top story in July-August 2009
Pay, Baby, Pay
Before the U.S. responds to “drill, baby, drill” campaign rhetoric with more offshore energy exploration, it should revise Reagan-era leasing and royalty rules that cost the Treasury billions.
Today’s Threat Level: Yellow, With a Chance of Phlegm
Miller-McCune magazine highlights current research that merits a raised eyebrow or a painful grin.
Everybody Into the … Um, Never Mind
Miller-McCune decides to wade into some recent studies regarding the summer season’s most popular yet problematic recreational facilities: swimming pools.
Freeze! You’re Under Examination
Making sure people get health care when they leave prison saves taxpayer money and protects public health. It may even help them stay out of prison.
A Flower Grows in West Africa
Are Liberia’s new steel and rubber concessions a sign of reform — or the exception that proves corruption still rules in resource-rich countries?
Germany’s Fine Failure
Feed-in tariffs grow green power but may fall victim to energy politics, German-style.
Perfect Quiet
Searching for refuge — and, perhaps, health — in a sickeningly loud world.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of eBay
The digital revolution lets antiquities forgers sell their ‘replicas’ worldwide, unintentionally undermining the black market in looted artifacts.
Solar System
Francisco DeVries invents a financing mechanism that makes rooftop solar affordable in Berkeley and other cities across California.
archive
The Science of Good Government
The Obama administration talks a lot about making policy based on evidence rather than politics. A basic question remains unanswered: Which evidence?
The End of Impunity?
An upcoming PBS documentary shows how the International Criminal Court is changing the world’s approach to crimes against humanity.
Keystone Cops at the Police Lab
Compromised crime laboratories are a national scandal that can’t be set straight until the labs are independent of law enforcement.
Iran: From Axis to Ally?
A new book says that Iran’s leadership is opportunistic, not evil, and therefore open to imaginative American policy initiatives.
May It Diminish the Court
Hyperbolic attack ads from advocacy groups have diminished the popular esteem of the U.S. Supreme Court in the past, so as the campaign to place Sonia Sotomayor fires up, a little restraint is in order.
The Morals of Our Story
Our correspondents illustrate the difficulty of bringing left and right together.
Partisan Portfolios
You’d be surprised to see what congressional Democrats and Republicans own.
Racism’s Hidden Toll
Does the stress of living in a white-dominated society make African Americans get sick and die younger than their white counterparts? Apparently, yes.
related to July-August 2009
politics
- No Way Out: Exiting Afghanistan and Iraq
- Taking Liberties Back From the Patriot Act
- Terrorist Attacks on Railroads Would Be Difficult
- High-Speed Rail’s Weak Link Is Security
- Bin Laden Is Dead: A Study on Violence After the Demise of Previous Terrorists
business
- Private Prisons Can’t Lock In Savings
- A Masterful Look at Anti-Apartheid
- Jimmy Carter Wants to Finish Off Guinea Worm
- No Way Out: Exiting Afghanistan and Iraq
- Greece, North Africa Promote Their Solar Projects
science
- The Physics of Terror
- Petroleum Engineering Shows U.S. Students’ Hidden Prowess
- Debunking Theories of a Terrorist Power Grab
- Kisaalita Engineers Solutions for Africa’s Rural Poor
- Bad-Rap Eddy
culture
media
- ‘If a Tree Falls’ Revisits the Earth Liberation Front
- Battleground Cyberspace
- Apparently Not a Journalistic Terrorist After All
- Equipping Women Journalists In Kenya
- iPhone App Puts Your Sneezes on the Map
legal affairs
- Lee Baca Wants to Educate L.A.’s Prisoners
- A Smarter Way to Deal With Drug Offenders
- ‘Shooting Galleries’ Take Aim at Illicit Drug Market
- Convict Commodification
- Why Victims Face the Criminals Who Hurt Them
environment
- Greece, North Africa Promote Their Solar Projects
- Profile: Reddy Stayed Steady During Gulf Oil Spill
- A Penny-a-Gallon Gas Tax?
- The Human Causes of Unnatural Disaster
- Native Environmentalism and the Alberta Oil Boom
health
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from the source
Gender Wage Gap Skewed By Survey Flaws
The wage gap between the sexes in America has been closing much faster than anyone realized, but that’s tempered by learning it’s been much wider than measurements had shown.
‘Orcas as Slaves’ Argument Sinks
An effort to identify five performing orcas as slaves failed in part, argues one scholar, because there’s no legal precedent establishing them as persons.
The Perceived Delicacy of the Female Conductor
New research finds listeners judge symphonic music differently when they’re told the conductor is a woman.
House Puts Transportation in Partisan Crossfire
Transportation used to be one of the few guaranteed areas of agreement when ideology trumped pragmatism in D.C. But that’s no longer the case.
Pressure to Conform Can Inspire Creativity
New research suggests less-creative people do more innovative thinking when they are told individualism is the norm, and instructed to conform.
Better Super Bowl Makes for Better Ads
A lot of people say they watch the Super Bowl mostly for the ads. But it turns out a good game surrounding those ads makes them seem better.
Overseas Troops Finally Get Fair Shot at Voting
After decades of obstacles hindering the voting process, new laws will allow overseas and military voters to submit their votes in time for the 2012 election.
Neglected Tropical Diseases Neglected No More?
World health leaders announce coordinated push to eradicate or control neglected tropical diseases.
Children’s Books Increasingly Ignore Natural World
A survey of award-winning children’s picture books from 1938 to 2008 suggests our increasing estrangement from the natural environment.
Traffic Solution: Make Drivers Less Lonely
Rather than moaning about too many cars on the road, the Ridesharing Institute says the real key to battling traffic congestion and pollution is filling empty passenger seats.
Hall of fame
Slugging — The People’s Transit
In Washington, D.C., commuters have taken thousands of cars off highways via a homegrown rideshare system known as “slugging.” Can the government create more slugs — without stepping on any?
Bacteria ‘R’ Us
Emerging research shows that bacteria have powers to engineer the environment, to communicate and to affect human well-being. They may even think.
A New Take on Political Ideology
An evolutionary psychologist proposes a new framework for understanding the root causes of our political beliefs.
The Real Science Gap
It’s not insufficient schooling or a shortage of scientists. It’s a lack of job opportunities. Americans need the reasonable hope that spending their youth preparing to do science will provide a satisfactory career.
Triumph of the Cyborg Composer
David Cope’s software creates beautiful, original music. Why are people so angry about that?
