News Updates

Unrelenting rains across the US South and Midwest are causing numerous rivers to flood, and more damage is likely to come, the AP reports. Drawing lessons from previous floods, Richard A. Haeuber and William K. Michener describe in Issues how federal, state, and local governments can mitigate risks. The key, the authors propose, will be to work with the forces of nature, instead of simply trying to eliminate them. Rehabilitating the floodplains surrounding rivers will be critical, which will require protecting and often restoring these natural buffer zones along with limiting and sometimes relocating homes and businesses built in them.

California and the Mexican state of Sonora have announced a partnership aimed at advancing clean energy innovation, strengthening energy supply chains, and expanding access to renewable energy in the region, The Hill reports. The effort aligns with recommendations offered in Issues by Christopher A. Scott and colleagues who led a consensus study by US and Mexican academies of science to identify how the nations can best sustain their shared drylands region. Collaborative success, the authors note, will require approaches that span geographical boundaries, involve experts from varied scientific disciplines, and incorporate input from civil society and the private sector.

After decades of leadership, the United States is losing ground to China in turning nuclear fusion into commercial reality, CNBC reports. As one marker, China’s government spends roughly two times more annually on fusion than the US government does. In charting a “public path” to fusion, Michael Ford argues in Issues for increased US funding to answer some fundamental scientific questions in fusion research and to meet practical needs of fusion commercialization. He also calls for greater coordination “between the public and private sectors to further develop the technology, while assuring its proper regulation, public acceptance, and certainly its affordability.”

Small nuclear reactors are often viewed as a way to provide needed energy while helping curb climate change, but the “technology is struggling,” Reuters reports. In Issues, Jessica Lovering and Suzanne Hobbs Baker examine the challenges nuclear energy—writ small or large—faces. Beyond addressing technological needs, they write, the nuclear industry “will need to fundamentally rethink its history and how it operates today.” This will require “hard work to understand and address the underlying causes of opposition to nuclear,” and developing processes for siting nuclear plants “that empower communities and leave them in charge of their energy future.”

In a first, a private company named Firefly has successfully landed a spacecraft on the moon, and two other firms are poised to deploy their own lunar landers. In Issues, the space analyst Bhavya Lal argues that this push makes sense, for both businesses and the nation. Companies, for example, have an incentive to engineer systems that are cheaper to produce and operate in order to generate greater profits. Companies are also financially motivated, she writes, to “push the boundary of the art-of-the-possible in space beyond what government managers can envision, and the footprint of space activities will grow apace.”

In Nebraska, the US leader in beef production, controversy is swirling over a proposal to make the state the latest to ban the sale of “cell-cultured” meat, the AP reports. In Issues, Alex Smith and Saloni Shah argue that shifting to an alternative source of meat would bring huge benefits for the environment, public health, and animal welfare—and potentially for workers and the economy. And they call for federal help: “Given the scale of potential public benefits, there is a powerful rationale for the US government to develop a strategy to accelerate innovation and commercialization of alternative meat products.”

World Athletics has proposed new rules that would effectively prohibit athletes assigned female at birth, but whose natural testosterone levels exceed those of most other female athletes, from participating in the “female category” in elite track and field competitions. But in Issues, Roger Pielke Jr. and Madeleine Pape argue against such restrictions, and they offer an alternative approach for determining female eligibility. “Our approach maintains female-male competition categories,” they write, but “in a form that reflects the actual biological complexity of sex and the heterogeneity among female athletes while also respecting their biological sex as assigned and maintained since birth.”

Tech giant Google has advanced the date it expects quantum computing to enter commercial operations, projecting use within five years in applications such as improving batteries for electric cars, creating new drugs, and developing new energy alternatives. To build a workforce equipped to operate and manage quantum computing, as well as quantum sensing and networking, the nation’s policymakers and funders must mount a sweeping educational push, Sean Dudley and Marisa Brazil argue in Issues. This effort should span “all tiers and types of learning institutions,” they write, and reach “a very broad range of interdisciplinary learners across the country.”

A newly identified asteroid has a chance—though slim—of hitting Earth in late 2032, NPR reports, citing projections by NASA and its European counterpart. In preparing for the possibility, NASA can benefit from dialogue with the public, Mahmud Farooque and Jason L. Kessler argue in Issues. As evidence, they cite their experience partnering with NASA to use “participatory technology assessment” to engage citizens on planetary defense. And they hope the idea will spread, including beyond space: “leaders of technical organizations should support an office or team with the capacity and resources to champion more such engagements over the long term.”

To help offset declining motor fuel taxes that fund US highway construction and maintenance, Vermont recently became the latest state to impose a fee to register electric vehicles, The New York Times reports. But critics object for various reasons. In Issues, John Paul Helveston examines an alternate approach: a federal system that taxes the miles a vehicle travels, not the fuel it uses. This will require addressing some technical, political, and social challenges, he writes, but “by taxing the miles, regulators and other stakeholders can work together with greater flexibility to manage the societal benefits and costs of driving.”

People with disabilities make up a tiny portion of scientific researchers, and the AP reports some recent efforts to change that in both the lab and the field. In Issues, Rory A. Cooper provides a broader look at how to make science—along with medicine—more welcoming. One step will be creating educational pathways “that can lead all students to success—including extra training for teachers to create curricula, making classroom facilities more accessible, and alternative methods of learning skills.” Expanding accessibility and inclusion, he writes, will “ensure that creativity, new perspectives, and fresh talent are available to address the challenges facing the world.”

To avoid a global hunger crisis driven in coming decades by climate change and population growth, the world needs a massive effort to grow more food crops, according to an open letter signed by 153 winners of Nobel and World Food prizes. Ramping up public investments in agricultural research and development—in decline in recent years—can play a critical role, Julian Alston, Philip Pardey, and Xudong Rao maintain in Issues. Based on their major study, they call for “at least doubling” investments in agricultural R&D by national and international agencies in high-, middle-, and low-income countries alike.