Storm-ravaged New Jersey could set off a tempest of its own on Election Day if the state lets constituents vote via e-mail and fax, cautioned a group of legal, technology and election experts during a press conference on Monday. These experts are challenging N.J. Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno’s executive order issued late last week that [...]

How do you know that a real-live human being is behind the past 14 weeks of blog posts exploring the individual questions posed to presidential candidates by ScienceDebate.org? Because people make mistakes. Last week I inadvertently posted the vaccine answers to the analysis about rare earth elements. Thanks to sijodk for politely pointing out the [...]

With just over a week left in this year’s presidential election, all eyes are focused on Ohio, Florida and a few other battleground states. Many of the themes that kept cropping up in this year’s live debates–China, the economy  and regulation–can also be found in the next-to-last of the 14 ScienceDebate questions, on the rare [...]

If you blinked you missed the fact that President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney dealt with a few science issues in the Town Hall debate this week at Hofstra University. So, for a change of pace from our ongoing weekly look at one of  ScienceDebate.org’s 14 questions about the “Top American Science Questions,” I’ve [...]

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 [...]

This week’s look at the ScienceDebate answers provided by Gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama focuses on their replies to a question about the health of our oceans and coastlines. Two areas in particular—declining fisheries and pollution—were highlighted for special consideration. Of course, the oceans also play a major role in driving weather systems [...]

We have passed the halfway point in our weekly examination of the 14 top science questions that President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney need to address as part of their quests to lead the United States for the next four years. Question #8 tackles increasing concerns about the health of the U.S. freshwater supply. [...]

We now have responses to the Top Science Questions facing the US from Governor Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama. So I thought I’d look at some of the specifics in their answers to the next question in our weekly list–number 7, on agriculture and food safety. (For this election-year project, Scientific American partnered with [...]

The Republican platform adopted by the GOP in Tampa this week reaffirmed the party’s commitment to achieving “domestic energy independence.”As it happens, question #6 of the 14 “Top American Science Questions in 2012” deals with exactly this issue. More specifically, the question reads: 6. Energy. Many policymakers and scientists say energy security and sustainability are [...]