Science Policy
Factory Meat and Designer Food: Soon at a Store Near You?
Policy makers must grapple with the social implications and governance issues surrounding emerging technologies. The August 5, 2013 introduction of the first factory hamburger, made from stem...
Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now
In his latest book, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, leading media theorist Douglas Rushkoff argues that the dissonance between our digital selves and our analog bodies has thrown us...
Design Thinking, Sustainability and the Future City
The perceived future impacts of emerging technologies, including nanotechnology, hinge largely on the conventional risk-benefit paradigm. This paradigm oversimplifies the complexity and inter-...
Steve Coll discusses his book "Private Empire"
New America Foundation President Steve Coll and Nicholas Thompson, Future Tense fellow and Editor of NewYorker.com, discuss Coll's book "Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power...
Ethics and the New Engineer
Reports from the National Academy of Engineering have visualized The Engineer of 2020 (2004) and delineated Grand Challenges for Engineering (2008). The reports fall short, however, on plotting a...
Technology and Development in a Conflict Zone: War as a Prioritizing Tool
What we now refer to as "development" really began in a systematic way after World War II. The victors had a variety of pressures to address, the most fearsome being the threat of yet another...
The Challenge of Path Dependency and the Need for Anticipatory Governance
Many experts argue that we need to change a number of our large technological systems in order to adapt to the increasing number of challenges our society faces. There are questions about the...
Designing Transitions in Energy Systems: The Human Dimensions
Energy systems are changing rapidly around the world, with increasingly deep consequences for society, the economy, and geopolitics. These transitions demand a new approach to energy policy that...
Space Exploration: How and Why
The American adventure in space is at a crossroads. During a generation of unprecedented exploration, we sent humans to the moon, peered into deepest space to understand the dawn of the Universe,...
Creative Nonfiction/Narrative: Forging a Working Bond between Next Generation Science Communicators and Next Generation Science Policy Scholars
Communicating science to the general public is difficult. But communicating science policy creates even more complexity and challenge for many reasons including the public's incomplete...
Development Orthodoxy in the Himalayas: A Case of Persistent Policy Failure in Agriculture
In an era of globalization and environmental uncertainty, improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers has become a high priority in agricultural development agenda of policy makers. Yet,...
Climate of Uncertainty: Civil Scenarios for Decision Making
Wicked problems like climate change stress both our ordinary sense-making capacities and our most sophisticated policy tools. While there is overwhelming consensus in the climate science community...