Science
Sunlight as Infrastructure
Sunlight-friendly architecture could heat and illuminate buildings without expending any electricity.
The Shocking School
The Judge Rotenberg Center, a Massachusetts school, still uses electric shock therapy to punish disabled students. How can an entire field of mental health accept this?
Reaping What We Sow
Making the issue a matter of personality traits can distract us from the historical and material origins of our present crisis.
The Lives of Others
Combatting the West’s pandemic self-interest requires humanism in addition to humility.
Whose Anthropocene?
Because it hinges on who will accept blame for causing climate change, there’s never been so much at stake in the naming of a geological era.
The Radical Promise of Human History
A sweeping new history of humanity upends the story of civilization, inviting us to imagine how our own societies could be radically different.
Fall 2021: Uncertainty
Nearly two years into a global pandemic, uncertainty has profoundly unsettled both our personal and political lives. In our Fall 2021 book, eleven thinkers consider its scientific, philosophical, and economic aspects.
What Health Care Should Be
Physicians have been fighting for health justice for decades. To succeed, we need practical models for collectively remaking our systems of care.
Is Nuclear Power Our Best Bet Against Climate Change?
Beyond carbon emissions and safety, the debate must also confront how the choices we make now constrain the kind of world we can build in the future.
The Inescapable Dilemma of Infectious Disease
Our mastery over microbes is only a few decades old. It is also far more precarious than we imagine.
The Circular Economy
Pushing back against the throw-away economy, the EU is designing an industrial policy around garbage.
The Long-Term Safety Argument over COVID-19 Vaccines
Concerns about long-term side effects have helped fuel vaccine hesitancy. An immunologist explains why we can be confident in vaccine safety.
Hospitals Need More Than Vaccine Mandates
If we want to address vaccine hesitancy in the health care system, we must treat its lowest paid workers better.
UFOs and the Boundaries of Science
This summer, an intelligence report and a new Harvard research project have renewed the public’s interest in UFOs. But neither is likely to change many minds.
Here Come the Robot Nurses
The pandemic increased demand and possibilities for automating care, but doing so may deliver racist stereotypes and unemployment for women of color.
Workplace Training in the Age of AI
To support the work of the future, we must promote workers’ skills as crucial to technological progress.
What Are “Unidentified Aerial Phenomena”?
A recent government report gave UFOs a rebrand, but so many basic questions remain unanswered.
Stop Building Bad AI
Justice demands that we think not just about profit or performance, but above all about purpose.
Lost in Space
Billionaires such as Musk, Bezos, and Branson peddle the idea that space represents a public hope, all the while reaping big private profits.
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