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• Fall 2022

  Humanizing Science and Engineering for the Twenty-First Century

  Kaye Husbands Fealing, Aubrey Deveny Incorvaia, Richard Utz

  Dr. Nettrice Gaskins is a widely recognized African American digital artist who creates works that combine images of individuals with an artificial intelligence (AI) application that synthesizes patterns. When her larger-than-life portraits… Read More

• Fall 2022

  A Vision for Democratizing Government Data

  Julia Lane

  During the earliest weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a desperate need for data to respond to the worst labor market crisis in almost a century. State-administered unemployment claims skyrocketed. Jobseekers,… Read More

• December 7, 2021

  Episode 3: Eternal Memory of the Facebook Mind

  David Beer, Jason Lloyd

  Social media and streaming platforms such as Facebook and Spotify analyze huge quantities of data from users before feeding selections back as personal “memories.” How do the algorithms select which content to… Read More

• Spring 2021

  A Manifesto to Responsibly Extend Reality Into Virtual Realms

  Dhoya Snijders, Rinie Van Est

  We perceive physical reality with our senses: we see the blue sky, hear waves crashing on the beach, feel the wind in our hair. As technology such as augmented reality (AR) and… Read More

• Summer 2022

  Reflections on Carrie Mae Weems’s RESIST COVID | TAKE 6!

  David Fakunle, Carrie Mae Weems

  

  I often share a Zimbabwean proverb about lion hunts: “Until the lion tells its side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” I felt the spirit… Read More

• Winter 2020

  Ownership Dilemmas in an Age of Creative Machines

  Lav R. Varshney, Deepak Somaya

  Recently, a computer-generated work of art titled “Edmond de Belamy, from La Famille de Belamy” was sold by the auction house Christie’s for $350,000 to an anonymous bidder. Purported to be the… Read More

• Fall 2022

  Arctic Ice

  Cy Keener, Justine Holzman, Ignatius Rigor, John Woods

  

  Sea Ice Daily Drawings, 2019–2022, aluminum, acrylic, paper, and ink (detail) Integrating field data, remote satellite imagery, scientific analysis, and multimedia visual representation to document Arctic ice that is disappearing due to… Read More

• Summer 2021

  COVID Artifacts

  James Gouldthorpe

  

  It’s been more than a year since the pandemic started. Now that vaccines have arrived, a measure of hope has returned. But memories of the early days of the pandemic lie close… Read More

• Winter 2022

  Complexity and Visual Systems

  Ellen K. Levy

  

  Art, in both creation and experience, is one of the most complex of human endeavors. Artist Ellen K. Levy engages the mental loop of seeing, connecting, and processing by juxtaposing imagery that… Read More

• Spring 2021

  Data for the People!

  In “The Path to Better Health: Give People Their Data” (Issues, Winter 2021), Jason Cohen makes an important contribution to the discussion of data privacy. Data privacy in the midst… Read More

• December 21, 2021

  Episode 4: Art of a COVID Year

  In the early days of the pandemic, communities began singing together over balconies, banging pans, and engaging in other forms of collective support, release, and creativity. Artists have also been creatively responding… Read More

• Spring 2022

  Electrifying Agents and the Power Thieves of Mexico City

  Diana Montaño

  Leer en español Mugshot from Tomás Sánchez’s booking record. One morning in 1908, the fate of Tomás Sánchez, owner of the San Antonio mill on Mexico City’s Pueblita Street, took a sharp… Read More

• Winter 2022

  Wired and CERN

  Steve Miller

  

  Quantum System, 2020, 39 x 69 inches On a trip to Brazil, artist Steve Miller was captivated by the tangled web of power lines in Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro, the largest… Read More

• June 8, 2021

  The Scent of the Freetails

  Deji Bryce Olukotun

  Every parent feared that their kid would become a juicer, but Raj had never considered that his daughter might fall for one. He liked to believe that all the juicers lived far… Read More

• March 23, 2022

  Independent Science for a Daunting Future

  Fred H. Gage, Eric D. Isaacs

  When President Franklin D. Roosevelt called on Vannevar Bush to conceive a new future for American scientific research in the waning days of World War II, Bush responded with a breathtakingly bold… Read More

• March 11, 2022

  What If Our Phones Had Skin?

