Issues in Science and Technology articles from January 2006

Issues in Science and Technology archives from January 2006

The university of the future.(FORUM)(Panel Discussion)
January 1, 2006... In "Envisioning a Transformed University" (Issues, Fall 2005), James J. Duderstadt, Wm. A. Wulf, and Robert Zemsky have once again rung a bell that seemingly has not yet been heard at our universities. I would not term it a wake-up bell, as...

Cyberinfrastructure for research.(FORUM)
January 1, 2006... In "Cyberinfrastructure and the Future of Collaborative Work" (Issues, Fall 2005), Mark Ellisman presents compelling scenarios for advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI)-enhanced science, highlighting quite appropriately the ground-breaking...

Protecting critical infrastructure.(FORUM)
January 1, 2006... In their excellent article "The Challenge of Protecting Critical Infrastructure" (Issues, Fall 2005), Philip Auerswald, Lewis M. Branscomb, Todd M. La Porte, and Ermann Michel-Kerjan raise a number of key points. Because the "border is now...

Can we anticipate disasters?(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... "Flirting with Disaster" (Issues, Fall 2005) by James R. Phimister, Vicki M. Bier, and Howard C. Kunreuther lays out several issues confronting high-hazard enterprises and regulators vis-a-vis the precursor analyses meant to help them ward off...

Carbon sequestration.(FORUM)
January 1, 2006... "The Case for Carbon Capture and Storage" (Issues, Fall 2005) paints a very rosy picture of the technology's long-term potential and advances a vigorous argument for investing in projects under the assumption that C[O.sub.2] levels need only be...

Energy research.(FORUM)
January 1, 2006... Daniel M. Kammen and Gregory F. Nemet ("Reversing the Incredible Shrinking Energy R & D Budget," Issues, Fall 2005) are part of a trend. In the past years in the mass media, as well as technical and professional journals such as Issues, a...

IPM revisited.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2006... In "Integrated Pest Management: A National Goal?" (Issues, Fall 2005), Lester E. Ehler opens the door to further debate on whether IPM (integrated pest management) has "been implemented to any significant extent in U.S. agriculture." Although...

White House unveils pandemic flu plan.
January 1, 2006... In a November 1 speech at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), President Bush proposed a multiyear plan to address the growing global threat of an avian flu pandemic. The plan includes an initial investment of $7.1 billion in emergency...

Senate delays action on bill to ease stem cell research restrictions.(FROM THE HILL)(Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act )
January 1, 2006... A Senate bill that would ease current restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research has been postponed until 2006. However, consideration of the bill will be given a high priority early in the next session, according to an...

Senators urge U.S. to return to climate change talks.(FROM THE HILL)
January 1, 2006... Just before a major international meeting on climate change in Montreal, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Ranking Member Joe Biden (D-DE) on November 15 introduced a Sense of the Senate resolution that calls for...

House votes to revamp Endangered Species Act.(FROM THE HILL)
January 1, 2006... The House on September 29 passed a bill that would reduce certain protections for endangered species. The Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act was sponsored by Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA), who, citing statistics that fewer than 1% of...

To blog, or not to blog.(Editorial)
January 1, 2006... "I'M HOME FROM HAVING A COLONOSCOPY--everything went fine, but I think I'll let the drugs leave my system for a while longer before doing any serious blogging." --Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) 12/5/05, 11:19 am. To be fair, this is not...

A green approach to tax reform.(PERSPECTIVES)
January 1, 2006... Political debates about taxes usually deal with the question of how much to tax. But an equally important question is what to tax. Current events may encourage policymakers to examine both questions more closely. The Bush administration has...

The Kyoto placebo.(PERSPECTIVES)
January 1, 2006... Global warming is a stealth issue in U.S. foreign policy. Even as the effects of mounting carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]) begin to make themselves felt, and huge multinationals such as General Electric and Shell announce their own plans of action,...

Rethinking, then rebuilding New Orleans: this time around, science should contribute to a systemic long-term plan that will better accommodate the natural forces that shape the Mississippi Delta.
January 1, 2006... New Orleans will certainly be rebuilt. But looking at the recent flooding as a problem that can be fixed by simply strengthening levees will squander the enormous economic investment required and, worse, put people back in harm's way. Rather,...

Restoring rivers: the work has begun, but we have yet to determine what works best.
January 1, 2006... Between 1973 and 1998, U.S. fresh waters and rivers were getting cleaner. But that trend has reversed. If the reverse continues, U.S. rivers will be as dirty in 2016 as they were in the mid-1970s. Water quality is not the only problem. In...

Yes, in my backyard distributed electric power: clean, efficient, and reliable small-scale generators are ready for action if we can clear away the regulatory barriers.
January 1, 2006... More than four generations of U.S. residents have come to accept the notion that electricity is best produced at large centralized power plants owned by monopolies. As a result, utilities continue to be protected from market discipline, and few...

Will government programs spur the next breakthrough? Economy-changing technologies often originated in government research. Are today's federal programs sufficiently ambitious to catalyze the next big thing?
January 1, 2006... The future health of the U.S. economy depends on faith: the faith that a new general-purpose technology will emerge that will enable the tech-savvy United States to maintain its pace of rapid productivity growth. In the 20th century, these...

Is the next economy taking shape? The United States needs to be preparing now for what it will do when the computer-driven new economy loses momentum.(NEW HORIZONS FOR A FLAT WORLD)
January 1, 2006... Recent economic trends, including a massive trade deficit, declining median incomes, and relatively weak job growth, have been, to say the least, somewhat disheartening. But there is one bright spot: strong productivity growth. Starting in the...

A forgotten model for purposeful science: in the 1970s the National Science Foundation had a good idea for tapping science for the public good. It is still a good idea.(NEW HORIZONS FOR A FLAT WORLD)
January 1, 2006... Toward the end of Richard Nixon's first term as president, his Republican administration forced on a reluctant National Science Foundation (NSF) a major research program that looked like something out of a New Deal social laboratory. Research...

Collaborative advantage: the days of U.S. technological domination are over. The nation must learn to thrive through working with others.
January 1, 2006... Almost daily, news reports feature multinational companies--many based in the United States--that are establishing technology development facilities in China, India, and other emerging economies. General Electric, General Motors, IBM, Intel,...

Brain mobility.(REAL NUMBERS)
January 1, 2006... The high level of participation of international scientists and engineers in U.S. laboratories and classrooms warrants increased efforts to understand this phenomenon and to ensure that policies regarding the movement and activities of highly...

Stranger in a strange land.(Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion)(Book review)
January 1, 2006... Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion by Alan Burdick. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, 324 pp. An increasingly common aspect of globalization is the movement of plant and animal species to places that they did not...

Racing to the top.(The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century)(Book review)
January 1, 2006... The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Friedman. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, 488 pp. The United States is in a race to the top of a flat world. Will it win in this competition for the...

Scientizing politics.(The Republican War on Science)(Book review)
January 1, 2006... The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney. New York: Basic Books, 2005, 351 pp. The Republican War on Science offers a catalog of Republican-led confrontations with mainstream science, ranging from attacks on evolution and denial...

Bad fiction, worse science.(State of Fear )(Book review)
January 1, 2006... State of Fear by Michael Crichton. New York: Harper Collins, 2004, 624 pp. Michael Crichton has achieved celebrity status as a novelist, film director, and television producer/series creator. Trained as a doctor, Crichton never pursued...

Committee on International Security and Arms Control.(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... The National Academy of Sciences formed the Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC) in 1980 as a standing committee to bring the resources of the Academy to bear on critical problems of international security and arms...