Issues in Science and Technology

In “A Vision for America’s Next Era in Space” (Issues, Spring 2026), Brian Babin, chairman of the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, gets at the right question for this moment: How does America keep leading in space? Part of the answer is remembering why NASA and space exploration matter so much to our country. At a time when Americans don’t agree on much, NASA still brings people together. Artemis II showed why. It wasn’t just about a spacecraft flying around the Moon.

Issues’ mission is to provide deeply informed, highly accessible, challenging yet constructive contributions to public discussions and democratic decisionmaking around science, technology, policy, and society. We believe these important conversations about building support for policy change can only be had among humans.

Research on rare diseases will get a boost this fall as the philanthropic Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will open another round of grants through the Rare As One Network to study diseases with few or no treatment options. In Issues, Tania Simoncelli examines how this type of research, driven largely by patients and family-led groups alongside the traditional expert-driven research model, is producing faster discoveries and treatments.

Neil Shubin, the new president of the National Academy of Sciences, talks about learning to see as a scientist, leading the Academy during a challenging time, and communicating science in a noisy information landscape.

As artificial intelligence reshapes the labor market, community colleges are a practical engine for training workers at scale to develop the skills and fluency they need to get jobs.

The material published on this site reflects the views of the individual authors only, not the policy or opinion of any institution or organization.

Neil Shubin, the new president of the National Academy of Sciences, talks about learning to see as a scientist, leading the Academy during a challenging time, and communicating science in a noisy information landscape. Renowned evolutionary biologist and new National Academy of Sciences president Neil Shubin is the author of the critically acclaimed book Your Inner Fish.

Vol. , No. , Summer 2026 Table of Contents As robots increasingly become part of the urban landscape, local officials must ensure that they are integrated safely and efficiently. There are a lot of existing rules governing vehicles and devices in cities, but which ones should apply to robots and when should new rules be considered?

The material published on this site reflects the views of the individual authors only, not the policy or opinion of any institution or organization.

On uncovering a specimen of Tiktaalik roseae Illustration by Shonagh Rae. Your time capsule broken open, we breathe in the Devonian, taste on our tongues the dust stirred up from the siltstone relief you’ve become: a jaw’s wreckage, the brittle shroud of scales overlying ribs, your retrofitted fins and their newly crafted wrists, all that once glided through shallows now stone, like some unfortunate victim happening to glance upon a gorgon.