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• December 20, 2022

  Episode 23: Shirley Malcom – Where Science and Society Meet

  Shirley M. Malcom

  Shirley M. Malcom is a trailblazer in the area of broadening participation in science. Currently senior advisor and director of the SEA Change initiative at the American Association for the Advancement of… 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

  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

• May 2, 2023

  Episode 30: The Microscope and the Metaphor

  Jane Hirshfield, Virginia Sturm, J. D. Talasek

  What does intuitive, emotional poetry have in common with rational, empirical science? On this episode, host J. D. Talasek talks to poet Jane Hirshfield and neuroscientist Virginia Sturm to understand how they… Read More

• November 15, 2022

  Episode 21: To Solve Societal Problems, Unite the Humanities With Science

  Kaye Husbands Fealing, Josh Trapani

  How can music composition help students learn how to code? How can creative writing help medical practitioners improve care for their patients? Science and engineering have long been siloed from the humanities,… Read More

• November 3, 2022

  Episode 20: How to Fix the Bus

  Brian Sherlock, Lisa Margonelli

  Buses are an inexpensive and easy-to-deploy form of mass transit that could help reduce traffic congestion and curb air pollution. But in the United States, no one wants to ride them—and for… Read More

• Summer 2021

  Time to Say Goodbye to Our Heroes?

  Lindy Elkins-Tanton

  In 2018 I gave a presentation to the visiting committee that advises the dean and the director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University. The committee sat around… 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

• May 3, 2022

  When Youth Are Experts in the Field

  Erin G. Fox, Nicole F. Kahn, Gabrielle Battle

  Usually, reports from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) exclusively involve members of the research community and policymakers—stakeholders who are traditionally considered “experts in the field.” But in 2020,… Read More

• Spring 2022

  Unmet Desire

  Adam Seth Levine

  I vividly remember March 2020, the month the United States shut down as COVID-19 spread uncontrollably and upended daily life. At the time, I worked at Cornell University in upstate New York.… Read More

• Summer 2022

  From Strength to Strength?

  Daniel Spichtinger

  The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, claimed in a February 2022 speech that European Union research and innovation is going “from strength to strength.” Her comments reflect the potential for… Read More

• November 22, 2021

  Episode 1: Science Policymakers’ Required Reading

  Every Monday afternoon, the Washington, DC, science policy community clicks open an email newsletter from the American Institute of Physics’ science policy news service, FYI, to learn what they’ve missed. We spoke… Read More

• Summer 2022

  Cleaning Up Our Mess in Space

  In “A Montreal Protocol for Space Junk?” (Issues, Spring 2022), Stephen J. Garber and Lisa Ruth Rand correctly recognize the challenges to pursuing remediation for removing space debris despite the… Read More

• Summer 2020

  Public Value Science

  Barry Bozeman

  STEF at 75 Why should the United States government support science? That question was apparently settled 75 years ago by Vannevar Bush in Science, the Endless Frontier: “Since health, well-being, and… Read More

• Summer 2022

  New Theory for Increasingly Tangled Banks

  Saran Twombly, Alan Hastings, Tom Miller, Michael Cortez, Karen Abbott, Tanjona Ramiadantsoa, Julie Blackwood, Olivia Prosper

  Illustration by Shonagh Rae Decades before the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how rapidly infectious diseases could emerge and spread, the world faced the AIDS epidemic. Initial efforts to halt the contagion were slow… Read More

• Summer 2022

  A New Social Contract

  Elizabeth Garbee

  Last summer, my friend Sarah and I tried to support local businesses that were hit hard during the pandemic by meeting up at various independent coffee shops around town to do our… Read More

• March 1, 2022

  Episode 9: Maximizing the Good of Innovation

  The United States is justifiably proud of the accomplishments of its taxpayer-funded biomedical innovation system. But these innovations don’t benefit all Americans equally, which means, among other things, that the richest live… Read More

• Summer 2022

  Changing the Business of Breakthroughs

  Regina Dugan, Kaigham J. Gabriel

  History tends to turn scientific breakthroughs into stories of lone heroes in which individual researchers doggedly pursued a new discovery or charismatic leaders pointed to the horizon and made massive investments at… Read More

• June 29, 2022

  Bonus Episode! A Historic Opportunity for US Innovation

  Mitch Ambrose, Josh Trapani

  This summer, Congress is trying to reconcile the differences between two massive bills focused on strengthening US competitiveness and spurring innovation: the House-passed America COMPETES Act and the Senate-passed United States Innovation… Read More

• June 23, 2022

  Expanding Science Fellowship Opportunities

  Megan E. Damico, Sharon A. Rivera, Jacob B. Ruden, Alyssa Shearer, Alejandra Villegas Lopez

  Famed astronomer Amy Manizer, physicist Eric Cornell, economist Steven Levitt, and Google cofounder Sergey Brin all have at least one thing in common: early in their careers, they received fellowships from the prestigious National… Read More

• January 4, 2022

  Episode 5: Dinosaurs!

  Caitlin Donahue Wylie, Jason Lloyd

  Caitlin Donahue Wylie discusses the role of fossil preparators in assembling the fossils on which knowledge of the prehistoric world is built.

• Summer 2021

  Unmasking Scientific Expertise

  M. Anthony Mills

  In early February 1976, two cases of swine flu were discovered at Fort Dix in New Jersey. The Center for Disease Control identified the virus as Hsw1N1, similar to the one that… Read More

• May 9, 2022

  Episode 14: Rethinking Hard Problems in Brain Science

  Susan M. Fitzpatrick, Jason Lloyd

  When it comes to exploring the mindboggling complexity of living systems—ranging from the origins of human consciousness to treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s—Susan Fitzpatrick has long been a critic… Read More

• Winter 2017

  Journalism Under Attack

  Keith Kloor

  Several weeks after Election Day, as the final ballot count wound down, it was reported that Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote had surpassed 2 million. On November 27, President-elect Donald… 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

• April 26, 2022

  Episode 13: Demystifying the Federal Budget

  How do budgets evolve into policies? As Congress starts to appropriate money for President Biden’s 2023 budget requests, we talk with Matt Hourihan, director of the R&D Budget and Policy Program… Read More

• September 20, 2022

  Episode 18: The Forgotten Origins of the Social Internet

  Kevin Driscoll, Jason Lloyd

  The typical history of the internet tells a story that emphasizes experts and institutions: government, industry, and academia. In this origin story, the internet began as a product of the military during… Read More

• Spring 2022

  Religious Action and Climate Change

  In “Where Conversations Happen and Values Emerge” (Issues, Winter 2022), Forrest Clingerman and Robin Globus Veldman make an excellent case for engaging religion as a complex social force influencing climate… Read More

• April 19, 2022

  Revisiting NSF’s Founding Compromise

  Nicholas Robichaud, Jessica L. Rosenberg, James L. Olds

  The National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Science Board (NSB) were founded in 1950 with the passage of the National Science Foundation Act of 1950 (the “Organic Act”) and a small $37… Read More

• Fall 2021

  A Veneer of Objectivity

  In “Unmasking Scientific Expertise” (Issues, Summer 2021), M. Anthony Mills exposes the danger of the vacuous “follow the science” slogan that has been used by politicians, scientists, and others throughout… Read More