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• September 7, 2023

  The Slippery Slope of Scientific Ethics

  Deborah Poskanzer

  Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer, based on the life of the physicist known as the father of the atomic bomb, has surpassed blockbuster status to become a cultural juggernaut. It has spawned… Read More

• March 21, 2023

  The Next 75 Years of Science Policy

  Vannevar Bush’s landmark report Science, the Endless Frontier has profoundly shaped US science policy over the past 75 years. In the spirit of envisioning the next 75 years, Issues in Science and … Read More

• May 24, 2022

  Episode 15: Biotech Goes to Summer Camp

  Callie R. Chappell, Rolando Perez, Corinne Okada Takara, Lisa Margonelli

  Who gets to be a scientist? At BioJam, a free Northern California summer camp, the answer is everyone. This week we talk with Callie Chappell, Rolando Perez, and Corinne Okada … Read More

• Summer 2023

  ARPA-H Should Zero In on Pandemic Prevention

  Jassi Pannu, Janika Schmitt, Jacob Swett

  More than 20 years ago, Robert Cook-Deegan asked in this magazine, “Does NIH Need a DARPA?” The article described the innovation funding model pioneered by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency—created during… Read More

• Summer 2023

  Stop Patching!

  In “How to Keep Emerging Research Institutions from Slipping Through the Cracks” (Issues, Spring 2023), Anna M. Quider and Gerald C. Blazey raise interesting questions about how to address the… Read More

• Summer 2023

  Regulations for the Bioeconomy

  In “Racing to Be First to Be Second” (Issues, Spring 2023), Mary E. Maxon ably describes the regulatory challenges to the emerging bioeconomy in the United States. The Biden administration… Read More

• November 21, 2023

  Can We Build a Quantum Workforce Fast Enough to Avoid a “Quantum Winter”?

  As quantum technologies for sensing, communications, and computing advance, the sector is approaching a critical juncture. There are simply not enough people with adequate quantum education and training to fill industry demand:… Read More

• February 21, 2023

  Welcome AAAS Attendees!

  PhoneThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.Email Address* Name First Last Organization Δ /* /* = 0;if(!is_postback){return;}var form_content = jQuery(this).contents().find('#gform_wrapper_7');var is_confirmation = jQuery(this).contents().find('#gform_confirmation_wrapper_7').length 0;var is_redirect = contents.indexOf('gformRedirect(){')… Read More

• Summer 2023

  To Save Society from Digital Tech, Enable Scrutiny of How Policies Are Implemented

  Ido Sivan-Sevilla

  In May 2023, the leaders of the G7 nations called for “guardrails” to limit potential damage caused by artificial intelligence (AI). Days later, the CEO of OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT,… Read More

• November 28, 2023

  Episode 40: A Venture Capitalist for Better Science

  Stuart Buck, Monya Baker

  Stuart Buck has referred to himself as a venture capitalist for making science more efficient, reliable, and accountable. As vice president at the policy-focused philanthropy Arnold Ventures, he directed funds toward fledgling… Read More

• June 20, 2023

  Episode 33: Combating the “Multi-Dimensional Beast” of Chronic Pain

  Prasad Shirvalkar, Jason Lloyd

  Chronic pain, according to a 2023 study, affects more Americans than diabetes, depression, and hypertension. Yet the disease is poorly understood, often undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and effective treatments are in short supply.… Read More

• January 19, 2023

  CRISPR’s Icarus

  Robert Cook-Deegan

  The documentary Make People Better is the result of three years of work by a team that witnessed the dawning of human genome editing using CRISPR, a breakthrough technique for precisely editing… Read More

• Winter 2023

  How Would You Defend the Planet From Asteroids?

