Issues in Science and Technology articles from June 2007

Issues in Science and Technology archives from June 2007

Not enough U.S. engineers?(FORUM)
June 22, 2007... Vivek Wadhwa, Gary Gereffi, Ben Rissing, and Ryan Ong from Duke University have clearly put a lot of work into their study of engineering education in the United States, India, and China ("Where the Engineers Are," Issues, Spring 2007). From...

Technology evolution in India and China.(FORUM)
June 22, 2007... In "China and India: Emerging Technological Powers" (Issues, Spring 2007), Carl J. Dahlman performs a useful service by calling our attention to the growing scientific and technological capabilities of China and India and by providing a set of...

Advice for India.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2007... Salil Tripathi's "India's Growth Path: Steady but not Straight" (Issues, Spring 2007) is a wide-ranging article focusing on the role of science and technology (S & T) in increasing incomes and improving the quality of life of India's 1.1...

China as innovator.(FORUM)
June 22, 2007... "China's Drive toward Innovation" by Alan Wm Wolff (Issues, Spring 2007) is an excellent and informative analysis of how China plans to wrest leadership in information technology from the United States. The challenge to U.S. leadership is very...

Education and U.S. competitiveness.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2007... Congressman Bart Gordon's "U.S. Competitiveness: The Education Imperative" (Issues, Spring 2007) is an illuminating summary of what needs to be done to halt the nation's slide in science and technology (S & T) relative to our competitors. The...

Emissions reduction.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2007... I am commenting on "Promoting Low-Carbon Electricity Production" by Jay Apt, David W. Keith, and M. Granger Morgan in your Spring issue. As the scientific evidence continues to mount about global climate change, the general public and the...

Assessing science's social effects.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2007... I appreciate the opportunity to comment on Robert Frodeman and J. Britt Holbrook's article ("Science's Social Effects," Issues, Spring 2007). They present some thoughtful observations and provocative suggestions. The National Science...

Major bills to boost U.S. competitiveness advance.(FROM THE HILL)
June 22, 2007... Congress appears poised to approve major legislation to boost U.S. economic competitiveness, with Senate approval of the America COMPETES Act (S. 761) and House passage of the 21st Century Competitiveness Act (H.R. 2272). Although there are...

Support grows for capping and trading carbon emissions.(FROM THE HILL)
June 22, 2007... Support appears to be growing in Congress for introducing a cap-and-trade system for limiting greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Recently, the debate has focused on how such a system would be structured. At a...

Bill to establish national ocean policy falters.(FROM THE HILL)(Oceans Conservation, Education, and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act)
June 22, 2007... Several years after the completion of two landmark reports on the oceans, comprehensive ocean policy legislation finally received hearings in the House, but it is not ready to sail through just yet. Although most members and witnesses supported...

Senate committee approves energy package.(FROM THE HILL)
June 22, 2007... In a 20-3 vote in early May, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee approved a bill (the Energy Savings Act, S. 1321) aimed at reducing oil consumption by 20% in 10 years through a combination of advanced biofuels, improved...

Congress boosts budget spending limit, despite veto threat.(FROM THE HILL)(United States)(Brief article)
June 22, 2007... Congress on May 17 approved a FY 2008 budget resolution that would boost funding for nondefense programs, including R & D, by $21 billion above President Bush's budget request. The vote sets in motion a possible confrontation with the...

Getting our act together.(EDITOR'S JOURNAL)(Editorial)
June 22, 2007... Several of the articles in this issue look beyond specific policy debates to the larger question of the definition of science policy (in the broad sense that includes technology and health policy). The question deserves to be discussed, and it...

Tiny technology, enormous implications.(PERSPECTIVES)(nanotechnology)
June 22, 2007... The purpose of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) is to promote nanoscale science and technology in a way that, so far as possible, benefits U.S. citizens in particular and humanity in general. To this end, the NNI has organized...

Does science policy matter? It would if we had a real science policy, but what we have now is science politics.
June 22, 2007... It is not only axiomatic but also true that federal science policy is largely played out as federal science budget policy. Science advocacy organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the National...

Water scarcity: the food factor; With ever more water needed to raise crops to feed the burgeoning global population, efforts to produce more food with less water are critical to averting a crisis.
June 22, 2007... With so much talk about a global water crisis, about water scarcity, and about increasing competition and conflicts over water, it would be easy to get the impression that Earth is running dry. You could be forgiven for wondering whether, in...

Community college: the unfinished revolution; Although public two-year colleges have dramatically improved college access for large numbers of disadvantaged students, serious deficiencies in how they operate are limiting their value.
June 22, 2007... In the current debate about U.S. economic competitiveness and the need to provide better education for everyone, there is a new consensus that nearly all young people should attend college. Indeed, society's ambitious college-for-all goal has...

The university as innovator: bumps in the road; Many university technology transfer offices have become bottlenecks rather than facilitators of innovation. New approaches are needed.
June 22, 2007... For much of the past century, universities and university-based researchers have played a critical role in driving technological progress. In the process, universities have been a strong catalyst for U.S. economic growth. But a perennial...

The promise of data-driven policymaking: the federal government is only scratching the surface in its use of information technologies to collect, analyze, and use data in innovative ways.
June 22, 2007... During the past decade, advances in information technology have ignited a revolution in decisionmaking, from business to sports to policing. Previously, decisions in these areas had been heavily influenced by factors other than empirical...

Full disclosure: using transparency to fight climate change; An essential first step in any effective climate change policy is to require major contributors to fully disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.
June 22, 2007... Congressional leaders are finally working seriously on long term-approaches to counter climate change. But all the major proposals leave a critical policy gap because they would not take effect for at least five years. Meanwhile, U.S....

How the Internet got its groove.(From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism by Fred Turner. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2006, 354 pp. Where did the Internet come from? Why has it...

No model for policymaking.(Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... Useless Arithmetic: Why Environmental Scientists Can't Predict the Future by Orrin H. Pilkey and Linda Pilkey-Jarvis. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007, 230 pp. Technical solutions have been found for many complicated problems...

The politics of jobs.(America Works: Critical Thoughts on the Exceptional U.S. Labor Market)(Book review)
June 22, 2007... America Works: Critical Thoughts on the Exceptional U.S. Labor Market by Richard B. Freeman. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007, 191 pp. Speaking recently to a group of lawyers, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy...

Laboratory Life.(ARCHIVES)(Brief article)(Photograph)
June 22, 2007... Suzanne Anker, who served as moderator for the recent online symposium Visual Culture and Bio-Science, is a visual artist and theorist working with genetic imagery. She is the coauthor of The Molecular Gaze: Art in the Genetic Age (Cold Spring...