Science & Society

Another Fourth of July is here, the time for backyard barbecues, picnics, cookouts, parades, swimming and fireworks. One of those Independence Day pastimes, however, stands apart: fireworks. They’re a somewhat controversial topic in the US and are covered by a patchwork of different laws. Delaware, Massachusetts and New Jersey all ban any kind of consumer use of fireworks. Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Ohio and Vermont permit sparklers and other novelty devices. Arizona permits the sale of novelty fireworks but not sparklers. New York allows fireworks in 31 counties, but not in New York City.…

Few in the English-speaking world (and even the non-English-speaking world) are unfamiliar with Alice and her encounters with nonsense and play in Wonderland, whether through the original texts, or their many adaptations. Alice has walked across pages, stages, and screens; she is playable and played. This timeless text speaks to all - adult, child, reader and player. The adaptability of Lewis Carroll’s language, the openness of its story world and the malleable nature of Alice’s character all beckon us to return to Wonderland in its many different guises. From its publication in 1865,…

A federal preschool program did more than improve educational opportunities for poor children in Mississippi during the 1960s - it created activists.  A key provision of the federal Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and federal anti-poverty programs was aimed at empowering the poor and reducing black disenfranchisement in the south, according to Crystal Sanders, an assistant professor of history and African American studies at Penn State University. Sanders said that Title II of the act created the Community Action Program that would be operated with "maximum feasible participation" by…

The Shackled Man hypothesis rightly notes that if two people are running a race, and one has leg irons on, the shackled person is going to perform poorly. 50 yards into the race, if we remove the leg irons, claiming that everyone now has an equal chance to win is silly.  For that reason, affirmative action when it came to college admissions made perfect sense two generations ago. We know there was institutional racism and we knew it would take time to cure (racists had to retire or die off, and each generation would be less bigoted, but that doesn't happen right away) so giving a…

Government-funded science spends a lot of money promoting the idea that only government-funded science is real science, even though almost 60 percent of basic research and almost 100 percent of applied research is done by the private sector. It has worked. When people picture a hard science like physics, they picture a university-based lab. In reality, physicists often leave academia for jobs in the private sector, pursuing careers that are traditionally not tracked in workforce surveys of the physics field. Investment banking loves people who can create models that may translate to the…

The catalogue of the Johannesburg Public Library in South Africa contains a poignant entry – “Biko, Steve. Long 0verdue”. The entry refers to I Write What I Like, a volume of collected writings by Steve Biko, the Black Consciousness leader tortured to death in police custody in 1977. The library used to have six copies of the volume but they have all been borrowed and never returned. Pirates of the book world Other public libraries in Gauteng, one of South Africa nine provinces and its economic hub, have similar stories to tell. Their copies of Biko have long been kidnapped.…

Over nine years ago, I had launched the Science 2.0 movement and over eight years ago, this site, the communications pillar of Science 2.0, was launched. It didn't take long to find evidence of a problem that I hadn't really considered. The movement was about modernizing 'science', and that meant making collaboration and communication and publication and participation realistic in the 21st century. But in 2005, when I was thinking about this, I wasn't thinking about people as much as the institution. Academic science seemed more like small businesses - small groups at universities were paying…

Now that most colleges and universities have completed their spring semesters, course instructors are opening up sealed manila envelopes, all over the country, to read their teaching evaluations. And, like each year, what they’ll find has been pervasively slanted by gender bias. As a professor, a member of the academy and a woman, I am deeply concerned about the professional and societal consequences of such bias. I’ve taught at four different institutions since 1996, full-time since 2004. I’ve read some of the research on gender bias in course evaluations, heard shocking stories from…

21 states have opted not to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), arguing that the expansion would be too expensive. And since California had to convince taxpayers with a state government mandate to remain revenue neutral on the program, based on promises by Democrats in Washington, D.C., and are looking at an $80 million deficit the moment Federal subsidies expire, it seems like those 21 states are right. But economists at Northwestern University and Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health argue that  the cost to hospitals from uncompensated care in those…

Renewable energy targets mandates and subsidies now in place in 164 countries powered the growth of solar, wind and other green technologies to record-breaking energy generation capacity in 2014. So to advocates that means CO2 emissions and growth do not have to go hand-in-hand. To critics, the fact that these alternative energy schemes only work when there are mandates and subsidies means fossil fuels should be cleaner, not eliminated. According to REN21's latest Renewables Global Status Report, policymakers continued to focus on adapting existing policies to keep pace with rapidly changing…