This podcast discusses the problems with American buses, including their outdated design, discomfort, and hazards. The episode explores the physical and cognitive stressors faced by bus drivers, the challenges of COVID-19 for transit workers, and efforts to redesign buses for safety and efficiency. It also highlights the historical neglect of bus operators and the potential for a new bus design that improves air quality and safety.

Clinical trials are crucial to the development of new drugs, medical treatments, and therapeutics. The knowledge gained from these trials helps ensure that treatments are safe and effective. Trials are also sometimes the only way for patients to access the most cutting-edge therapies for a disease. However, wide swaths of the American population, including Black and Latino Americans who often face the greatest health challenges, are not adequately represented in the clinical trials and do not benefit equitably from this research. In this episode, host Sara Frueh is joined by Gloria Coronado, an epidemiologist with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, and Jason Resendez, president of the National Alliance for Caregiving, to discuss the causes and consequences of this underrepresentation, and steps researchers and policymakers should take to remedy it. Resources: Read the May 2022 consensus report from the National Academies, Improving Representation in Clinical Trials and Research: Building Equity for Women and Underrepresented Groups.

The typical history of the internet tells a story that emphasizes experts and institutions: government, industry, and academia. In this origin story, the internet began as a product of the military during the Cold War, was adopted by academia and research institutions, and then Silicon Valley and the private sector brought it to the masses. What this history ignores, however, are the many computer enthusiasts and hobbyists of the 1980s who used modems to connect to bulletin board systems—creating thriving online communities well before most people ever heard about the “information superhighway.” On this episode, host Jason Lloyd is joined by professor Kevin Driscoll from the University of Virginia to discuss how the forgotten history of bulletin board systems can help us understand today’s social media-dominated internet and build healthier, more inclusive online communities. Resources: · Read Kevin Driscoll’s Issues essay, “A Prehistory of Social Media,” and his book, The Modem World: A Prehistory of Social Media, to learn more about early social networks. · Check out Kevin’s first book, Minitel: Welcome to the Internet, coauthored with Julien Mailland, on the French precursor to the internet. They also have a great websitefor the book.

Food is an essential part of our lives, but for many people fresh food is something they find in a grocery store, not growing in their communities. How can art and advances in agricultural science create new food resources, connect communities, and create more resilient food systems? On this episode, host J. D. Talasek is joined by artists David Allen Burns and Austin Young of Fallen Fruit and professor Molly Jahn from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to explore how creativity and systems thinking can change the food system. Resources: Read about the “Subversive Beauty of Fallen Fruit” in Issues, and learn more about the Fallen Fruit collective’s artwork and projects by visiting the group’s website. Explore the Endless Orchard to collaborate in creating the largest public orchard in the world. Read Molly Jahn’s Issues article, “How ‘Multiple Breadbasket Failure’ Became a Policy Issue,” on her journey from making new squash varieties to trying to improve global food security. Learn more about risk in food systems by visiting the Jahn Research Group, and take her free courses on “Systems Thinking.”

This summer, Congress is trying to reconcile the differences between two massive bills focused on strengthening US competitiveness and spurring innovation: the House-passed COMPETES Act and the Senate-passed USICA bill. In this episode, we speak with Mitch Ambrose from FYI, the American Institute of Physics’ science policy news service, about the historic conference aimed at negotiating the House and Senate bills. What are the competing visions for US competitiveness in the bills? How do the details get worked out, and what happens if Congress fails to reach an agreement? Recommended Reading: Follow FYI’s coverage and subscribe to their newsletters at aip.org/fyi.

Who gets to be a scientist? At BioJam, a free Northern California summer camp, the answer is everyone. This week we talk with Callie Chappell, Rolando Perez, and Corinne Okada Takara about how BioJam engages high school students and their communities to create art through bioengineering. Started as an intergenerational collective in 2019, BioJam was designed to change the model of science communication and education into a multi-way collaboration between the communities of Salinas, East San Jose, and Oakland, and artists and scientists at Stanford. At BioJam, youth are becoming leaders in the emerging fields of biodesign and biomaking—and in the process, redefining what it means to be a scientist. Resources: Read their essay, "Bioengineering Everywhere, For Everyone," and see the youth artwork. Visit the BioJam website to learn more.

When it comes to exploring the mind-boggling complexity of living systems—ranging from the origins of human consciousness to treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s—Susan Fitzpatrick has long been a critic of reductionist thinking. In this episode we talk with Fitzpatrick, who has spent three decades supporting brain research as president of the James S. McDonnell Foundation, about new ways to understand the human brain, the difficulty of developing an effective Alzheimer’s treatment, and how scientific research can successfully confront complex problems. Further reading: The James S. McDonnell Foundation website Susan Fitzpatrick’s review of Metazoa by Peter Godfrey-Smith and Life’s Edge by Carl Zimmer Her review of Brains Through Time by Georg F. Striedter and R. Glenn Northcutt Her review of Mind Fixers by Anne Harrington Her review of Chasing Men on Fire by Stephen G. Waxman and Understanding the Brain by John E. Dowling “Asking the Right Questions in Alzheimer’s Research,” her Feature essay in the Fall 2018 Issues in Science and Technology

Congress appropriates money for President Biden's budget requests, confusion over budget numbers and priority areas in research and development, discussion on NSF's new directorate and ARPA H in the federal budget, exploring the work of the R&D Budget and Policy Program, understanding the federal budget process and its impact on the STEM workforce and international competitiveness.

There is scientific consensus on climate change and its human cause, but how to understand and address global warming remains a divided topic in American life. Art and religion are two lenses through which new perspectives on climate change might be discovered. In this episode, we talk to photographer James Balog and climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe about how their work creates connections across different ways of knowing, such as art, science, or religion. How can these connections—along with a better understanding of influences such as personal geographies and socioeconomic backgrounds—inform meaningful ways to confront climate change? Resources: ·  Visit Katharine Hayhoe’s website for more of her work and links to her social media. ·  Visit James Balog’s website and the Earth Vision institute to learn more about James. ·  Extreme Ice Survey: James’s innovative, long-term photography project to give a visual voice to the planet’s changing ecosystems. ·  Read James’s new book, The Human Element: A Time Capsule from the Anthropocene ·  Watch James’s movies, The Human Element and Chasing Ice. ·  Read Katharine’s new book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World ·  Watch Katharine’s Global Weirding: Climate, Politics, and Religion videos on Youtube

Between 2009 and 2019, India brought electricity to half a billion citizens, and then turned around and presided over a grid where power from wind and solar became cheaper than electricity from coal in 2018. India’s carbon-heavy government ministries have shown a surprising ability to engineer deep change. Kartikeya Singh, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, talks with us about what role these ministries–which employ 20 million people—could play in creating an energy sector that is ecologically and economically sustainable. Read Kartikeya Singh’s essay, Bureaucracies for the Better. Visit issues.org for more episodes, conversations and articles. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn! Comments? Questions? Tweet us or email us at podcast@issues.org.