Category: Technology and Society

The publication of the first scholarly book is likened to giving birth to a first child. Springer recently delivered my firstborn–A History of Biophysics in Contemporary China–a truncated monograph from my doctoral dissertation. A History of Biophysics in Contemporary China…

How a lack of imagination in technology keeps the world inaccessible to huge numbers of people.   This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. At noon on Wednesday, March 4,…

United Airlines Flight 173 crashed in Portland, Ore. roughly six miles from the airfield killing two crewmembers, eight passengers and seriously injuring 21 of the 189 people aboard the McDonnell-Douglas DC-8. It was Dec. 28, 1978, when Captain Malburn McBroom…

by Heather Ross, HSD Student The White House’s announcement on Friday that it has Ebola “under control” is patently ridiculous. As we witnessed with the case in Dallas last week, and have been reminded by the failure of a properly…

By Clark A. Miller Even as leader after leader in New York exhorted each other last week to take action to address climate change, a steady drumbeat of news has also highlighted just how rapidly global energy systems are beginning…

By Elisabeth Graffy, Professor of Practice, CSPO and Lightworks Debates about federal carbon control regulations and a solar-energy-induced “death spiral” for electric utilities have been heating up, but along separate tracks. Those two debates have now effectively collided. In retrospect,…

Graduate student Jathan Sadowski interviews law professor on the “right to be forgotten.” There’s a truism among certain circles of analysts and commentators: Technologies usually outpace the laws meant to govern and regulate them. It’s often big news when legislation…

by Aubrey Wigner, a graduate student in Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology   The STGlobal Conference is an annual graduate student-led event for presenting in-process or recently completed research. During our panel titled, “Education and Technology” at…

Jathan Sadowski PhD student in the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes   In her new book, The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Astra Taylor provides a smart, critical look on how the rhetoric…