Puerto Ricans). Educational progress… Read More
Features
The Foreign Student Dilemma
When the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, many people in the United States were talking about a “new rationale” for federal support of university research in the physical sciences… Read MoreFuture Health Care Challenges
Forecasting the future of health care and health policy is an imperfect science. Among the predictions made in the mid-1980s were that there would be a physician surplus, a growing number… Read MoreTreating Cancer as a Public Health Problem
As a result of the growth and aging of the U.S. population, more Americans died of cancer in 1999 than in any previous year. Yet mere numbers do not by any… Read MoreSecuring U.S. Research Strength
The more things change, the more they stay the same” applies today as it did in the 1980s to the U.S. capability to preserve the nation’s leadership in science and technology. In… Read MoreBaltimore’s Travels Continued
In 1989, when I wrote the article entitled “Baltimore’s Travels,” I thought that my saga might soon be history. Little did I know that this controversy, which had begun in 1985,… Read MoreWhat’s Next for Technology Policy??
By the summer of 1991, there was no doubt that the Cold War was over and the United States was unchallenged militarily. But the nation’s commercial high-tech industry was still facing… Read MoreScience’s Growing Political Strength
The past decade has been a period of significant change in science, science policy, and science advocacy. Terms such as bioinformatics, Bose condensates, genomics, nanotechnology, supersymmetries, and wavelets, which were barely… Read MoreFree the National Bioethics Commission
The creation of a national commission in the United States to study and discuss bioethical questions seemed imperative a decade ago. One reason was that a number of other countries, including… Read MoreHard Times for Chemical Prospecting
Nature is a vast chemical treasury. Largely unexplored, it is the repository of countless substances of potential use. Nature is also vanishing, and this poses a problem in urgent need of… Read MoreAIDS Agenda Still Daunting
Fifteen years ago, the research agenda delineated in these pages regarding the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) stressed the importance of a diverse and robust scientific portfolio.… Read MoreIn Memoriam
In reviewing the Issues archives to find articles to revisit in this anniversary edition, we came across several authors whose insights we would dearly like to read again but who have died.… Read MoreToward Improved Quality of Life
Thomas Jefferson was unequivocal: “Without health, there is no happiness. An attention to health, then, should take the place of every other object.” During the past two decades, the association of… Read MoreViral Traffic on the Move
We now know a great deal about the factors that allow novel infections to originate and spread. Major outbreaks during the past decade, including those of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome, Ebola, hemolytic… Read MoreU.S. Computer Insecurity Redux
The United States continues to face serious challenges in protecting computer systems and communications from unauthorized use and manipulation. In terms of computer security, the situation is worse than ever, because… Read MoreCooperation with China
In the wake of China’s crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, the country’s progress on important fronts seemed to be in jeopardy. Many U.S. observers worried… Read MoreRestructuring the U.S. Health Care System
The past two decades have seen major economic changes in the health care system in the United States, but no solution has been found for the basic problem of cost control.… Read MoreMaglev Ready for Prime Time
Putting Maglev on Track” (Issues, Spring 1990) observed that growing airline traffic and associated delays were already significant and predicted that they would worsen. The article argued that… Read MoreThe Continued Danger of Overfishing
New studies continue to chronicle how overfishing and poor management have severely hurt the U.S. commercial fishing industry. Thus, it makes sense to examine the effectiveness of the Sustainable Fisheries Act… Read MoreMath Education at Risk
Two decades ago, the United States awoke to headlines declaring that it was “A Nation at Risk.” In dramatic language, the National Commission on Excellence in Education warned of a “rising… Read MoreInformation Technology and the University
A decade ago, many people had yet to accept that the inexorable progress of information technology (IT) would result in fundamental change in universities. Experience is shrinking that group. The basic premises… Read MoreWinning Greater Influence for Science
Read MoreScience has reached greater heights of sophistication and productivity, while the gap between science and public life has grown ever larger and more dangerous, to an extent that now poses a serious threat to our future.
U.S. Oil Dependence Remains a Problem
War and terrorism have changed a lot about how we think about oil markets. But one thing they haven’t changed during the past 14 years is the fact that excessive dependence… Read MoreThe Bumpy Road to Reduced Carbon Emissions
A dozen years ago, the debate over controlling emissions of greenhouse gases was just beginning. Several European countries were calling for either a freeze or a 20 percent cut in emissions by… Read MoreNext Steps in Defense Restructuring
Twenty years ago, the United States was in the midst of a Cold War military buildup targeted against the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact countries. Today there is no… Read MoreHow Smart Have Weapons Become?
By the early 1980s, the technology was in hand to define “smart weapons” that could fill at least three important military purposes. First, guided weapons could provide theater-range artillery fire accurately… Read MoreConservator Society Still a Dream
Society is all too committed to the notion of “progress” as measured through economic growth and population expansion. The notion of working toward a “sustainable future” is not given much serious… Read MoreGlobalization: Causes and Effects
Globalization traces its roots to at least the late 1980s. At that time, new countries were entering into manufacturing, which was in some sense the weakest link in the U.S. chain… Read MoreScience in the New Russia
In the former Soviet Union, science and technology served as major forces moderating national policies. The advent of nuclear weapons forced the country to give up its earlier Leninist thesis that… Read MoreSuperfund Matures Gracefully
Superfund, one of the main programs used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up serious, often abandoned, hazardous waste sites, has been improved considerably in recent years. Notably, progress… Read MoreAIDS: The Battle Rages On
The late 1980s were not good times for New York’s Harlem or the other disadvantaged urban communities in the United States. Two linked epidemics, one posed by the human immunodeficiency virus/… Read MoreThe Unfinished Revolution in Military Affairs
In the early 1990s, the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) Office of Net Assessment concluded that the world was probably entering a period of military revolution, or “revolution in military affairs.” DOD’s… Read MoreSecurity versus Openness: The Case of Universities
The decade of the 1980s was marked by declines in the United States’ manufacturing skills and the apparent invincibility of Japanese industry. In this climate, many people in the academic community… Read MoreLooking Back, Looking Forward
There is a troubling disparity between the scientific sophistication of our culture and its social and political backwardness, a disparity that hovers over every aspect of our civilization,” wrote Daniel Yankelovich… Read MoreNuclear Proliferation Risks, New and Old
During the past decade, the United States and Russia have joined in a number of efforts to reduce the danger posed by the enormous quantity of weapons-usable material withdrawn from nuclear … Read MoreBolstering Support for Academic R&D
Funding for academic research from all sources grew quite satisfactorily in the 1980s, at about 5.6 percent per year in constant dollars. Yet when I examined the picture in 1991, the… Read MoreNew Life for Nuclear Power
Most of what I wrote in “Engineering in an Age of Anxiety” and “Energy Policy in an Age of Uncertainty” I still believe: Inherently safe nuclear energy technologies will continue to… Read MoreWhither the U.S. Climate Program?
Approximately 50 years ago, the first contemporary stirring within the scientific community about climate change began when Roger Revelle and Hans Suess wrote that “human beings are now carrying out a… Read MoreBiodiversity in the Information Age
My 1985 Issues article was among the first to document and assess the problem of biodiversity in the context of public policy. It was intended to bring the extinction crisis to… Read More