Human Gene Editing
Interest in the precision gene-editing tool CRISPR has mushroomed in the half-dozen years since the technology was demonstrated to have enormous potential. In this edition of Issues, several of the leading thinkers in the field comment on the current status of society’s ability to understand and manage this powerful tool.
Editor's Journal
Editor’s Journal
The first scientific papers about breakthrough developments in the use of the gene-editing tool CRISPR appeared in late 2012 and early 2013. Researchers soon recognized that this relatively accurate and easy-to-use technology… Read More
Forum
Octopus Farming
Read MoreCareer Development in Graduate Education
Read MoreResponding to China
Read MoreAddressing Sexual Harassment
Read MoreNuclear Stockpile Reliability
Read MoreDiversifying the Research Enterprise
Read MoreClimate Philanthropy
Read MoreForum – Spring 2019
Read MoreUniversity as Economic Catalyst
Read MoreSpace Mining
Read More
From the Hill
From the Hill – Spring 2019
With the end of the border wall brouhaha, Congress passed omnibus legislation that set funding levels for fiscal year 2019. As anticipated, the budget includes substantive increases for key science agencies including… Read More
Gallery
From Lucid Stead
The exhibition From Lucid Stead: Prints and Works by Phillip K. Smith III is on view at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, from March 18 through September 13, 2019.… Read More
Perspectives
Philosopher’s Corner: Open Science, Open Access, and the Democratization of Knowledge
Science bills itself as working for the common good, but a growing number of scientists, policy-makers, and the social scientists who study them argue that science is too isolated from society to… Read MoreSciences, Publics, Politics: The Green New Dilemma
Following the demise in 2010 of federal cap-and-trade legislation aimed at slowing greenhouse gas emissions, environmental donors gathered in Chicago in 2011 to meet with David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, pressing the… Read More
Gallery
Pending Memories
The latest series of photographs by Cuban artist Adrian Fernandez portray the backside of billboards situated in surreal landscapes. The complex structures and unexpected shapes are suggestive of Russian constructivism, but the… Read More
Features
Islamic Ethical Perspectives on Human Genome Editing
The interest in exploring the interplay of genomics and Islamic ethics took an important turn at the beginning of the 1990s, when the international Human Genome Project was declared. Since then, both… Read MoreSelling AI: The Case of Fully Autonomous Vehicles
In the past several years, an array of technologists, economists, and technology pundits have predicted that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are poised to revolutionize our lives, changing how we work, play,… Read MoreThree Venues for Discussing Human Gene Editing
Little did we know when we were writing the Nuffield Council on Bioethics report Genome Editing and Human Reproduction: Social and Ethical Issues, published in July 2018, how quickly our call… Read MoreWhat Do Patents Mean?
A few years ago, I met with a group from a company interested in a technology I had developed and my company had patented. After the standard niceties, followed by a technical… Read MoreHuman Genome Editing: Our Future Belongs to All of Us
In late November 2018, the Chinese scientist He Jiankui ignited a media firestorm with the birth announcement of “healthy” twin girls, Lulu and Nana (pseudonyms), born following germline genome editing to provide… Read MoreHow Should Science Respond to CRISPR’d Babies?
On November 25, 2018, much of the world (including me) was shocked to hear of the birth of the world’s first babies produced from embryos whose DNA had been edited by the… Read MoreParsing the Waters
Read MoreThe Trump administration’s efforts to reform US wetlands policy are a century or more out of date. All the same, wetlands protection would benefit from a clearer policy foundation.
Who Will Set the Rules for Smart Factories?
Read MoreLeadership in information governance will provide a first-mover advantage to the nation’s manufacturing sector.
UFOs Won’t Go Away
Read MoreMost scientists with relevant expertise attribute UFO sightings to misperception of celestial or meteorological phenomena. Distant planets, comets, and clouds have often been mistaken for alien spacecraft by sophisticated observers. So why has a topic long confined to the tabloids and fringe media become a serious news story?
Book Reviews
The Medium of Modernity
Artificial illumination occupies a paradoxical position in modern daily life. It is a ubiquitous technology, pervading almost every interior space and shaping nighttime environments. Yet despite (or perhaps because of) its omnipresence,… Read More
Rights to Life?
In 1996, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) awarded patent protection to Myriad Genetics for a gene that it had sequenced, called BRCA1, and a test for diagnosing mutations in… Read More
Who Can You Trust?
Kevin Werbach’s The Blockchain and the New Architecture of Trust offers easy-to-follow explanations of how a technology resting on foundations of mutual mistrust can become trustworthy. If you are interested in gaining… Read More