MIND AND MATTER
Science and Society
Will cloning produce armies of Einsteins or reduce mankind to Aldous Huxley’s proletarian slaves? Are genetically modified seeds and animals a source of future plenty, or Frankenstein foods poised to haunt us? Will technology and the Internet make totalitarianism a fading memory or provide future tyrants with the means to end our privacy? Does science promise more equality or will it widen the gap between the world’s haves and have-nots? Where, indeed, is today’s scientific revolution heading?
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The Mind’s New Eye
Frank Wilczek Series: Science and Society 2010-03-05The Large Hadron Collider's ability to re-create the conditions of the early universe opens up an exciting possibility. We may finally be able to observe the so-called "dark matter," which contributes five times as much to the total mass of the universe as normal matter.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 1 Read: 2786
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Tabloid Climate Science
Prem Shankar Jha Series: Science and Society 2010-02-11
The supposed news that the Himalayan glaciers are not, in fact, retreating has given climate-change skeptics yet another weapon with which to impugn an entire body of important science. What the sensationalist media coverage has missed, however, is that, while many Himalayan glaciers have all but stopped retreating, the vast majority are still shrinking.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 1 Read: 2520
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The Politics of Cosmic Catastrophe
Richard Weitz Series: Science and Society 2010-02-05One weighty decision that the world will need to make in 2010 is whether to support an idea raised by Anatoly Perminov, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, to launch an unmanned mission to redirect a large asteroid that might collide with the earth after 2030. But who decides, and how?... read Comments: 2 Recommended: 1 Read: 3817
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The Wild West of Electronic Waste
Oladele A. Ogunseitan Series: Science and Society 2010-01-06
For more than a decade, the precious metallic component of discarded electronic devices has been fueling a polarized international trade in potentially hazardous materials. In countries where labor is cheap, the prospect of recovering trace amounts of gold or platinum entices communities to discount heavily the toxic risks and health effects of chronic exposure.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 1 Read: 4336
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The Scientific Road to Copenhagen
Stefan Rahmstorf Series: Science and Society 2009-12-01Political disagreements may well block a global climate-change agreement in Copenhagen, but the science, unfortunately has never been in doubt. Since the French genius Joseph Fourier discovered the "greenhouse effect" in 1824, scientists have proven, step by step, that an increasing concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is accelerating the pace of global warming.... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 1 Read: 4779
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Going to the Dogs
Clive D. L. Wynne Series: Science and Society 
2009-11-05
There are about 70 million dogs living in human homes in the US – 10 million more dogs than children under the age of 15 – and the pattern in other Western nations is similar. Dogs have achieved such an intimate position in our lives – roughly 40% of house dogs are allowed to sleep on their owners’ beds – because they are remarkably sensitive to human behavior and ways of thinking.... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 2 Read: 6084
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Sustainable Cities
David Owen Series: Science and Society 2009-10-05To most people, big, densely-populated cities look like ecological nightmares, wastelands of concrete and garbage and diesel fumes and traffic jams. But, compared to other inhabited places, cities are models of environmental responsibility.... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 1 Read: 6053
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Fighting Biopiracy
Silvia Ribeiro and Kathy Jo Wetter Series: Science and Society 2009-09-04
For more than six years, one man, a US citizen named Larry Proctor, held a monopoly on a yellow bean that had been in the public domain for centuries and is consumed throughout Mexico. His behavior, enabled by the US patent authorities, caused untold misery for Mexican farmers and exporters, and calls attnetion to many more similar cases.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 7748
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The Key to Ending Hunger
Thomas Hager Series: Science and Society 2009-07-31EUGENE, OREGON – The recent news that two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese – and the number continues to grow – brings to mind a question that has bothered me since the 1970’s: Why aren’t we all starving? ... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 6277
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