Issues in Science and Technology articles from December 1996

Issues in Science and Technology archives from December 1996

Does NIH need a DARPA? (National Institutes of Health)(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency)
December 22, 1996... Peer review has worked well, but that does not mean that is the only way to fund research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its Division of Research Grants with a symposium on peer review. NIH...

Rethinking the car of the future.
December 22, 1996... The government-industry partnership to develop a revolutionary fuel-efficient vehicles is in need of midcourse correction. On September 29, 1993, President Clinton and the chief executive officers of Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors (the "Big...

Time to restructure U.S. defense forces.
December 22, 1996... Shifting resources to invest in new technologies is vital for creating the lean, mean fighting force needed to counter emerging threats. With the election behind us, the Pentagon is gearing up to conduct a congressionally required...

The Air Force at a crossroads. (US Air Force)
December 22, 1996... To meet emerging threats, it should deemphasize manned aircraft and move toward space systems and unmanned aerial vehicles. On the night of January 16-17, 1991, the United States launched an air war against Iraq after diplomatic efforts to end...

Reining in military overkill. (defense spending)
December 22, 1996... With no major threat in sight, the Pentagon should ease up on its planned buying spree and focus more on nonmilitary means of bolstering U.S. security. The end of the Cold War set off contentious debate about what constitutes the most...

The dual-use dilemma. (technologies for commercial and military applications)
December 22, 1996... Political pressures make it difficult to prevent defense needs from squeezing out commercial considerations. The Clinton administration began with high hopes for its plan to forge a stronger link between military and commercial technologies....

Eliminating excess defense production. (defense research)
December 22, 1996... Research to meet future national security needs must take precedence over pork-barrel contracts. Throughout history, each time our nation has ended a war we have cut back our weapons arsenals and propped up R&D to prepare for future enemies....

The drug war's hidden toll. (social impact of the criminal justice system)
December 22, 1996... Imprisoning so many urban black males is discouraging marriage and the formation of families, thus contributing to moral and social breakdown. Bob Dole remarked in his acceptance speech at the 1996 Republican National Convention that "the root...

Environmental trends. (US)
December 22, 1996... In the United States in 1900, environmental hazards still caused about half of all deaths. Stagnant, contaminated water was a happy home for cholera, typhoid, and other waterborne diseases. In 1833, when Ralph Waldo Emerson was working on his...

The Betrayal of Science and Reason: How Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future.
December 22, 1996... The Betrayal of Science and Reason is the most important rejoinder to date to the "brownlash" (as the Ehrlichs call it) of anti-environmental writing. The bulk of the book is devoted to a systematic refutation of the main theses of the...

Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life.
December 22, 1996... Our scientific culture, and much of our public life, is based on trust in numbers. They are commonly accepted as the means to achieving objectivity in analysis, certainty in conclusions, and truth. Numbers tell us about the health of our society...

Mismanaged Trade: Strategic Policy and the Semiconductor Industry.
December 22, 1996... In the late 1980s, Kenneth Flamm, an economist at the Brookings Institution, published two highly influential books on government's role in the development of the computer industry. In Targeting the Computer (1987) and Creating the Computer...

Electronic Democracy: Using the Internet to Influence American Politics.
December 22, 1996... Halfway through her new book Electronic Democracy, Graeme Browning, a science and technology reporter for the National Journal, observes that the study of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg should be required of anyone who really wants to use the...

War By Other Means: Economic Espionage in America.
December 22, 1996... The Cold War may be over, but espionage apparently is still thriving. Now, however, it's economic espionage. Former FBI and CIA officials have stated that "we're finding intelligence organizations from countries we've never looked at before" and...