Archive for July, 2008
After every voting machine failure in recent election years, it has become more and more clear that proper oversight of voting technology is critical to the preservation of our democratic system. The Senate is currently considering bipartisan legislation to support innovation in voting machines.
Why did it take almost four months after the first report of a Salmonella St. Paul infection for the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control to find the grower responsible? Two congressional hearings yesterday and today aimed at understanding why this most recent food safety scare took so long to understand.
With the support of cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris USA, the House voted Wednesday to approve legislation that would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco.
How many more sordid tales concerning the Environmental Protection Agency can actually come out before November?
Former Time magazine-reporter-turned-environmental-policy-analyst Eric Roston will make his Colbert Report debut tonight talking about his new book, The Carbon Age.
Science Progress featured an interview with Roston earlier this month that ranged across the various scientific fields connected by the carbon atom.
The House and Senate agreed yesterday to ban three types of phthalates, chemicals that are common in plastics, perfumes, lotions, and shampoos, and that can disrupt normal hormone function.
Two new reports highlight impacts on western trout streams and propose constructive steps to take in response.
The Senate is slated to try once again to extend tax credits for solar and wind energy production. Without these tax credits, renewable energy industries will suffer.
A proposed HHS rule would alter the meaning of the word “abortion.” If implemented, our best tools for preventing the need for abortion would suddenly be redefined
as abortion.
An expert panel at Stanford University has determined that nearly one quarter of the colonies of human embryonic stem cells that the Bush administration had approved as ethically derived and eligible for study with federal funds do not meet Stanford’s ethics standards and should no longer be available to researchers there.
A quick look at the issues making the rounds on the science blogs this week.
Medicines delivered in nanoparticle form, more potent than their ordinary counterparts, are on deck for regulatory approval. The agency has some catching up to do before it can determine the safety of these cutting-edge products.
In a recent paper in
Technology and Society, Neal Lane discusses the impact of the Mansfield Amendment and Bayh-Dole Act on federal R&D in the United States and the need for forward-looking innovation policy for the 21st century.
Experts at a briefing on Capitol hill yesterday discussed global health concerns caused by climate change, but left out the significant impacts Americans will encounter.
Rep. Bill Foster talks about the balance between commercial science and basic long-term research, the importance of math and science education, and the need for scientific reasoning as the basis of policy discussions.
Three big pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer, Merck, and Eli Lilly, announced last week that they will join forces and create a joint venture called Enlight BioSciences that will help speed drug development. A look at profits and drug approvals.
Don’t look now, but we’re peering down yet another possible threat to Americans’ ability to drive their cars in a way that they can remotely afford—an active Atlantic hurricane season.
The old Office of Technology Assessment had answers to Pennsylvania’s shad problem today. That’s only one reason why efforts to revive the congressional office are gaining traction.
Are selective mandatory genetic tests for presidential candidates merited in the case of Huntington’s disease?
In Sunday’s Outlook section of the
Washington Post, Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Rick Weiss takes a close look at the personal impacts of new direct-to-consumer genetic testing services. He suggests that we need to properly regulate this auspicious technology to harness its benefits.
New research published this week indicates that a genetic mutation prevalent in individuals of African descent may increase susceptibility to HIV infection.
Resent research concludes that even if scientists were to score a complete home run by finding a “cure” for any single chronic disease such as cancer or stroke, life spans in developing countries would hardly grow longer.
The United States lags behind Europe in terms of genetic privacy legislation, argues a commentary in this week’s
Journal of the American Medical Association, but we can use European experience to guide future policy that builds on the Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act.
Embryonic stem cell research, strong scientific input on global warming policy, and more federal funding for scientific research: these are all things the American public wants.
Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) told the attendees as a conference on scientific integrity that the “vigilant protection of the integrity of science” cannot relax after the November elections. But we need to be more vigilant about the science that informs national energy policy now.
The Senate Finance Committee revisited the problems in international intellectual property rights protection without offering solutions or new points to consider. The conflict between IP protection and the benefits of sharing drugs and technology with developing nations will become even more pertinent as clean energy technologies are perfected.
Support grows in Congress for a reprise of the 1973 National Water Commission. Studies are useful, but must lead to real change.
Philosophers are now wielding the tools of social science to shed light on challenging philosophical questions. This adds a quantitative dimension to discussions in moral philosophy and thereby gives policymakers more data with which to work.
Despite significant gains over the years in the number of young women pursuing science and engineering degrees, the upper echelons of scientific research are still a boy’s club. A piece in today’s Science Times explores new research into why women are underrepresented in certain scientific fields, along with a federal push to use Title IX to expand and ensure equity in research departments.
Randy Olson’s new global warming mockumentary,
Sizzle, burns into your mind a lesson about how to reach broader audiences with science.
Could a mad scientist-like approach to reversing climate change provide our only remaining hope? A close look at geoengineering schemes.
With recent evidence highlighting the Vice President’s Office’s misconstruing of climate change evidence, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) called upon EPA administrator Stephen Johnson to release every document related to the threat global warming poses to the public.
A report released today by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation analyzes the evolution of the innovation ecosystem in the United States over the last four decades and argues that in order to encourage innovation most effectively, policymakers must better understand where new ideas come from.
Suing companies that pump greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere for damage to cities and states proved difficult a few years ago. But the latest court rulings could set the stage for a climactic battle over who pays for overheating the planet.
Carbon fuels evolutionary systems and climate change—and the story of this element cuts across a wide swath of scientific fields, underscoring much of the research that’s changing the way we think about everyday life.
The Red Cross recently released its 2008 Disasters Report, which calls the global HIV/AIDS epidemic a “disaster.” The study devotes a chapter to unraveling the the “complex link” between natural disasters and the spread of HIV.
Congress should bring back the OTA, but this time with a prominent role for the public, especially the burgeoning numbers of citizen scientists.
According to a recent study published in the journal Cell, federal policy has a measurable impact on the amount of human embryonic stem cell research conducted in different countries.
Individual genetic markers can reveal increased risks of breast and ovarian cancer, but recent research examines the cumulative impact of multiple markers and could inform more effective genetic screening procedures.
Science has gotten short shrift in political campaigns for years, but new data shows that voters care more about it than politicians think.
On Monday President Bush signed a supplemental appropriations bill granting $337.5 million in additional funding to various federal scientific agencies. The support is good news, but the administration should not have neglected the financial health of these vital groups in the first place.
The Association of British Insurers has extended a moratorium banning the use of genetic testing results in setting life insurance premiums.
Young scientists today have a hunger for outreach training. Here are some concepts, conceits, and lessons learned from an attempt to help them deal with the media.
The Pentagon’s dismissal of the EPA’s demand that it clean up Fort Meade and two Air Force bases is just the latest chapter in the saga of the administration’s denial and inaction on environmental and climate protection.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has played a remarkably important role in America’s post-World War II history, yet few Americans are even aware that there is such a thing. In a recent report called “OSTP 2.0,” the Woodrow Wilson Center has published recommendations for reforms in the management of U.S. science policy.
Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick tested positive for a BRCA1 mutation at age 27. Staring down an almost certain risk of developing breast cancer, she set out to make a documentary of her own choices about prevention and to explore the impact of genetic testing and cancer on women across the country.
