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• Fall 2023

  Environmental Apparitions

  Brandon Ballengée

  

  Brandon Ballengée, SOS Humpback Black Seadevil Anglerfish, 2023, salvaged latex house paint on thrifted cotton bed sheets, 77 x 96 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles,… 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

• Spring 2023

  Visions of Nursing

  Anne Wallentine

  

  Tim Okamura, Nurse Tamika, 2021, oil on wood panel, 24 x 30 in. During conflict or crisis—from wars and pandemics to individual health emergencies—nurses are often depicted in art as heroes… Read More

• 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

• May 16, 2023

  Episode 31: Race, Genetics, and a “Most Dangerous Myth”

  Ann Morning, Monya Baker

  The concept of distinct races came from European naturalists in the 1700s. It’s now recognized as a social construct, rather than a biological classification. Nonetheless, genetics researchers sometimes use race or ethnicity to… Read More

• Fall 2022

  The Dangers of Systems Illiteracy

  Carol Dumaine

  In 1918, as the Great War was coming to an end after four bloody years of brutal conflict, an influenza pandemic began to ravage societies around the globe. While in Paris negotiating… 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

• 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

• Winter 2023

  The Art and Ethics of Model Selection

  Jane Johnson

  Biomedicine is credited with many achievements, including the increased longevity and enhanced quality of life of those of us fortunate enough to live in the early twenty-first century. In the context of… 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

• Winter 2023

  Computers on Wheels?

  Matthew N. Eisler

  In the early 2000s, electric vehicles (EVs) fell victim to what some observers characterized as one of the most heinous and irresponsible acts of industrial vandalism in American history. After leasing several… Read More

• March 14, 2022

  Episode 10: Creating a “High-Minded Enterprise”: Vannevar Bush and Postwar Science Policy

  Jason Lloyd, G. Pascal Zachary

  G. Pascal Zachary, Vannevar Bush’s biographer and editor of a new collection of his writings, talks about this remarkable polymath, the background behind his landmark report, and his surprising legacy for the information age.

• 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

• 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

• 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

  Stop Hugging Your Postdocs—and Learn to Start Conversations That Prevent Harassment

  Karen Stubaus

  After a whirlwind of committee meetings on preventing sexual harassment, I thought I had some good news for the faculty at Rutgers University, where I am vice president for academic affairs. Promotion… Read More

• Summer 2022

  Exploring the Depths of Scientific Patronage

  Deborah Poskanzer

  Naomi Oreskes’s Science on a Mission is really three books in one. It’s a history of the fruitful partnership between American oceanographers and the US Navy, focused on ocean research undertaken in… 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

• 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

• February 14, 2022

  Episode 8: Fighting COVID with Art

  Because art is a powerful tool for connecting with communities, building stronger relationships between artists and public health programs may be a way to increase people’s confidence about vaccines. On this episode, cartoonist… 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

• 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

• April 5, 2021

  What Do China’s Scientific Ambitions Mean for Science—and the World?

  Sylvia Schwaag Serger, Cong Cao, Caroline S. Wagner, Xabier Goenaga, Koen Jonkers

  In the past two decades China has become a leading international scientific contributor—not only in resources and publications, but also through its ambition to achieve technological leadership in key industrial sectors. In… 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

• 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

• April 14, 2022

  Democracies Must Coordinate Industrial Policies to Rebuild Economic Security

  Bruce R. Guile, Stephen Johnson, David Teece, Laura D. Tyson

  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created a watershed moment for the world’s leading liberal democracies. Perhaps most striking is the degree to which the invasion has renewed cooperation among democracies to address… Read More