Small changes can vastly improve the success of a graphic image. Sets out clear strategies and offers abundant examples to assist researchers with effective visual graphics for use in multiple contexts, including journal submissions, grant proposals, conference posters, or presentations.

(SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY * VISUAL STRATEGIES * GRAPHICS FOR SCIENTISTS)

The problem of drugs in sports mirrors the problems of drugs in society – they are here to stay despite controversies. Gene manipulation may help future athletes outperform their peers. “Science has barely touched the surface of performance enhancement; here are many, many drugs et to be discovered.” Drug testing is of necessity imperfect and the rules arbitrary: “it cannot succeed, as it will always fight a losing battle between doper and tester.” The alternative—free access to all chemical tools—is not necessarily desirable. The war cannot be won, but surrender won’t led to better sport.

(SPORTS AND DRUGS * TECHNOLOGY * PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT * DRUGS IN SPORT * DRUG TESTING)

On the cost-benefit calculations made by individuals and institutions as they compete for resources and reputation, at a time when science is seen as the engine of growth. Looks at the pursuit of safe projects (as opposed to ones with uncertain but potentially path-breaking outcomes) and the dismal career prospects in science for the young. Highlights the growing gap between haves and have-nots – especially between the biomedical sciences and physics/engineering – and offers a persuasive vision of a more productive, more creative research system that would lead and benefit the world. (also as e-book).

(SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY * ECONOMICS AND SCIENCE * RESEARCH ECONOMICS)

As robotics technology advances, ethical concerns become more pressing. Explores three areas: 1) the possibility of programming robot ethics to the ethical use of military robots in war, as well as related policy questions such as liability and privacy concerns; 2) human-robot emotional relationships, examining the implications of robots as sexual partners, caregivers, and servants; and 3) the possibility that robots, whether biological-computational hybrids or pure machines, should be given rights or moral consideration.

(SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY * ROBOTICS * ETHICS AND ROBOTS)

Challenging the notion that we are living in an age of technological progress, three original thinkers demonstrate that we have become a risk-averse society, hobbled by tort laws and financial regulations, short-term financial thinking, and mind-numbing complacency. Calls for expanding R&D in breakthrough “disruptive technologies,” creating millions of jobs through science-based engineering and genuine innovation, shoring up our crumbling infrastructure, scrapping “horizontal education,” and restoring financial discipline.

(INNOVATION * SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY)

Topics cover the basic concepts behind all computers, the changes in hardware and software that allowed computers to become so small and commonplace, challenges produced by the computer revolution – especially the new modes of cybercrime and security issues, the Internet and the advent of “cloud computing,” and new horizons opening up with quantum computing and computing using DNA.

(SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY * COMPUTER)

Scientific and technological innovations are forcing patent law into the spotlight and revealing its many glaring inadequacies, e.g.: “patent trolling,” where patents are acquired for the sole purpose of entrapping companies whose products relate to them. We assume patents set clear boundaries for rights to an invention, but, in reality, they do not. When an invention is so new that we do not understand what it can do and how to apply it, unambiguous description for all time is impossible. Feldman urges lawmakers to craft rules that anticipate the bargaining that will occur as rights unfold. Thus, lawmakers can help courts answer questions such as whether genes, software, and business methods constitute patentable subject manner, whether patents in life science should control inventions that have yet to be discovered, and how to resolve battles between pharmaceutical companies and generics.

(SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY AND PATENT LAW * PATENT LAW RECONSIDERED * LAW AND PATENTS)

Values inherent in American culture make the country highly conducive to science for the foreseeable future, despite scientists’ low earnings, increased competition from Asia, and declining number of academic positions. Globalization acts as a potential benefit rather than threat, since it promotes efficiency in science through knowledge-sharing.

(SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY * SCIENCE IN THE US)

Ignorance—not knowledge—is the true engine of science. Contrary to common expectations, science is like looking for a black cat in a dark room, and there may be no cat in the room. The “not knowing” gets researchers into the lab early and keeps them late, helps them program their work, identify what should be done, what the next steps are, and where they should concentrate their energies. The four case histories – in cognitive psychology, theoretical physics, astronomy, and neuroscience – provide a feel for the basics of ignorance.

(SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY * METHODS * RESEARCH AND IGNORANCE)

Overviews stem cells: what they are, what scientists do with them, what stem cell therapies are available today, and how they might be used in the future. Distinguishes between embryonic stem cells, which exist only in laboratory cultures, and tissue-specific stem cells, which exist in our bodies, and discusses how they might be used in the future to treat such illnesses as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, spinal trauma, and retinal degradation. Despite important advances, “clinical applications of stem cells are still in their infancy.”

(HEALTH * SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY * STEM CELLS)