Top 8 SciTech Policy Stories of 2015 - Hit & Run : Reason.com
The past year saw some amazing science and technology breakthroughs and discoveries.
These include the fantastic
photos of Pluto and its moons by the New Horizons mission; the discovery of
Homo naledi, a new member of the human family in the depths of a South African cave; and the sighting of
liquid water on the surface of Mars; and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage booster
successfully landing at Cape Canaveral.
New scientific discoveries and technology developments regularly provoke and guide discussions of public policy.
Keeping that in mind, below are this year’s top 8 science and technology stories whose consequences will reverberate well beyond this year.
Number 1: CRISPR. It could easily be Numbers 2 through 8 too on this list.
Science declared CRISPR the Scientific
Breakthrough of the Year, correctly noting, “It’s the simple truth.
For better or worse, we all now live in CRISPR’s world.”
CRISPR is easy for biotechnologists to use and makes almost any imaginable genetic manipulation possible.
Derived from what amounts to a bacterial immune system for fighting off attacking viruses, the
CRISPR gene-editing technique was first developed barely three years ago.
CRISPR can edit genes much like a word processing program can edit text.
Researchers
hope it will allow them to cure cancer, correct genetic diseases, generate more productive and nutritious crops and farm animals, spread desired genetic modifications through wild ecosystems, engineer pigs as organ donors for people, and prevent heritable diseases by altering the genomes of human embryos—all in the not-so-distant future.
In December, some 400 scientists, ethicists, policy makers, and activists convened at the
International Summit on Human Gene Editing declined to recommend a permanent ban on making inheritable changes in the human genome
Number 2: Cimate change and the adoption of the
Paris Agreement on Climate Change by diplomats from nearly 200 countries.
Read 'em all
"Ted Cruz told presidential campaign supporters on a New Year’s Eve phone call that the next 90 days could decide the election — and he warned them to prepare for an onslaught of attacks due to his recent surge in the polls.
"Police arrested a would-be Islamic State attacker in New York Wednesday for allegedly planning an armed terror operation at a bar in Rochester on New Year’s Eve, officials said Thursday.
In May 2015, Geller hosted an art exhibit and drawing contest featuring images of the Muslim prophet Muhammad. Her aim was to stand up for free speech by showing that Muslims could not intimidate non-Muslim Americans into following Shariah blasphemy laws, which prohibit any depictions of Muhammad.
Since leaving the inner circle of the White House, Flynn has only become more outspoken in his criticism of the policies and strategies being pursued by President Barack Obama and the “leaders” he has surrounded himself with.
"A report in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday revealed that President Barack Obama’s National Security Agency intercepted calls between House Republicans and members of Jewish and Israeli lobbying groups, reporting on Iran deal strategy to the president.
Questions about both the president’s personal religious convictions and his feelings about the Islamic faith have haunted him since he first declared for the presidency in 2006, and nine years later, in a September 2015 CNN poll, 39 percent of Americans responded that they think Obama is a Muslim.
"Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz raised nearly $20 million in the fourth quarter, according to an internal memo provided to TheBlaze.
"Officials in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, held a public caning Monday. According to the Jakarta Post, six people were brutally beaten outside a mosque for indecency and gambling, activities prohibited by the province of Aceh’s Islamic bylaws, or “qanun.”
New law lets cops confiscate guns without notice:
Professor warns students: Planet on verge of global apocalypse due to human activity - The College Fix:
"That was the theme of Horowitz’s speech as he continued: how the communists had taken over the Democratic Party. “The communist party is the Democratic Party,” Horowitz stated. “In The Great Gatsby, [F. Scott] Fitzgerald describes the rich as people who break things and leave them for others to clean up. That is a wonderful description of the left.” Horowitz, who began as a radical Marxist, said that the modern left had learned stealth from their failures in the 1960s: “The left have learned from the 1960s…we in the 1960s didn’t want to pretend to be Jeffersonian democrats…That’s why we failed in the 1960s. That’s why they’ve succeeded now.”
