In late 2019, astronomers across the U.S. began to notice mysterious streaks of light passing through their images—clusters of the private company SpaceX's Starlink satellites. With 955 of these satellites launched so far, founder Elon Musk aims to create a “mega-constellation†of satellites in the low Earth orbit (LEO), designed to provide global broadband Internet
Trees have received a lot of press lately. As wildfires tore through forests worldwide, President Donald Trump blamed the devastation on poor forest management. Meanwhile, the United States formalized a commitment to planting trees to restore our climate. The world's governments and scientists are grappling with how we both protect and manage forests. What should
What if I told you that the source code, or genomes, for many living organisms is available for free online? Would it surprise you? As of today, all genomes created by public funds are accessible to anyone in the world. Anyone with internet access, and a little bit of curiosity, can access tomes of genetic
The year is 2019; the place, your local grocery store. You, the unwary consumer, wander the aisles on your weekly shopping excursion. Reaching for the milk, you hesitate; “non-GMO” is emblazoned across one milk carton. Meanwhile another label holds no such distinction. It does not assure you, the consumer, that its contents are free of
When confronted with the imprecise notion of “sustainability†in agriculture, most people's thoughts drift to ideas of ecologically-mindful land management practices. I'll dub these concepts “the classicsâ€: rotate your crops, use less fertilizer and pesticides, always employ cover cropping. While these ideas are not wrong, they are incomplete in that they tend to omit some
The “salt wars” have been raging for decades, with medical science still embroiled over whether there is a direct link between sodium consumption and heart disease. Last year, a group of researchers published an editorial in an American Heart Association journal proposing a way to finally get to the bottom of this; in the process,
“Here are no lofty peaks seeking the sky, no mighty glaciers or rushing streams wearing away the uplifted land. Here is land, tranquil in its quiet beauty, serving not as the source of water, but as the last receiver of it. To its natural abundance we owe the spectacular plant and animal life that distinguishes
As dust settles in the wake of the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal, people around the world are rapidly awakening to the power and value of their personal data. Information collected through social media about your favorite music or your choices on an online quiz contributes to an ever-growing mass of data about you that
Infrastructure development is a major issue in many countries of the developing world. Countries with developing economies often suffer from a negative balance of trade and weak institutions, making lenders unwilling to lend. Governments of these countries are forced to borrow with heavy interest rates, further increasing budget deficits. This cyclical economic problem
The start of the 2018 hurricane season and recent presidential controversy have brought hurricanes back into the public eye. The first major hurricane of the 2018 season, Hurricane Florence, made landfall the morning of Friday, September 14th on the Atlantic coast of the Carolinas. To date, Florence has caused an estimated $38 to $50 billion
This article is part of an opinion editorial series on topics under the umbrella of Social Insurance. Topics have been chosen based on common gaps in knowledge of Social Insurance. Part 1 of this series is on the topic of the social safety net and some groups that fall through its holes. The social safety
With the technology introduction of the personal assistant Siri and the promise of a completely self-driving car from Tesla soon, artificial intelligence (AI) is radically changing the modern world. AI is an umbrella term to describe advancements that allow machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs, and perform human-like tasks. AI learns and
