INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Peter Swire discusses the balance of privacy and commercial usefulness of de-identified data in testimony before the Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
INVESTING IN SCIENCE
The failure of the deficit reduction “super committee” to come up with a compromise last fall triggered drastic automatic cuts to federal programs across the board. Gordon F. Tomaselli examines how these cuts will impact vital medical research.
SCIENCE POLICY NEWS
This week’s science policy news brief covers new scientific integrity policies in the agencies, a bi-partisan letter to protect intellectual property, and a new bill to streamline small business access to federal services.
SCIENCE EDUCATION
A bill that would create broad new legal immunities for school teachers to deny accepted science on biological evolution, climate change, the chemical origins or life, and human cloning inches its way toward the governor’s desk.
CLIMATE SCIENCE
New heat records swamped cold records across the country in the month of march by a startling margin, prompting some in the climate science community to ask whether we are seeing evidence of global warming feedback loops.
ENERGY INNOVATION
Despite hopeful proclamations of game-changing innovation at this year’s ARPA-E summit, our national clean energy policy remains an insufficient balance of proaction and compromise with the status quo.
SPACE AND SOCIETY
New evidence indicates that support for science in America is in trouble, and SP Editor-In-Chief Jonathan Moreno examines whether a high-minded national goal such as a manned mission to Mars can change that.
CLIMATE POLICY
For the first time in U.S. history, greenhouse gasses from new power plants will be regulated at the federal level, representing the first, small step toward a coherent climate policy in the United States. Here are the top five facts to keep in mind.
NEUROETHICS
The close relationship between neuroscience and the national security and intelligence organizations in the United States raises ethical issues that need to be addressed if we are to come to a pragmatic synthesis of ethical accountability and national security.
SCIENCE POLICY NEWS
This week’s science and technology news brief covers the jobs created by NIH research, the recent movement toward “hacktivism,” and blood test patents, and the potential for scopes monkey all over again in Tennessee.
SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
A panel of experts at a recent workshop discussed whether it is possible for policymakers to encourage “transformative research” in the scientific community, or whether the term can only be applied in retrospect.
SCIENCE EDUCATION
Both houses of the Tennessee legislature have now passed an anti-evolution and anti-global warming (and anti-cloning) education bill, and the Tennessee Science Teachers Association is already calling the bill “very likely unconstitutional.”
SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
Chris Mooney review the new book, “Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion,” and offers thoughts about the scientific understanding of why we differ over ideology–and also over reality.
SCIENCE POLICY NEWS
This week’s science and technology news brief covers Americans waning optimism about American science, NIH funding levels, a global cyber security conference, and a new study on the likely impacts of the keystone XL pipeline.
INNOVATION
Structural, cultural, and other barriers often prevent university research from fulfilling its full economic potential, leaving opportunities for policy and the private sector to engage.
SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
Earlier this year, mining industry representatives threatened legal action against peer-reviewed science journals unless they agreed to “reconsider” publication of articles linking certain mining activities with lung cancer.
SCIENCE POLICY NEWS
In this week’s science and technology policy news brief, federal agencies plan a simulated cyber attack on NYC, noted astrophysicist and innovation advocate Neil DeGrasse Tyson inspires senators during a Senate committee hearing, and the NIH debuts an online guide to genetic testing.
INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
A new report by the Association for Women in Science released on International Women’s Day suggests work-life balance issues are keeping women from making the most of their science, technology, engineering, and math careers.
SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
Chris Mooney looks at interconnected online communities that help debunk falsehoods, and asks whether there will ever be a “killer app” for fact-checking and defeating anti-science lies.
OCEAN SCIENCE
Fifty-six million years ago, a surge of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere raised the acidity of the world’s oceans, driving many organisms to extinction. Anthropogenic carbon emissions are doing the same thing today, only 10 times faster.
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.
Science Progress proceeds from the propositions that scientific inquiry is among the finest expressions of human excellence, that it is a crucial source of human flourishing, a critical engine of economic growth, and must be dedicated to the common good. Scientific inquiry entails global responsibilities. It should lead to a more equitable, safer, and healthier future for all of humankind.