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• February 3, 2026

  How Cannabis Regulation Became a Giant Experiment

  Symone T. Griffith, Maxwell C. K. Leung, Kelsey Schoenberg

  The legality of cannabis in many states has been decided by voters, not regulators, and it remains illegal at the federal level. How has this divide shaped cannabis safety, research, and policy?

• March 11, 2025

  Minimizing Cannabis’s Harms to Public Health

  Yasmin Hurd, Sara Frueh

  More than half of US states have legalized cannabis, but it remains federally prohibited, which means regulations are decided on a state-by-state basis with little federal guidance. What are the public health implications of current cannabis policy?

• July 9, 2024

  A Road Map for a New Era in Biology and Medicine

  Lydia Contreras, Monya Baker

  Most people are familiar with DNA, but its cousin, RNA, has become widely known only recently. In 2020, of course, RNA was in the news all the time: the COVID-19 virus is… Read More

• December 9, 2025

  Bhavya Lal Charts a Future for Humans in Space

  Bhavya Lal, Lisa Margonelli

  Bhavya Lal, a leader in space policy, shares the unexpected trajectory of her career. She discusses how policy and governance became her passion, how she went from writing reports to leading programs at NASA, and the big questions that drive her work.

• November 14, 2023

  Quinn Spadola Develops Nanotechnology With Soft Power

  Quinn Spadola, Lisa Margonelli

  Since 1984, Issues in Science and Technology has been a journal for science policy—a space to discuss how to best use science for the benefit of society. But what is science policy,… Read More

• April 2, 2024

  This Eclipse Could Make You Cry–And Make New Scientists

  Douglas Duncan, Lisa Margonelli

  Douglas Duncan is an astronomer who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope. He is also an eclipse fanatic. Since 1970, he has been to 11 total solar eclipses. When April 8, 2024,… Read More

• April 21, 2026

  Untangling the “Cosmic Coincidence” of the Job Market

  Matt Sigelman, Molly Galvin

  How do employers find good talent? How do people find good jobs and develop skills? On this podcast episode, Burning Glass Institute president Matt Sigelman shares his thoughts on the job market and the future work in the age of AI.

• October 14, 2025

  Not Now, But Soon: Who Is Worth Measuring?

  Julisa Tambunan, Malka Older

  Julisa Tambunan explains why gender inequality is a disaster and how collecting better data—both statistics and stories—can help create a better future for everyone. 

• June 4, 2024

  How Can STEMM Do A Better Job of Caring for Its Caregivers?

  Elena Fuentes-Afflick, Sara Frueh

  Caregiving is a nearly universal human experience, but it’s not often thought of as an issue with implications for our nation’s science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) enterprise. A new report… Read More

• December 17, 2024

  Reindeer!

  Jacqueline Hrabok, Bonnie Scheele, Lisa Margonelli

  In Alaska, reindeer are much more real than the fantasy animals that pull Santa’s sleigh. Introduced to Alaska from Siberia by the US government in the 1890s, reindeer were part of a… Read More

• March 3, 2026

  Building a Tech Innovation Ecosystem in Newark

  Fay Cobb Payton, Lyneir Richardson, Lisa Margonelli

  Newark, New Jersey is working to build a new, inclusive tech innovation ecosystem. Fay Cobb Payton and Lyneir Richardson share how Newark is pioneering data-led innovation with a diverse group of entrepreneurs.

• August 26, 2025

  Not Now, But Soon

  Malka Older, Lisa Margonelli

  In our new podcast miniseries, Malka Older challenges the stories we often tell about disasters. What can disasters can teach us about our societies and values? And how can better stories about them help us build better futures?

• December 3, 2024

  A Cutting-Edge Bureaucracy

  Natalie B. Aviles, Jason Lloyd

  The word “bureaucracy” conjures up images of red tape and long lines at the DMV, not cutting-edge innovation. But some of the most significant scientific and health innovations of the past century… Read More

• April 22, 2025

  Taylor Spicer Empowers Scientists and Engineers to Engage Locally

  Taylor Spicer, Lisa Margonelli

  Taylor Spicer, executive director of Engineers and Scientists Acting Locally, shares how her organization helps scientists and engineers get involved in local policy.

