GLOBAL OUTLOOK
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?
...read more| RECENT COMMENTARIES | FEATURED COMMENTARIES | MOST READ COMMENTARIES |
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A Seismic Crime
Joel E. Cohen Series: Science and Society 2012-02-02The devastating earthquake that hit L'Aquila, Italy in 2009 has sparked a court trial and lingering questions about scientific experts' failures to communicate risk to the public. Scientists around the world have rightly spoken out against the trial in Italy, but will we be ready when the next big earthquake strikes?... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 6978
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Hunting the Higgs
David Kaiser Series: Science and Society 2012-01-05
For 50 years, scientists have searched for a hypothetical particle reminiscent of a bizarre fairytale, but that stands at the center of the “Standard Model” of particle physics. Now, following research conducted at CERN, the sprawling particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, the hunt may soon be over.... read Comments: 3 Recommended: 1 Read: 11429
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Old Methods for New Drugs
David C. Swinney Series: Science and Society 2011-12-02Despite high expectations for the "molecular revolution" in biopharmaceutical research, productivity in developing new drugs has been frustratingly low. As a result, a broad variety of diseases, in both the developed and the developing worlds, are not being treated effectively.... read Comments: 2 Recommended: 0 Read: 8802
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Protecting Nature’s Nomads
Achim Steiner Series: Science and Society 2011-11-08
Human interference with the environment has had a devastating impact on many migratory species. While nature should never be prized merely for its economic value, in a world of competing demands and limited resources, economic considerations can help tip decisions in favor of conservation.... read Comments: 0 Recommended: 0 Read: 5115
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Mengele in America
Donna Dickenson Series: Science and Society 2011-11-02In 1946, American lawyers prosecuted Nazi doctors at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity – so-called “research” carried out on concentration camp prisoners. But, on the other side of the Atlantic, in Guatemala, the US Public Health Service was deliberately infecting prisoners and mental patients with syphilis in another “experiment.”... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 0 Read: 12921
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Human Evolution: No Easy Fix
Ariel Fernandez Series: Science and Society 2011-10-03
Humanity is undeniably complex, and proud of it – no case, we believe, needs to be made for our biological superiority. But we may be doomed as a species precisely because of the way in which our complexity arose.... read Comments: 2 Recommended: 0 Read: 16585
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Einstein the Realist
David Deutsch Series: Science and Society 2011-09-02With the discovery that the universe’s expansion is accelerating, not slowing, as was previously thought, newspaper headlines are proclaiming that Albert Einstein was right, after all. But Einstein's most important legacy is his belief that a physical world, existing in reality, accounts for all of our experience.... read Comments: 4 Recommended: 1 Read: 18024
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Physics Confidential
Tony Rothman Series: Science and Society 2011-08-03
Physicists are justly proud of the many ways that their achievements have benefited humankind. But building a light bulb or a telephone doesn’t mean that you understand its basic principles (Thomas Edison and Alexander Bell certainly didn’t), and many physicists seem to have forgotten that distinction.... read Comments: 5 Recommended: 1 Read: 17913
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A Hundred Years of Superconductivity
Michael Norman Series: Science and Society 2011-07-08This spring marked the 100th anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity – the ability of materials to carry electrical current, often for many years, without measurable decay. Key technologies, like magnetic resonance imaging, already depend on it, but major theoretical challenges remain before the revolution can resume.... read Comments: 1 Recommended: 1 Read: 13640
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