Issues in Science and Technology articles from September 2008

Issues in Science and Technology archives from September 2008

The education people need.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2008... Brian Bosworth's "The Crisis in Adult Education" (Issues, Summer 2008) could not be timelier for U.S. community colleges. As the nation's current economic problems intensify, increasing numbers of adults are returning to community colleges to...

Prison policy reform.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2008... In "Fixing the Parole System" (Issues, Summer 2008), Mark A. R. Kleiman and Angela Hawken correctly note that incarceration has become an overused and hugely expansive state activity during the past generation. Controlling for changes in...

Thinking about energy.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2008... Senator Jeff Bingaman is right ("Strategies for Today's Energy Challenge," Issues, Summer 2008). The key to addressing climate change and future energy supplies is technology. We'll need new energy technologies and new ways of using traditional...

What is science policy?(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2008... Irwin Feller and Susan Cozzens, both nationally recognized science policy scholars, have hit the nail on the head with their appropriately scathing critique of U.S. science policy entitled "It's About More Than Money" (Issues, Summer 2008). The...

Science and democracy.(FORUM)(Letter to the editor)
September 22, 2008... In "Research Funding via Direct Democracy: Is It Good for Science?" (Issues, Summer 2008), Donna Gerardi Riordan provides a timely, cogent case study of the "be careful what you wish for" brand of risk-taking that comes with merging science...

Progress on 2009 budget stalled.(FROM THE HILL)
September 22, 2008... Congress adjourned for its August recess having made little progress on appropriations for fiscal year (FY) 2009, which begins October 1. None of the 12 appropriations bills had been passed by both the House and Senate, although the House...

Consumer product safety changes approved.(FROM THE HILL)(Brief article)
September 22, 2008... Despite a packed legislative calendar and industry opposition, the House and Senate passed the Consumer Product Safety Modernization Act just before the August recess. The bill, signed into law on August 14, updates product standards,...

Higher Education Act reauthorized.(FROM THE HILL)
September 22, 2008... After six years of work and stalemate, Congress in late July finally reauthorized the Higher Education Opportunity Act, a cornerstone piece of legislation with the primary function of authorizing spending for a variety of higher education...

EPA delays decision on regulating greenhouse gases.(FROM THE HILL)(Environmental Protection Agency)
September 22, 2008... The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has effectively delayed until the next administration any decision on whether greenhouse gases must be regulated under the authority of the Clean Air Act. Although the Bush administration has long...

Yucca Mountain's future examined.(FROM THE HILL)
September 22, 2008... In the wake of the Department of Energy's (DOE's) submittal in June 2008 of an 8,600-page application for the licensing of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Energy and Air Quality...

Questions that blur political party lines.(EDITOR'S JOURNAL)
September 22, 2008... Presidential election season is not the best time to be a policy wonk. Seminars at Harvard's Kennedy School or colloquia at the National Academy of Sciences can feel like exercises in the theater of the absurd when voters seem eager to turn the...

Be careful what you wish for: a cautionary tale about budget doubling.(PERSPECTIVES)
September 22, 2008... Sometime in the near future, with timing dependent on the economy, the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other competing demands for government money, Congress will substantially boost R&D spending. It will do so in response to the...

Reexamining the patent system.(PERSPECTIVES)
September 22, 2008... Is the patent system working? It depends on whom you ask. Which industry, upstream or downstream firms, public companies or small inventors? Opinions are plentiful, but answers supported by data are few. The patent system is at the heart of the...

Restructuring the military: U.S. armed forces are unmatched on the conventional battlefield but far less prepared to deal with the emerging irregular or nontraditional challenges they are most likely to confront in the years ahead.(MILITARY RESTRUCTURING)
September 22, 2008... After more than five years of war in Iraq and almost seven in Afghanistan, the U.S. military is facing a crisis not seen since the end of the Vietnam War. Equipment shortages, manpower shortfalls, recruiting and retention problems, and...

Reducing proliferation risk: the coming expansion of nuclear power can be a security as well as an environmental blessing, but only if it comes without a great increase in the risk of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.(NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION)
September 22, 2008... The use of nuclear energy to produce electricity is expanding worldwide, and as it does the danger that nuclear weapons will also be developed is increasing as well. Historically, most of the nuclear power industry has been concentrated in the...

A national renewable portfolio standard? Not practical: legislation that mandates specified electricity production from renewable sources paves a path to costly mistakes because it excludes other sources that can meet the country's goals.(RENEWABLE PORTFOLIO STANDARD)
September 22, 2008... A discussion of renewable energy seems to addle the brains of many sensible people, leading them to propose policies that are bad engineering and science or have a foundation in yearning for utopia. For example, Michael Bloomberg, self-made...

Strengthening the global environmental treaty system: despite the huge media attention environmental treaties receive, the system of making and implementing them is barely functioning.(ENVIRONMENTAL TREATIES)
September 22, 2008... The global environmental treaty-making system--the set of mechanisms by which countries fashion agreements to promote more sustainable development--is not working very well. More than 400 multilateral agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol on...

Third-generation biotechnology a first look: the development of new techniques in pest control should spur regulators to launch a rigorous examination of the ethical, legal, and social implications.(BIOTECHNOLOGY)
September 22, 2008... In May 2008, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published a draft environmental impact statement for the use of genetically engineered fruit flies and pink bollworms in plant pest control programs. According to the statement, the...

Creating a National Innovation Foundation: in this blueprint, the foundation would build on the few federal programs that already promote innovation and borrow the best public policy ideas from other nations.(INNOVATION)
September 22, 2008... The issue of economic growth is on the public agenda in this election year in a way that it has not been for at least 15 years. Policymakers have thus far been preoccupied with providing a short-term economic stimulus to counteract the economic...

Science, technology, and global reengagement: in a world in which global concerns are becoming more prominent and the role of science and technology more+ critical, U.S. leaders must pay more attention to the interplay of these two domains.(GLOBAL REENGAGEMENT)
September 22, 2008... The new administration should move quickly to give science and technology (S&T) a prominent role in foreign policy. Historic shifts are under way in S&T capabilities around the globe. Those shifts create unprecedented opportunities for...

Predicting the future.(Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next Fifty Years)(Book review)
September 22, 2008... Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next Fifty Years by Vaclav Smil. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008, 295 pp. Predicting the future of the global human community often seems to be a fool's errand. The track record of futurism is...

Marlyn.(ARCHIVES)(artwork by Dennis Ashbaugh)(Brief article)
September 22, 2008... Dennis Ashbaugh was among the first contemporary artists to incorporate genetic imagery into his work. His large-scale paintings based on autoradiographs fuse the traditions of abstract art with cutting-edge scientific imaging technology. He is...