Agriculture, Technology, and Environmental Impacts In Developing Countries
Three stories focusing on innovation and on the impact of climate change demonstrate the difficulty of fairly distributing the costs, risks, and benefits of technologies.
The Dish: Sampling Today’s News – January 22, 2008
Is the NIH monitoring conflicts of interest?; EPA won’t explain itself on nixing state emissions caps; controversial framing of new MRSA study; new paths to energy-efficient electronics.
The Dish: Sampling Today’s News – January 18, 2008
Engineering corn to fight blindness; “Science 2.0″ and participatory journalism; Google gives back, and not just to non-profits.
Which Comes First? The Oil or the Bears?
A House Select committee hearing examines whether the government should protect polar bears before or after making a decision to allow oil drilling in their habitat.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
Ubiquity Requires Redundancy
National security and public safety require a coherent national strategy for investing in a range of telecommunications technologies.
The Dish: Sampling Today’s News – January 17, 2008
Bush exemption for Navy sonar use; farmer loses to Monsanto; SLAC loses to budget; Japan hikes budget for stem cell research; Supreme Court opening arguments for patent case.
First Human Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer Reported
A San Diego company has announced that it has been able to obtain embryo-like bodies by depositing the nucleus of a human skin cell into a human egg cell that has had its nucleus removed. The process is technically known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) or, more simply, nuclear transfer, and popularly known as cloning.
PHYSICS & SPACE
Flying the Right Mission
Sending humans to the Moon and Mars won’t answer any pressing scientific questions. That’s why NASA should focus its resources on Earth and space science that will teach us more about the home planet and the mysterious “dark energy” driving galaxies apart.
Design Flaw Likely Cause of Minneapolis Bridge Collapse
A design flaw in the gusset plates joining steel beams may have been the culprit in the I-35 bridge collapse outside of Minneapolis that killed 13 people last August.
The Dish: Sampling Today’s News – January 16, 2008
Scientists on Capitol Hill; National Science Board reports on the state of U.S. science; interview with the Department of Energy Undersecretary Orbach; risks to U.S. leadership in biotech; Columbia Journalism Reviews announces The Observatory.
The Dish: Sampling Today’s News – January 15, 2008
India ramps up science and engineering education; the European Commission has more questions for Microsoft; the International Linear Collider may end up in Japan; Supreme Court rules that terminally ill patients do not have a constitutional right to developmental drugs; FCC could have trouble selling all its wireless licenses.
Cloned Livestock Is OK for Food, Says FDA
An FDA study says that milk and meat from cloned animals is safe for human consumption. The news breaks close on the heels of reports that the E.U.’s European Food Safety Authority released similar findings that food from cloned livestock is “very unlikely” to harm consumers.
Free Patents for the Environment
Free Patents? That’s the idea behind an effort to foster the promulgation of eco-friendly technology and spur innovation in the environmental sustainability arena. The “Eco-Patent Commons” initiative, a project of the World Council for Sustainable Development, goes online today, already boasting thirty-one publicly-available patents from electronics giants like IBM, Sony, Nokia, and Pitney Bowes.
Bioweapons Sensors Hit the Streets
A new generation of bioweapons sensors has been deployed in New York City as part of the federal BioWatch program, but their introduction raises questions about how we are preparing for potential acts of bioterror.
Stem Cells From Embryo Biopsies?
Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology reports that it has grown embryonic stem cells from one cell of an 8-cell embryo left over in a fertility clinic and donated for research, without doing apparent harm to the remaining embryo. If the technique is successful the stem cell lines produced should qualify for federal research funding under President Bush’s policy.
Snap Observations: January 10, 2008
New helmet sensors will improve army body armor; the disorganization of state stem cell initiatives; acute stress spikes after 9/11; think tanks for developing nations.
Snap Observations: January 9, 2008
Tracking broadband speeds for the FCC; bioterrorism sensors in NYC; China revises its patent policy.
DEFINING SCIENCE
Science, Delayed
The quest to restore dedicated science advice for Congress through a reborn Office of Technology Assessment has proven more difficult than one might have supposed.
ENGINEERING
Catching Crumbling Infrastructure
The Minneapolis bridge collapse underscores the need to modernize infrastructure monitoring.
Snap Observations: January 8, 2008
Greenland glaciers melting faster than previously thought; new money to fight African Sleeping Sickness; do plastic drinking bottles leech harmful chemicals?
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Science Progress and American Progress's Doing What Works project teamed up to produce a set of policy proposals that the Obama administration and Congress can adopt to reinvest in the building blocks of American science, innovation, and economic competitiveness. Read the overview of the five reports.
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