As a journalist and a health advocate, I have a professional interest in health care reform. But as the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act this week, I had a personal interest as well. Last fall, after three decades as a salaried employee with health benefits, I became a self-employed consultant with none. And [...]

Last week President Obama signed a sweeping aviation bill that, among other things, will open the skies to “unmanned aircraft systems,” more commonly known as drones. Much of the discussion regarding the coming era of domestic drones has been focused on the many important questions regarding their use at low altitudes. To what extent will [...]

The Future of Water: A Startling Look Ahead, by Steve Maxwell, with Scott Yates, Published in 2011 by the American Water Works Association, Denver Colo., ISBN 978-1-58321-809-9 Full disclosure: I answered an open e-mail solicitation for reviewers of this new book and received a review copy for free in exchange for my promise of a [...]

"Regardless of Russia’s actions in this regard, as long as I am president, and as long as the Congress provides the necessary funding, the United States will continue to develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect the United States, our deployed forces, and our allies and partners". So said President Barack Obama in a [...]

In Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, he intoned: ” For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change. … If Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will.” Now the president’s science advisors, a group known as PCAST for President’s Council of Advisors [...]

No matter who is elected president of the United States on November 6, there are bound to be new cuts to next year’s federal budget. The question is whether they will be really really big or just sort of big. Congress can avoid the really, really big (and semi-random) cuts during its lame-duck session between [...]

Somebody please ask Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama to talk about climate change at the next debate for crying out loud! Or what to do about growing fresh water shortages or protecting the Internet or addressing any of the other fundamental challenges the U.S. faces in the coming years that are based on [...]

Mitt Romney wants to fund energy research and development, but not the “green energy” research that Barack Obama has favored. That’s the clear takeaway from his answers to the 14 questions posed to the two candidates by Scientific American and ScienceDebate.org. In his answer to the question on “Research and the Future” Romney writes: I [...]

SANTA BARBARA—Physics has always been one of the most globalized of professions. Physicists think of themselves as supranational, rising above national and cultural concerns. They may not always live up to this ideal, but at least they try. I got a glimpse of this as a college student in 1987 when I spent my spring [...]

AUSTIN, Texas—Just two companies—Verizon Wireless and AT&T—control 60 percent of the U.S. wireless market. Four companies control 90 percent. A thriving marketplace this is not. And while the lack of competition partly explains why cell phone service in the U.S. is slower, less reliable and more expensive than in other developed countries, a perhaps more [...]

The English version of Wikipedia may have gone black in a one-day protest, but SOPA isn’t going away. U.S. Representative Lamar Smith (R-Texas), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and one of the sponsors of the House version of the Stop Online Privacy Act, announced January 17 that he expected the committee to restart work [...]

“The brain holds on to false facts, even after they have been retracted” —Valerie Ross, “Lingering Lies: The Persistent Influence of Misinformation,” Scientific American MIND, July 2011 Lingering lies and entirely false scientific statements sometimes make a bigger impact on the public, policy, elections and scientific practice than do the facts themselves. How often have [...]

President Obama spent some time on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on Thursday to promote his administration’s National Wireless Initiative, a project first mentioned in last month’s State of the Union address to make available high-speed wireless services to at least 98 percent of U.S. residents. The president’s speech at Northern Michigan University in Marquette revealed few [...]

President Obama made several references to the development of high-speed railways in the U.S., during his State of the Union Address, and stated that one of his administration’s goals is to, within 25 years, "give 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail." In support of this goal—which would go a long way toward alleviating [...]