SCIENCE, CULTURED

Nerd Busters

GQ’s new “Rock Stars of Science” campaign should give not just disease sufferers, but America’s scientists, hope.

Pandemic Semantics

ScienceInsider reports that the World Health Organization is couching its language so carefully that at a press briefing yesterday, a spokesperson said it is now “really very close” to calling the international H1N1 influenza outbreak a “pandemic.” At issue is [...]

EPA Will Accelerate Review of Environmental Contaminants and Increase Transparency of Scientific Information

The Integrated Risk Information System is an Environmental Protection Agency database of information on the human health effects of exposure to environmental contaminants. Before getting cataloged in the system, a contaminant must go through the IRIS process, a set of [...]

The Latest Medical Research Scandal and the Question of Journal Authorship Rules

“Ghostwriting” is the ethically fraught practice of intentionally excluding major contributors of an article from its byline or acknowledgements, and instead hiring respected experts in the field as named authors to give the appearance of credibility and neutrality. The problem [...]

NEUROSCIENCE

The Sunny Side of an Underwater Mortgage

From a biological standpoint, socially cooperative behaviors could be an end in themselves, as far as your unconscious brain is concerned. But financial systems and policies ignoring the often-unconscious human social instincts do so at their peril. The authors offer a few practical steps for reinforcing the “social contract” that might alleviate the growing rift between the financial markets and society.

So What Does the FDA Do, Anyway?

Just last week, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would ramp up its transparency efforts, beginning with the creation of a task force focused on the issue. In keeping with other transparency efforts within the the new administration, [...]

Contributors Examine Agricultural Biotech

In order to feed a growing, hungry world amidst a warming climate, we have to produce more food. Solutions to the problem of how to increase crop yields include both ecology-based farming and biotechnology approaches. But how do we define [...]

AGRICULTURE

Genetic Engineering Comes Up Short

Crops yields must improve to feed a hungry planet amid global warming, but that will require more ecology-based farming and less biotechnology.

AGRICULTURE

Can Agricultural Biotechnology Help the Poor?

Biotechnology can help the poor, but whether it will depends on people of good will taking the time to understand and consider the arguments in some detail.

BIOETHICS

Neuroscience Goes to War

With more attention to the empirical applications of modern neuroscience, we can better understand the connections between predictors of success and individual variability in training and learning. Equivalence may not be the key to preparing the modern soldier.

Health Care Costs from Smoking Are a Drag

Cutting back on smoking could reduce U.S. health care spending by nearly $100 billion a year, thanks to the reduction in costly tobacco-related maladies, reports the Associated Press. The Congressional Budget Office expects the Family Smoking and Tobacco Control Act [...]

The Human Toll of Climate Change: Health Impacts Around the Globe

Recent studies have built on research showing that climate change will have damaging consequences for human health. In his article today, “Global Ailing,” contributor Jeremy Jacquot looks back over existing work and outlines the latest science, stressing the importance of [...]

Global Ailing

Research begun in the 1990s is relevant now more than ever, and what we know about the relationship between health and climate will be crucial as communities adapt to a warming world.

SCIENCE, CULTURED

Dozing Atop the Flood Walls

The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season begins this week—but forecasts of a tamer year should make us raise our guard, not lower it.

Can Research Lighten the Massive Economic Burden of Addiction?

A report released last Thursday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found that smoking, alcohol abuse, and illegal drugs cost federal, state, and local governments $467.7 billion in 2005. Reporter Erik Echolm described the stunning numbers in [...]

Analog Laws and 21st Century Statecraft

One Thursday in May, a State Department staffer suggested a simple idea to get U.S. citizens involved in the government’s relief efforts in Pakistan. The following Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a simple text donation program. Sending the [...]

CAP Partners with NAS for Innovation Clusters Event

The Center for American Progress, in partnership with the National Academies, is sponsoring a conference this Wednesday, June 3rd on the role of innovation clusters in spurring economic development, creating new jobs, and building a competitive American economy for the [...]

Because Today’s Topic is Web 2.0…

We’ve made some recent improvements behind the scenes here at Science Progress that readers may have noticed. But because today’s big Center for American Progress event focuses on the power of New Media technologies, I wanted to make sure that [...]

WONK LAB PODCAST

You Have a Friend Request from The White House

It’s not the campaign anymore. Some of the best tools for getting the President’s message out and getting the administration’s work done require special consideration on WhiteHouse.gov. Swire explains the laws that constrain and the rules that advance new media for the government.