• May 21, 2024

  Kei Koizumi Advises the President

  Kei Koizumi, Lisa Margonelli

  In this installment of Science Policy IRL, Kei Koizumi takes us inside the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP. As the principal deputy director for policy at… Read More

• March 28, 2022

  Episode 11: Can Bureaucracy Build a Climate Revolution?

  Between 2009 and 2019, India brought electricity to half a billion citizens, and then turned around and presided over a grid where power from wind and solar became cheaper than electricity from… Read More

• May 5, 2026

  Kumar Garg Funds Ideas That Are “Big, if True”

  Kumar Garg, Monya Baker

  Kumar Garg, president of Renaissance Philanthropy, shares how he has spent his career finding, funding, and implementing ideas both within the government and outside it via philanthropy, which is uniquely positioned to pilot “big, if true” ideas.

• Spring 2025

  Proposals as Partnerships

  Ryan Meyer, Evan S. Michelson

  As grantmakers and universities strive for more engaged and societally responsive research, the proposal process could be a place for innovation—and an avenue for institutional change.

• March 28, 2023

  Episode 28: Finding Collective Advantage in Shared Knowledge

  Michael M. Crow, Lisa Margonelli

  The CHIPS and Science Act aims to secure American competitiveness and innovation by investing $280 billion in domestic semiconductor manufacturing, scientific innovation, and regional development. But if past government investments in science… Read More

• May 19, 2026

  You Have 9,870 Unread Messages

  Rebecca Coyne, Jason Lloyd

  Spam—in the form of emails, text messages, junk search results, and now AI-generated content—is a constant, annoying part of online life. But does it have to be this way?

• April 8, 2025

  Music and Health: Your Brain on Music

  J. D. Talasek, Sweta Adatia, Fred Johnson

  What happens in your brain when you hear your favorite song? On this episode of Music and Health, Sweta Adatia and Fred Johnson discuss how music impacts the brain, and how music can go beyond entertainment to create stronger, healthier communities.

• March 7, 2023

  Episode 27: Confronting Extreme Heat With the World’s First Chief Heat Officer

  Jane Gilbert, Jason Lloyd

  Miami is so renowned for its warm weather that its professional basketball team is the Miami Heat. But extreme heat can be life-threatening, even in cities like Miami that are used to… Read More

• October 22, 2024

  Uncovering Hidden Bias in Clinical Research

  Lisa Bero, Monya Baker

  Check the end of any recent study, and there will be a list of study funders and disclosures about competing interests. It’s important to know about potential biases in research, but this… Read More

• March 25, 2025

  The Rise of Deadly Fungal Pathogens

  Angel N. Desai, Jason Lloyd

  Angel Desai discusses what fungal pathogens are, why they are becoming more dangerous, and how the public health community can respond to this new threat.

• May 7, 2024

  To Fix Health Misinformation, Think Beyond Fact Checking

  Tina Purnat, Elisabeth Wilhelm, Monya Baker

  When tackling the problem of misinformation, people often think first of content and its accuracy. But contering misinformation by fact-checking every erroneous or misleading claim traps organizations in an endless game of… Read More

• November 25, 2025

  Making AI Chatbots Safer

  J. B. Branch, Megan Nicholson

  AI chatbots generate conversations with users and can appear, at times, quite human. J. B. Branch discusses who is using chatbots, what the companies behind these AIs are doing, and how they might be regulated.

• 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

• January 10, 2024

  Turning a Policy Idea into a Pilot Project

  Erica Fuchs, Lisa Margonelli

  By day, Erica Fuchs is a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. However, for the past year she’s also been running a pilot project—the National Network for Critical Technology Assessment—to give… 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

• November 22, 2021

  Episode 2: Doing Science With Everyone at the Table

  Could we create more knowledge by changing the way we do scientific research? We spoke with the NASA Psyche mission’s principal investigator and ASU Interplanetary Initiative vice president Lindy Elkins-Tanton about the limitations… Read More