Vannevar Bush is a towering figure in US science and technology policy. A science adviser to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman during and after World War II, he mobilized the US research community in support of the war effort and was a major figure in the creation of the National Science Foundation. Although his influence on the history and institutions of US science and technology is unparalleled, the full breadth of Bush’s thinking remains underappreciated today. We talk with writer and educator G. Pascal Zachary, Bush’s biographer and editor of a new collection of his writings, about this remarkable polymath, the background behind his landmark report, Science, the Endless Frontier, and his surprising legacy for the information age. Links: The Essential Writings of Vannevar Bush, edited by G. Pascal Zachary. Faith & Science, an excerpt from a 1955 letter Vannevar Bush wrote to employees and supporters of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Beyond the Endless Frontier, an article series from Issues that grapples with Bush’s legacy for today’s science policy.

Shobita Parthasarathy, professor at the University of Michigan, discusses how to achieve equity and justice in society through innovation. Topics explored include the disparity in life expectancy, biases in technological design, reshaping the innovation system for equity, and the moral dimensions of innovation.

The COVID vaccines are highly effective at preventing infection, serious illness, and even death from COVID, but many are hesitant to get vaccinated. Because art is a powerful tool for connecting with communities, building stronger relationships between artists and public health programs may be a way to increase people’s confidence about vaccines. On this episode, cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz and Jill Sonke, director of the Center for Art in Medicine at the University of Florida, join us to explore the question, “What role could artists and culture bearers play in discussions of vaccine confidence?” Links: COVIDLatino. See Lalo Alcaraz’s cartoons and resources to provide information about COVID-19 for Latinx communities. CDC Vaccination Resources. Find vaccine field guides and other vaccine information. Art & Response Repository. Art and other resources to aid cross sector collaboration.

Eyewitness testimony and forensic science are key forms of evidence used in criminal cases. But over the past few decades DNA analysis—and the exonerations it has prompted—has revealed how flawed these types of evidence can be. According to the Innocence Project, mistaken eyewitness identifications played a role in 70% of convictions that were ultimately overturned through DNA testing, and misapplied forensic science was found in nearly half of these cases. In this episode we speak with Jed Rakoff, senior US district judge for the Southern District of New York.  Judge Rakoff discussed the weaknesses in eyewitness identification and forensic science and offered thoughts on how judges, policymakers, and others can reform the use of these methods and get stronger science into the courtroom. Recommended Reading Read Jed Rakoff’s book Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free: And Other Paradoxes of Our Broken Legal System And two National Academies reports: Identifying the Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward

The James Webb Space Telescope’s revolutionary technology is expected to reveal secrets of every phase of cosmic history—from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies.  In this podcast, we talk with DC-based artist Tim Makepeace about his exhibition Reflections on a Tool of Observation: Artwork Inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope that celebrates the awe-inspiring technology while drawing attention to the fact that it is a human endeavor that reveals the nuts, bolts and wires of the instrument.  Tim is joined by art historian Anne Collins-Goodyear whose research exploring the relationship between art and technology provides thought provoking historical context. See a selection of pieces from Tim Makepeace’s exhibition, Reflections on a Tool of Observation: Artwork Inspired by the James Webb Space Telescope and visit the CPNAS website to learn more about the exhibition. Visit Tim Makepeace’s website for more works. Follow Anne Collins-Goodyear’s current work at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art. 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.

It may surprise you to learn that the enormous dinosaur skeletons that wow museum visitors were not assembled by paleontologists. The specialized and critical task of removing fossilized bones from surrounding rock, and then reconstructing the fragments into a specimen that a scientist can research or a member of the public can view, is the work of fossil preparators. Many of these preparators are volunteers without scientific credentials, working long hours to assemble the fossils on which scientific knowledge of the prehistoric world is built. In this episode we speak with social scientist and University of Virginia professor Caitlin Donahue Wylie, who takes us inside the paleontology lab to uncover a complex world of status hierarchies, glue controversies, phones that don’t work—and, potentially, a way to open up the scientific enterprise to far more people. Read Caitlin Donahue Wylie’s article, What Fossil Preparators Can Teach Us About More Inclusive Science. Check out Caitlin Donahue Wylie’s book, Preparing Dinosaurs: The Work Behind the Scenes, which is available for open access. 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.

In the early days of the pandemic, communities began singing together over balconies, banging pans, and engaging in other forms of collective support, release, and creativity. Artists have also been creatively responding to this global event. In this episode, we explore how artists help us deal with a crisis such as COVID-19 by documenting, preserving, and helping us process our experiences. San Francisco artist James Gouldthorpe created a visual journal starting at the very onset of the pandemic to record its personal, societal, and historical impacts. We spoke with Gouldthorpe and Dominic Montagu, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. See a selection of James Gouldthorpe’s artwork from the COVID Artifacts series on Issues.org. 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.

Social media platforms like Facebook and Spotify analyze huge quantities of data from users before feeding selections back as personal “memories.” How do the algorithms select which content to turn into memories? And how does this feature affect the way we remember--and even what we think memory is? We spoke to David Beer, professor of sociology at the University of York, about how algorithms and classifications play an increasingly important role in producing and shaping what we remember about the past. Recommended reading: David Beer reviews Streaming Culture: Subscription Platforms and the Unending Consumption of Culture by David Arditi: “More and More and More Culture” Social Media and the Automatic Production of Memory: Classification, Ranking, and the Sorting of the Past by Ben Jacobsen and David Beer Spotify Wrapped, Spotify’s yearly wrap-up of your listening habits. 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.

In this podcast, Lindy Elkins-Tanton discusses the limitations of 'hero science' and the need for a more inclusive scientific research model. She explores the challenges of doing science, contrasts different organizational models, and highlights the importance of effective learning environments. The podcast also dives into the 'big questions process', interdisciplinary teamwork, and setting milestones in research projects.

Learn about the amazing must-read email newsletter that keeps the science policy community informed. Explore important science policy boundaries and emerging issues like spectrum interference and light pollution. Discover the comprehensive nature of FYI as a valuable science policy resource. Dive into the process of creating a weekly newsletter and staying updated with the science policy landscape. Get insights into the growth of FYI and their plans to provide more context and resources.