  Biodesign Challenge

  VISION: Sheathe cell phones in a living, electricity-generating skin made by bacteria, changing how we relate to them and how they are charged. Team: Nada Elkharashi, Sequoia Fischer, Catherine Euale, Paige Perillat-Piratoine… Read More

• Summer 2022

  The Pomological Watercolor Collection

  US Department of Agriculture

  

  In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, healthy orchards and groves were seen as crucial to national prosperity. As people across the country created new cultivars, or varieties, through hybridization, the… Read More

• Winter 2022

  Supporting a New Innovation Ecosystem

  It was refreshing and validating to read Melissa Flagg and Arti Garg’s article, “Science Policy From the Ground Up” (Issues, Fall 2021). It’s time to modernize the federal role in the… Read More

• Fall 2021

  Codeswitch

  Sanford Biggers

  

  A Visionary Agenda—in Quilts, Mars, and Pound Cake Sanford Biggers, The Talk, 2016. Antique quilt, fabric, tar, and glitter, 80 x 84 inches. Courtesy of the artist. Artists and poets have… Read More

• December 17, 2021

  Can Crop Waste Reduce Plastic Pollution?

  Biodesign Challenge

  VISION: Use agricultural byproducts like molasses from sugar beets and spent grains from beer to make plastic consumer packaging more sustainable and circular.  Team: Joseph Cardenas, Sarah Craven School:… Read More

• December 16, 2021

  Connecting Science Fiction to Science Policy

  Avital Percher

  The people at the bar had already shared their favorite alien species, so I retrieved the next question from the stack of prompts: How comfortable were they with technological body modifications? We… Read More

• Winter 2021

  Human-Centered AI

  Ben Shneiderman

  In early 1997, before Alexa and Siri were conceived, I engaged in several public debates with MIT Media Lab professor Pattie Maes about the future of computing and artificial intelligence. The starting… Read More

• Summer 2018

  The Limits of Dual Use

  Tara Mahfoud, Christine Aicardi, Saheli Datta, Nikolas Rose

  Research and technologies designed to generate benefits for civilians that can also be used for military purposes are termed “dual use.” The concept of dual use frames and informs debates about how… Read More

• Spring 2021

  Electric Energy

  Iván Navarro

  

  Iván Navarro, Street Lamp (Yellow Bench), 2012; neon light, cement, metal and electric energy; 38 1/2 × 72 × 43 inches. All images © Courtesy Gallerie Templon, Paris – Brussels. The… Read More

• Spring 2021

  Reimagining Nuclear Engineering

  Aditi Verma, Denia Djokić

  Since the first power reactors—Shippingport in the United States, Calder Hall in the United Kingdom, and Obninsk in the Soviet Union—were connected to electricity grids in the 1950s, nuclear energy has, in… Read More

• October 1, 2021

  For a Competitive Economy, We Need a Skilled Workforce

  Rebecca Blank

  As we imagine a science policy that can rise to the challenges of the next 75 years, worker training and education must be at the center of our efforts. America’s workforce is… Read More

• April 19, 2021

  Humanizing Automation

  Ben Shneiderman

  In a 1942 short story, Isaac Asimov, the legendary science and science fiction author, offered three cleverly constructed, interdependent laws of robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through… Read More

• November 19, 2020

  Improving Contact Tracing Tools

  Tom Burroughs

  Millions of Americans can use their smartphones to learn when they have been near someone infected with the novel coronavirus, alerting them to get tested and quarantine themselves. But not many people… Read More

• September 9, 2021

  What a National Technology Strategy Is—and Why the United States Needs One

  Erica R. H. Fuchs

  Over the last half century, the global geopolitical balance of scientific, economic, and production capabilities has shifted away from US dominance. The United States is no longer in a singular position of… Read More

• Summer 2021

  More and More and More Culture

  David Beer

  Back in December, Spotify provided me with an automated and personalized end-of-year review. Drawing upon digital trace data, it delivered a mininarrative of my listening practices. Of the things that stood out,… Read More