  Mahmud Farooque, Jason L. Kessler

  On September 26, 2022, NASA successfully smashed a spacecraft into a tiny asteroid named Dimorphos, altering its orbit. Although it was 6.8 million miles from Earth, the Double Asteroid Redirect Test … Read More

• October 31, 2023

  Episode 38: Sustaining Science for the Future of Ukraine

  Vaughan Turekian, Molly Galvin

  After Russia invaded Ukraine, hundreds of scientists fled the country and hundreds more remained behind. Those scientists who stayed are trying to continue their research and engage with the global scientific community… Read More

• October 10, 2023

  Episode 37: The Complicated Legacy of the Green Revolution

  Marci Baranski, Jason Lloyd

  The Green Revolution was a program of agricultural technology transfer that helped poor countries around the world increase food production from the 1950s onward. An American agronomist named Norman Borlaug developed and… Read More

• Spring 2023

  Viral Suppression

  Jack Stilgoe

  In November 2021, an investigative story in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) with the headline “Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial” received more… Read More

• September 26, 2023

  Episode 36: Open Science: Moving From Possible to Expected to Required

  Brian Nosek, Monya Baker

  A decade ago, University of Virginia psychology professor Brian Nosek cofounded an unusual nonprofit, the Center for Open Science. It’s been a cheerleader, enabler, and nagger to convince scientists that making their… Read More

• April 27, 2023

  The Camouflaged Metaphysics of Embryos

  Jane Maienschein

  In the United States, diverging interpretations of what constitutes life coexist across public, policy, and legal environments. Many draw on what I call a hypothetical embryo, an entity that is almost… 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 6, 2023

  Episode 35: Blue Dreams: Connecting People With Ocean Research

  Rebecca Rutstein, Mandy Joye, Alana Quinn

  There is more life in the ocean than anywhere else on Earth. Accounting for over 70% of the planet’s surface, the ocean provides habitat to millions of species, supplies freshwater and oxygen,… Read More

• 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

• July 12, 2021

  How to Build Upon Vannevar Bush’s “Wild Garden” to Cultivate Solutions to Human Needs

  L. Rafael Reif

  Like many brilliant researchers, Vannevar Bush had a knack for raising the right questions. As we commemorate the anniversary of his groundbreaking Science, the Endless Frontier report and consider its lessons for… Read More

• Summer 2022

  Creating Common Ground With Chinese Researchers

  Joy Y. Zhang, Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, Kathleen M. Vogel

  In 2006, China’s biomedical sector was the ninth largest in the world. By 2021, it had become the second largest, after the United States. In the context of the increasing global importance of… 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

• Winter 2023

  Moderation to the Barricades

  Carl Mitcham

  Liberalism is the political theory that animates the liberal democratic republic by affirming the autonomy of individuals and their rights to property, to freedom of thought and speech, and to participate in… Read More

• February 7, 2023

  Episode 25: What’s Driving the Electric Car Revival?

  Matthew N. Eisler, Jason Lloyd

  In 2022, there were more than 2 million electric vehicles, or EVs, on the road in the United States. In 2005, there were only about 1,000. The conventional wisdom credits better batteries… Read More

• September 6, 2022

  Episode 17: Fruitful Communities

  David Allen Burns, Austin Young, Molly Jahn, JD Talasek

  Food is an essential part of our lives, but for many people fresh food is something they find in a grocery store, not growing in their communities. How can art and advances in… Read More

• Summer 2022

  A Prehistory of Social Media

  Kevin Driscoll

  Over the past few years, I’ve asked dozens of college students to write down, in a sentence or two, where the internet came from. Year after year, they recount the same stories… Read More

• Winter 2023

  What the Ukraine-Russia War Means for South Korea’s Defense R&D

  Keonyeong Jeong, Yongseok Seo, Kyungmoo Heo

  South Koreans are watching the war between Russia and Ukraine not as a far-off conflict, but as a possible model for future power struggles in East Asia—especially in the context of increasing… Read More

• June 6, 2023

  Episode 32: Artificial Intelligence and the Moral Imagination

  Deborah Poskanzer, Jason Lloyd

  Artificial intelligence’s remarkable advances, along with the risks and opportunities the technology presents, have become a topic of feverish discussion. Along with contemplating the dangers AI poses to employment and information ecosystems,… Read More