Archive for June, 2008
According to Lord Nicholas Stern, the cost of ignoring climate change is higher than the cost of acting to mitigate it. He also says he underestimated the danger of inaction in his previous report.
Human activity, from farming to energy generation, is upsetting ocean ecosystems and creating massive “dead zones” off our coasts. Unchecked, the number of such zones around the world will continue to grow.
Colleges and universities are graduating more science and engineering Ph.D.s, but diminishing opportunities are derailing young scientists from future careers as scientific leaders.
Creationist groups are turning to the Louisiana legislature with a new approach to challenge the teaching of evolutionary theory in schools.
In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the number of ID checks in American life has climbed sharply. Some advocate more intrusive identification systems to fight terrorism and limit immigration, while others are skeptical of new procedures for verifying identity because of the impact they may have on costs, computer security, privacy, and civil liberties.
Five factors influence biotechnology transfer—university policies, economic development agencies, venture capitalists, strategic partners, and financial markets. Understanding each of them is crucial to building regional centers of innovation.
Nanotechnology offers potential solutions to many pressing medical and scientific questions, but with these solutions it also offers a host of ethical and policy issues. The House recently aimed to address those issues with new legislation.
Lawmakers finally have a response to the unfortunate truth that the No Child Left Behind Act often means labs and fieldwork for science classes get left behind in favor of test preparation: the No Child Left Inside Act.
Rep. Rush Holt explains how science informs policy that improves the lives of Americans, builds opportunity, and creates a fair and equitable society.
Congress is moving forward to provide $400 million of additional funding for scientific research and education for fiscal year 2008. Last week the House passed legislation allocating the additional dollars to various scientific agencies.
If the Internet is a force for democracy, then is there a moral imperative to bring the World Wide Web to citizens living under repressive regimes?
President Bush, along with members of Congress, is calling for offshore drilling as a remedy for high gas prices. But their arguments are simply the latest instance of federal policymaking that willfully ignores scientific evidence.
Governor Schwarzenegger touts California’s biotech prowess and Governor Patrick signs legislation for a $1 billion Life Science Initiative in Massachusetts. The rivalry continues between two major biotech states.
With no stem cell therapies currently available in the United States, some citizens suffering from dehabilitating conditions turn to “stem cell tourism,” traveling abroad to receive stem cell-based treatments.
A lack of federal leadership on the regulation of genetic testing could undermine the benefits of the next medical revolution.
Sure, it would be nice if we could better educate members of Congress about science. But why not go further by electing more scientists in the first place—and training unelected Ph.D.s in the politics of influence?
Fast-growing western states are making the link between land use and water management by taking a hard look at the reliability of water sources for new development.
Last Friday,
Science Progress kicked off the launch of its inaugural print edition with a gathering of distinguished science policy experts.
Last week Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) spoke to students about his efforts to facilitate discussions between Congress and top scientists. To make informed policy decisions about scientific issues such as stem cell research, nuclear energy, and global climate change, lawmakers need better scientific advice than what they’re currently receiving.
Above all, we have come together at
Science Progress in search of new ideas and new policies that ensure scientific innovation offers all Americans the opportunity to contribute to the common good.
The impetus for
Science Progress is the sense within the scientific community that, at many levels, American science policy has lost its way.
Elderly Americans are growing in number, which means we need to act quickly to improve the quality of long-term care in our country.
A growing body of research demonstrates that global waters are absorbing massive amounts of carbon dioxide, threatening species at the bottom of the food chain. So why are we still paying so little attention to climate change’s elephant in the room?
A clear set of policy guidelines for reporting biosecurity concerns in research labs is clearly in order. Here are some suggestions.
To produce biofuels that reduce carbon emissions and do not compete with food crops, biofuel producers need to scale up production of cellulosic biofuels, particularly those made from waste materials and crops that do not compete with food.
We can spur scientific innovation by revising our green card immigration policy for highly educated foreigners studying in the United States.
In response to recent outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, including salmonella-contaminated tomatoes, the Bush administration has asked Congress to add $275 million to the proposed 2009 budget of $2.4 billion for the Food and Drug Administration. But the patch won’t fix a fractured food safety system.
Now even the Bush administration basically admits that it misused and suppressed global warming information and the scientists who purvey it. Is the battle finally over?
Rick Weiss argues that the orderly and unbiased testing of reality to see how things actually work—the art and science of science—has ever been the engine of better health, higher productivity and greater economic power, not to mention enhanced entertainment and leisure-time options. It is something of a wonder, he writes, that so many today eschew it, and so openly.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently decided to no longer hold pharmaceutical companies to the standards of the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki while conducting human drug trials. The change poses bioethical dilemmas when U.S. companies conduct trials on foreign soil. Merrill Goozner is currently reporting from Russia, which could become “ground zero” for discussion about the shift in policy.
Kicking off an auspicious week at
Science Progress that will culminate in our first public event, the Center for American Progress just announced that former Post reporter Rick Weiss is joining CAP as a Senior Fellow.
After a brief hiatus, we return with roundup of some of the science and technology policy events happening around Washington D.C. from June 9 to June 13. Don’t forget our first
Science Progress event, “Science Is the Stuff of Progress,” on June 13, where we’ll launch our first printed edition.
What do researchers and clinicians actually need to understand about a gene in order to diagnose and treat patients? Play-by-play from a lively discussion on the state of genetics at the World Science Festival.
Anyone who has ever parented a 13-year-old human female knows this already: There is a sarcasm neural system, and its appearance must be associated with early adolescence. So far only the first assertion has been confirmed by neuroscience.
When the Shuttle program closes down in 2010, manned space flight from the United States will end for at least five years, leaving thousands of highly skilled aerospace industry workers without a mission to serve. That shouldn’t be allowed to happen.
The House Committee on Science and Technology will host a hearing tomorrow on the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act and efforts to curtail ocean acidification.
The World Science Festival in New York City was a huge success—and that’s because it garnered attention that ranged far beyond coverage in traditional science media outlets. But to communicate science broadly, there’s still a long way to go.
Though well understood, the challenges presented by the changing nitrogen cycle remain under-appreciated. A global integrated approach will be needed to mitigate its future impacts on the climate, ecosystem biodiversity, and human health.
Metropolitan areas are more energy-efficient than areas of less-dense development, according to a new analysis from the Brookings Institution; they also have smaller per-capita carbon emissions. Here’s a new mashup comparing the per-capita transportation emissions across the 100 metro areas in the study.
