Search Results

200 Results Found for

• Spring 2023

  In Finland, We Make Each Schoolchild a Scientist

  Kari Kivinen

  Much of the conversation around misinformation and mistrust focuses on messengers and message systems. Some emphasize that policymakers and scientists must communicate more effectively, others that social media platforms must moderate content… Read More

• Fall 2022

  Collaboration on the Mudflats

  David D. Hart, Bridie McGreavy, Anthony Sutton, Gabrielle V. Hillyer, Darren J. Ranco

  We began in 2006 as a group of researchers at the University of Maine who were trying to align our work with the needs of communities. Motivated in part by frustration with the… Read More

• Spring 2023

  Finding the “I” in Interdisciplinarity

  Annie Y. Patrick

  In 2015, the National Science Foundation launched an effort to spur what the federal agency called an “engineering education revolution.” The field had been teaching engineers the same way and drawing from… Read More

• April 18, 2023

  Episode 29: To Solve the AI Problem, Rely on Policy, Not Technology

  Kate Crawford, Monya Baker

  Artificial intelligence is everywhere, growing increasingly accessible and pervasive. Conversations about AI often focus on technical accomplishments rather than societal impacts, but leading scholar Kate Crawford has long drawn attention to the… Read More

• September 11, 2023

  China Accused of Using AI to Spread Disinformation

  Tom Burroughs

  Chinese operatives are using artificial intelligence to create fake images to be spread on US social media, the tech giant Microsoft alleges, with the goal of sowing disinformation among the voting public… Read More

• Summer 2023

  Why Space Debris Flies Through Regulatory Gaps

  Marilyn Harbert, Asha Balakrishnan

  Within an eight-day period in March 2023, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) fired their thrusters twice to avoid a projected collision. Part of a dead satellite was hurtling toward the… Read More

• Fall 2021

  Reflections on a Tool of Observation

  Timothy Makepeace

  

  Cryogenic Test Structure, 2018, charcoal on paper, 49 x 49 inches In 2017, Washington, DC-based artist Timothy Makepeace was one of several artists selected by NASA to create artwork inspired by… Read More

• Spring 2023

  Boundary-Pushing Citizen Engagement

  In “How Would You Defend the Planet from Asteroids?” (Issues, Winter 2023), Mahmud Farooque and Jason L. Kessler reflect on the Asteroid Grand Challenge (AGC), a series of public deliberation… Read More

• Fall 2022

  The Wireless Body

  Jeremy A. Greene

  Holter’s original wearable health technology: the radioelectrocargiograph, c. 1957. Courtesy of the New York Academy of Sciences. Nearly half the US adult population will pass out at some point in their lives.… Read More

• Spring 2014

  The View from Nowhere

  Jason Lloyd

  The global positioning system (GPS) technology incorporated into the vehicles, computers, smart phones, and other devices we use every day provides a convenience that would have been almost unimaginable two decades ago.… Read More

• October 21, 2022

  How the CHIPS and Science Act Can Deliver on Its Promises

  Perspectives from Yu Zhou • Steven C. Currall and Venkatesh Narayanamurti • Elise Harrington, Sairaj Dhople, Xiaojia Wang, Jungwon Choi, and Steven Koester • Maryann Feldman • Sujai Shivakumar Figures by Jacob… Read More

• Fall 2022

  What Lies Beyond the Politics of Pure Science?

  Lisa Margonelli

  On the face of it, August 2022 was a dream come true for science funding. Long-awaited and much debated bipartisan legislation was signed into law on August 9 as the CHIPS and Science… 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

• Fall 2021

  The Humbling Complexity of the Hard Problem

  Susan M. Fitzpatrick

  It’s always unsettling to wake up in the morning and learn that you slept unawares through a massive thunderstorm or the cat’s house-wide rampage. It’s a more quotidian version of what people… Read More

• February 21, 2023

  Episode 26: You’ve Been Misinformed About Sharks

  David Shiffman, Lisa Margonelli

  Recent conversations about scientific misinformation have concentrated on what is new: social media and algorithms that spread all kinds of information—reliable and unreliable—surprisingly fast. But misinformation has long been an issue for… Read More

• April 12, 2022

  Episode 12: Chasing Connections in Climate Action

  There is scientific consensus on climate change and its human cause, but how to understand and address global warming remains a divided topic in American life. Art and religion are two lenses… Read More

• Summer 2022

  Architectures of Participation

  Gerald Berk, Annalee Saxenian

  Silicon Valley’s dynamism during the final three decades of the twentieth century highlighted the singular importance of social and professional networks to innovation. Since that time, contemporary and historical case studies have corroborated the link between networks… Read More

• Winter 2023

  The Most Complex Puzzle

  Julia Buntaine Hoel

  

  Julia Buntaine Hoel, Territory 1, 2017, digital print on aluminum, 16 x 24 inches. Created from microscopy photographs taken by the artist of rhesus macaque brain slides. Artist Julia Buntaine Hoel… Read More

• December 6, 2022

  Episode 22: Peaches, Pimentos, and Myths of Innovation

  Cynthia R. Greenlee, Lisa Margonelli

  The challenge of transforming regional economies through technological innovation is at the heart of current discussions about science and industrial policy—not to mention the CHIPs and Science Act itself. To think about what regional… Read More

• 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

• Summer 2021

  Everything You’ve Ever Learned

  Isabel Cardenas-Navia, Shalin Jyotishi

  Sofia spent 15 years as an active-duty member of the military. While deployed in Afghanistan and stationed in Georgia and Japan, she was involved in logistics planning and management as well as… Read More

• Fall 2022

  Imagining a Better Internet

  The future of technology is too often imagined and engineered by corporations and venture capitalists, foreclosing more radical possibilities. Today, it is Meta’s iteration of the Metaverse that dominates headlines, a riff… 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

• Fall 2022

  The CHIPS and Science Act: An Inflection Point for Technological Leadership?

  Steven C. Currall, Venkatesh Narayanamurti

  During the White House signing ceremony, President Biden described the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 as an “inflection point” in restoring America’s global leadership in research and development, as well as in high-technology… Read More

• December 17, 2021

  Artificial Intelligence and Galileo’s Telescope

  Marc Rotenberg

  In 2018 Henry Kissinger published a remarkable essay in The Atlantic on artificial intelligence. At a time when most foreign policy experts interested in AI were laser-focused on the rise of China,… Read More

• October 4, 2022

  Episode 19: How Can Clinical Trials Better Reflect Society’s Diversity?

  Gloria Coronado, Jason Resendez, Sara Frueh

  Clinical trials are crucial to the development of new drugs, medical treatments, and therapeutics. The knowledge gained from these trials helps ensure that treatments are safe and effective. Trials are also sometimes… 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

• October 28, 2021

  Why Data Isn’t Divine

  Jag Bhalla

  Who, or what, can we put our faith in now? Many would say we should trust in technology, which delivers feats once deemed miraculous on a daily basis. But as Meghan O’Gieblyn… 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

  Will Precision Medicine Lead to a Healthier Population?

  Nigel Paneth, Richard Cooper

  Human health and biomedical science have been transformed in tandem over the past two centuries. From around 1850 to 1920, better nutrition and prevention of epidemic infections were the main contributors to… Read More