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Science Policy from the Ground Up

Fall 2021

Issues in Science and Technology

“It’s time to modernize the federal role in the nation’s increasingly decentralized R&D ecosystem and unleash innovation at the local level.”

Plant and Animal Diversity Is Declining, But What About Microbial Diversity?

May 11, 2021

RealClear Science

“With alarms sounding about the declining diversity and populations of plants and animals, we post a related concern with equally profound implications: is the variety of microbial life, including viruses, changing too, and if so, in which direction and how fast? As plant and animal numbers shrink, some specialized microbes associated with them might vanish, too. But is there a net overall reduction occurring? If so, is it good or bad news or irrelevant for our species?”

Time to Measure the Abundance of Ocean Life

March 2021

RealClear Science

“As humanity enters what the United Nations has designated the Ocean Decade, we do not know the total amount of marine life, the biomass, in the oceans.  Many experts firmly believe the abundance of marine life is diminishing. However, we have time series for only a few taxa, and these make up a small fraction of the total amount of life. We have only crude, uncertain estimates of biomass by trophic level.”

Biological Information for the New Blue Economy and the Emerging Role of eDNA

2021

The Rockefeller University

“From microbes to mammals, near shore to mid-ocean, and seafloor to seabirds, humans want and need to know about ocean life. Obvious benefits have derived from more accurate means of locating high-value wild fish for food or for protection in the interests of recreation and conservation. Fishers and dive shop operators may use the same information for opposite purposes. Surveyors have traditionally monitored sea life by observing seafood markets and trawl nets, by diving with goggles and clipboards, and more recently by deploying sonars and cameras, and sieving bits of extracellular DNA shed in seawater.”

A New Institutional Approach to Research Security in the United States

January 2021

Center for Security and Emerging Technology, Georgetown University

“U.S. research security requires trust and collaboration between those conducting R&D and the federal government. Most R&D takes place in the private sector, outside of government authority and control, and researchers are wary of federal government or law enforcement involvement in their work. Despite these challenges, as adversaries work to extract science, technology, data and know-how from the United States, the U.S. government is pursuing an ambitious research security initiative. In order to secure the 78 percent of U.S. R&D funded outside the government, authors Melissa Flagg and Zachary Arnold propose a new, public-private research security clearinghouse, with leadership from academia, business, philanthropy, and government and a presence in the most active R&D hubs across the United States.”