Solitary Confinement Reform Act (S 719, 116th Congress) The Act imposes new restrictions on the use of solitary confinement and other restrictive housing conditions for inmates, taking into account the mental health consequences of such conditions. SciPol Summary The Solitary Confinement Reform Act (S 719, 116th Congress) would amend various portions of the existing United … Read more
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), in partnership with the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, has held the first symposium of the International Commission on Clinical Use of Heritable Human Genome Editing. The Commission is determined to create a framework for clinicians, scientists, … Read more
In a May 2017 interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao overstated the current state of autonomous vehicle technology. She told Bartiromo that the country already has Level 2 self-driving cars capable of driving on the highway and following lane markings, adding that there’s really no need for anyone to be seated … Read more
STAT News reported that the legal fight over CRISPR-Cas9 patents entered a sharper phase in August 2016, as the University of California and the Broad Institute traded increasingly pointed filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. At the center of the dispute: whether Broad Institute researcher Feng Zhang deserves separate patent rights for adapting … Read more
Elon Musk (Tesla and SpaceX CEO) is backing Neuralink, a new brain-computer interface venture, at least if we can trust The Wall Street Journal. The initiative (still in its early stages) has no public presence yet and focuses on developing devices that can be implanted into the human brain. The idea is to help human … Read more
The battle over self-driving cars and jobs has kicked off in upstate New York. An organization that advocates for professional drivers has urged New York to ban self-driving cars from the state’s roads for 50 years. The New York Upstate Transportation Association is afraid that self-driving cars will eventually eliminate tens of thousands of jobs … Read more
As the entire world is wrestling with the economic, social, health, and political impacts of COVID-19, it is also struggling to understand how both the open internet and online censorship have contributed to the containment or spread of the virus. International health authorities and governments have developed best practices and policies for tracking and sharing … Read more
A key state permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline was approved by state regulators in 2018, clearing a major hurdle for the interstate natural gas project to move ahead in North Carolina. The state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) announced its long-awaited decision more than a year and a half after Duke Energy and other … Read more
Within the next decade or so, Charlotte residents might be able to dart around the city using four light rail lines and a streetcar, under a $6 billion vision. But could they choose to take self-driving cars instead? Some experts caution that self-driving cars might upend the transit industry in 15 or 20 years, turning light … Read more
Kevin Turner spent his life’s last six years convinced he was dying as a result of ALS. He was wrong, and so were his doctors. Turner played eight seasons in the NFL as a fullback for the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles, from 1992 to 1999. He built his college career at the University … Read more
