The Ongoing Transformation
Fiction can be an important tool to explore complex science and technology questions. Arula Ratnakar discusses how storytelling can help experts and nonexperts alike think through complex issues.
Science Education
Including everyone in science education not only improves the scientific enterprise, but it is essential for the democratization of personal agency in the twenty-first century.
Science Fellows
Lessons from a thriving Sacramento-based program can help similar initiatives improve decisionmaking across the nation.
Science for Policy
A national network of state-based science and technology policy fellows can strengthen the exchange of information between scientists and policymakers.
The David Lecture
As powerful AI tools begin to affect our lives, what should learners and teachers understand in order to use them in ways that are empowering and equitable?
Vol. XLI, No. 3, Spring 2025
Solving the disconnects between science and society will require much more than good ideas and good intentions—it will require the political will to bring the fragmented institutions of science together. Today’s political environment precludes the science community from making its old pitches to Congress; it will need to break old habits, build new bonds at personal, local, and regional levels, and reconsider the way it works.
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In response to essays published in Issues, our readers weigh in on critical topics in policy related to science, technology, and society.
Spring 2025
A Discussion of
Responses By
Spring 2025
A Discussion of
Responses By
A journalist who reports on cities and autonomous vehicles responds to Linda Nagata’s “Ride.”
Response
Jasmine, a hotel worker in a future climate-ravaged Hawaii, is desperate for a change to her monotonous routine. When a guest tells Jasmine about a secret hack to tinker with the taxi-share system the island’s workers rely on, she’s forced to ride with some unusual fellow commuters, who change her mind about what her true destination should be.
The emerging applications of artificial intelligence promise huge social benefits: significant gains in detecting breast cancer that allow radiologists to focus on other patient needs, the deciphering of text inside a 2,000-year-old… Read More
Response
In a future legal system in which the investigators, prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, and juries are all replaced or supervised by artificial intelligence, who can be trusted? And are the contradictions and flaws inherent in human decisionmaking actually an asset?
In a future city complete with vertical farms, rooftop gardens, and no carbon footprint, the city’s survival still depends on regular food deliveries from the outside. What happens when those deliveries suddenly stop showing up?
A food systems and security researcher responds to Charlie Jane Anders’ short story “The Minnesota Diet.”
Response
Climate change, changing migration patterns, and our agriculture system have created a perfect environment for fungal pathogens to thrive.
Illustration by Shonagh Rae During the summer of 2016, in Russia’s arctic Yamal Peninsula, a heat wave resurfaced anthrax bacteria long buried in the permafrost. The bacteria then killed thousands of reindeer… Read More
More equitable approaches to preparation and relief efforts for wildfires and other disasters must include undocumented Latino and Indigenous migrants.
With every heat wave and flood, the failure to translate climate science into insight and action puts the health and well-being of people in vulnerable communities at risk. Intentional partnerships between residents, scientists, government, industry, and philanthropy can fix this disconnect.
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