New Tools for Science Policy: Using PVM and STIR to connect science and technology to social well-being. Watch the Intro Video above, then check out the STIR and PVM videos. More
After the fourth murder of an Iranian physicist, G. Pascal Zachary looks into the history of government scientists during times of tension.
When scientists go rogue, is assassinating them ever justified?
The answer: it depends.
In the case of Iran’s murdered physicists, someone has decided to draw a bright line – and the reason is whether such a line is justifiable.
Teaching Science Policy With Creative Nonfiction:
Lee Gutkind, CSPO's distinguished writer in residence, describes the creative nonfiction movement and the field’s potential to change public thought in this LiveScience Behind the Scenes article.
Read More
How to Save Americas Knowledge Enterprise:
Science and technology in America have been guided by the same set of ideas for more than half a century. The conventional wisdom is that if we feed more money and more scientists into our existing “knowledge enterprise” complex, society will derive proportionately more benefits. In the face of the global economic downturn, political disarray at the national level, and protracted challenges to the nation’s public health, environmental quality, industrial base, and energy system, this simplistic assumption is long overdue for a reckoning. Today’s challenges demand new ways of thinking about science and technology, and the government’s role in advancing them. The problem, any honest inquiry will suggest, isn’t always money, or the number of scientists, but the very way we do science.
Read More
Beware the creeping cracks of bias:
Evidence is mounting that research is riddled with systematic errors. Left unchecked, this could erode public trust, warns CSPO co-director Daniel Sarewitz in his latest column in NatureRead More
Geoengineering experiment cancelled amid patent row:
A field trial for a novel UK geoengineering experiment has
been cancelled amid questions about a pre-existing patent application
for some of the technology involved.
The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate
Engineering (SPICE) project was intended to investigate the
possibility of spraying particles into the stratosphere to mitigate
global warming. Such particles could mimic the cooling produced by large
volcanic eruptions, by reflecting sunlight before it reaches Earth’s
surface.
Read More
May 15, 2012
Algorithms: The Ever-Growing, All-Knowing Way Of The Future:
If the Industrial Revolution was about extending the power of human
muscle with inventions like the car, then the computer revolution is
about extending the power of the human mind — and algorithms are the key
to its success. These formulas find search results, pick the top story
on the news feed of your Facebook page, and determine things like your
credit score and trades on Wall Street.
Read More
May 14, 2012
Cyber Briefings 'Scare The Bejeezus' Out Of CEOs:
For the CEOs of companies such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, talk of
cyberweapons and cyberwar could have been abstract. But at a classified security
briefing in spring 2010, it suddenly became quite real. "We can turn your computer into a brick," U.S. officials told the startled
executives, according to a participant in the meeting.
Read More
