Issues in Science and Technology articles from June 2008

Issues in Science and Technology archives from June 2008

Controlling health care costs.(FORUM)
June 22, 2008... Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, "These are my politics: to change what we can; to better what we can." Health care in the 21st century requires a change from old ways of thinking and doing business to better the lives of all Americans. The...

Design and the Elastic Mind.
June 22, 2008... The imagery featured in this edition of issues in Science and Technology is from the exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind, which was on view at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from February 24 through May 12,2008. Organized by Paola...

Middle East economics.(FORUM)
June 22, 2008... Howard Pack's analysis of East Asia's economic successes rings true ("Asian Successes vs. Middle Eastern Failures: The Role of Technology Transfer in Economic Development," Issues, Spring 2008). The importance placed on education; stable...

Homeland security research.(FORUM)
June 22, 2008... "The R&D Future of Intelligence" by Bruce Berkowitz (Issues, Spring 2008) accurately portrays many of the significant technology-related challenges--and opportunities--confronting the intelligence community today and suggests four pragmatic...

Nuclear safeguards.(FORUM)
June 22, 2008... In "Strengthening Nuclear Safeguards" (Issues, Spring 2008), among the five factors considered by Charles D. Ferguson to explain why the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is confronting a crisis in its ability to detect undeclared...

Protecting migration routes.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2008... Almost all birdwatchers in the United States who have been actively involved in their hobby for more than a decade probably have the sense that there are now fewer migratory birds than there were when they first began birding. In fact, one...

Reforming medical liability.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
June 22, 2008... Frank Sloan and Lindsey Chepke are to be commended for calling attention to fundamental problems in America's medical liability system ("From Medical Malpractice to Quality Assurance," Issues, Spring 2008). The existing system compensates few...

Ammar Eloueini.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... AEDS Ammar Eloueini Digit-all Studio Eloueni describes this as "one chair with an infinite series of possibilities." The chair starts out in the computer as an ever-changing animated character. Its evolution can be "paused" at any stage...

Susana Soares.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Design Interactions Department, Royal College of Art, UK Genetic Trace imagines a future in which people will be equipped with specially designed organs that will act as perception enhancers, allowing them to collect genetic material from...

Bush signs genetic nondiscrimination bill.(FROM THE HILL)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... On May 21, President Bush signed a bill that bans health insurers and employers from discriminating against anyone whose genetic information shows a predisposition to illnesses such as cancer or heart disease. The Genetic Information...

Possible political interference at the EPA investigated.(FROM THE HILL)
June 22, 2008... On May 7, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's Subcommittee on Public Sector Solutions to Global Warming, Oversight, and Children's Health Protection held a hearing on the scientific integrity of the Environmental Protection...

Bill introduced to close FACA "loopholes".(FROM THE HILL)(Federal Advisory Committee Act)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Two House members have introduced legislation aimed at closing "loopholes" in the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA). The bill was introduced by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and...

Climate impact on oceans examined.(FROM THE HILL)
June 22, 2008... On April 29, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on the impact of climate change on the world's oceans, a relatively new topic of exploration for the nation's policy-makers. The four scientific...

The Path Not Studied.(EDITOR'S JOURNAL)
June 22, 2008... Corporate executives, elected officials, political analysts, leading academics, and the rest of the national elite have formed a chorus of voices proclaiming the value of more and better education for all Americans. The message to the nation,...

Research funding via direct democracy: is it good for science?(PERSPECTIVES)
June 22, 2008... On November 2, 2004, California voters passed the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Bond Act of 2004, popularly known as Prop 71. Its purpose and intent was to, among other things: * "Protect and benefit the California budget:... by...

It's about more than money.(PERSPECTIVES)
June 22, 2008... Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger's call for a new science of science policy has led the National Science Foundation to initiate a program to support the development of more rigorous empirical and theoretical foundations for...

Strategies for Today's energy challenge: developing new energy sources provides an economic and technological opportunity for the United States.
June 22, 2008... The energy challenge the United States faces today is different from and more encompassing than what it encountered even a few years ago. Until fairly recently, at least in Washington, the energy challenge was seen largely as the need to reduce...

Samuel Cabot Cochran and Benjamin wheeler howes.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology, LLC GROW, a hybrid energy delivery device, was inspired by ivy. Its "leaves" are flexible photovoltaic panels that generate solar power; their fluttering generates wind power. The designers utilize...

A new Manhattan project for clean energy independence: the United States must marshal its resources and talent to tackle the challenge of coping with climate change.
June 22, 2008... In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Sen. Kenneth McKellar, the Tennessean who chaired the Appropriations Committee, to hide $2 billion in the appropriations bill for a secret project to win World War II. Sen. McKellar replied,...

Philips Research laboratories, the Netherlands FEI Company, USA.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... FEI specializes in nanotechnology equipment, including the scanning electron microscopes that Holthuysen used to take these pictures. Since conventional light microscopes'resolving power starts declining after magnifications of two...

Robert J. Lang.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Origami has come a long way since the days of folding cranes from single squares of paper. One key has been the evolution of written instructions that compress hundreds of creases into a single diagram. Robert J. Lang, a U.S. physicist, has...

