By Stephen J. Pyne Who should control fire on landscapes? It’s an ancient question given new spark by the confrontations at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. The Hammonds,

By Ed Finn We spend an awful lot of time now thinking about what algorithms know about us: the ads we see online, the deep archive of our search history,

By Rhett Larson Humans settle around water, especially in the desert. Indeed, our earliest civilizations developed around desert water bodies like the Nile, Tigris, and Euphrates. With NASA’s recent discovery

By Marga Gual Soler When I finally finished my Ph.D. program after 11 years of training for a research career in the biomedical sciences, I couldn’t help feeling that something

By Heather M. Roff, David Danks, and Joseph H. Danks What if we told you that fighting ISIS could be done cheaply, relatively easily, in a manner that would not

By Ed Finn

By Dan Gillmor In January, James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, will retire after a long career in public service. He’s held a post that carries tremendous influence: running the world’s largest

By Gary Marchant The Supreme Court’s recent 5–4 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalizing same-sex marriage across the United States has already spawned speculation about “what will be next” in expanding marital rights. As the

By Ariel D. Anbar and Dror Ben-Naim Science isn’t about facts. It’s about process. Is Pluto a planet? It seems like a significant scientific question, especially as the New Horizons spacecraft’s encounter with

By Jamie Winterton I trusted it with my most sensitive information. But it didn’t bother securing the data. “Why are you and your spouse divorcing?” The question didn’t surprise me. I’d