Fixing the parole system: a system relying on swiftness and certainty of punishment rather than on severity would result in less crime and fewer people in prison.
June 22, 2008... About 600,000 felons will be released from prison this year in the United States and begin some form of official supervision, usually parole. But the nation's system for managing them in the community is inept. Turning this situation around...

Neri Oxman.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Massachusetts Institute of Technology Oxman, an architect, established Materialecology to undertake interdisciplinary research in the intersection between architecture, engineering, computation, and ecology. Architects are currently...

Julius Popp.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Hochschule fur Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig Popp uses drips of water to create a waterfall of words and images. A horizontal module with computer-controlled valves hung from the ceiling releases droplets at precise times to form...

Oded Ezer.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Typosperma, the second experimental project in Oded Ezer's Biotypography series, are cloned sperm with typographic information implanted into their DNA. These fantastical creatures literally embody the dream of design and science coming...

Community colleges under stress: publicly funded two-year colleges are facing daunting challenges in dealing with surging enrollments of disadvantaged and unprepared students.
June 22, 2008... It is now generally recognized that a high-school degree is no longer sufficient to achieve a family-supporting income in today's society. Society is increasingly divided by income, and income is highly correlated with education, with higher...

Young Hyun.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis, San Diego Supercomputer Center, University of California, San Diego In mathematics and computer science, a graph is a set of points or nodes connected by lines that can be considered...

Fernanda Bertini Viegas and Martin Wattenberg.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... History Flow presents visualizations of the flow of editing that takes piace on all Wikipedia entries. Taking advantage of Wikipedia's free access to the complex layers of every entry's contributing history, History Flow maps the -entire...

Schools of dreams more education is not an economic elixir: no compelling evidence exists for the thesis that giving people more formal academic education will result in a restructuring of jobs and increased productivity and growth in the economy at large.
June 22, 2008... The idea that education is the key to economic success is widely and rightly popular--for individuals. A person who makes it through high school, then college, and then graduate school is likely to enjoy increased earning power with each new...

Joris Laarman.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... The International Development Center at Adam Opel GmbH, General Motors' German subsidiary, has developed a 3-D optimization software that mimics biological growth and applies its rules to objects of all kinds. Originally designed for automotive...

Building a wider skills net for workers: a range of skills beyond conventional schooling are critical to success in the job market, and new educational approaches should reflect these noncognitive skills and occupational qualifications.
June 22, 2008... The skills of workers in the United States are critical to their own economic performance as well as to that of society at large. But today, despite the nations generally healthy economic growth in recent decades, workers face serious...

Partnership pays off.
June 22, 2008... When General Motors (GM) decided to build a new transmission manufacturing plant in Baltimore, Maryland, the company immediately sought a partner to address its training needs. The company faced the huge challenge of developing and implementing...

Felice Frankel.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Harvard University Frankel is a science photographer whose rigorous manipulation of images is akin to a design gesture. By tweaking colors and backgrounds, she achieves a level of clarity that highlights the sublime design found at the...

The crisis in adult education; Education is a key factor in fueling economic growth, but the educational attainment of our workers is slipping badly. New strategies are needed to help undereducated adults.
June 22, 2008... During the past several decades, a dramatic increase in the educational attainment of the U.S. labor force has helped boost worker productivity and fuel national economic growth. However, the demographic forces that produced this increase have...

Barrett Lyon.(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... The Opte Project This open-source and free project, which has not been updated since 2005, was initiated by engineer Barrett Lyon with the goal of making visual representations of metaphysical spaces. "The data represented and collected...

Connecting jobs to education.(REAL NUMBERS)
June 22, 2008... Contrary to popular opinion, attaining at least a bachelors degree is not the only, nor in all cases the best, route to success. Nor is it the norm. Most jobs do not require a bachelor's degree for entry, and most Americans--including most...

College admissions and exclusions.(BOOKS)(The Conditions for Admission: Access Equity and the Social Contract of Public Universities)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Conditions for Admission: Access Equity and the Social Contract of Public Universities by John Aubrey Douglass, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007, 352 pp. A nation's competitiveness in a global knowledge-based economy...

Achieving space security.(BOOKS)(Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance, The Politics of Space Security: Strategic Restraint and the Pursuit of National Interests)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... Twilight War: The Folly of U.S. Space Dominance by Mike Moore. Oakland, CA: The Independent Institute, 2008, 416 pp. The Politics of Space Security: Strategic Restraint and the Pursuit of National Interests by James Clay Moltz....

Can science policy advice be disinterested?(BOOKS)(The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics)(Book review)
June 22, 2008... The Honest Broker: Making sense of science in policy and politics. by Roger A. Pielke Jr. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 198pp. The Honest Broker by Roger A. Pielke Jr., an environmental studies professor at the...

Carcere VII, the drawbridge, after Piranesi.(ARCHIVES)(Brief article)
June 22, 2008... Brazilian-born artist Vik Muniz, who often uses common but ephemeral materials, meticulously recreated etchings from Giovanni Battista Piranesi's (1720-1778) prison series using metal pins and thread. By presenting installation photographs of...