Guest Thinkers

Apparently, Dinesh D’Souza, who has been embarrassing himself with wanna-be-academic bomb throwing books for years, has finally thoroughly discredited himself. A fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, D’Souza in his latest […]

You can debate the validity of these metrics endlessly. You can question whether citations and pubs are the best indicators of university quality and impact, and you can deliberate over […]

The NY Times’ Barnaby Feder offers this report on the City of Berkeley’s decision to regulate nanotechnology locally. As this research area moves more and more into the market, and […]

There’s a reason why Harvard continues to dominate institutional rankings. While some universities spend $100s of millions of dollars on their athletic programs and athletic facilities, Harvard sinks its $30 […]

As I predicted last week in my column at Skeptical Inquirer Online, opponents of the House stem cell bill are arguing that science advocates have hyped both the promise and […]

The same week Harvard unveiled its plans for a 250 acre Life Sciences campus, Scotland’s University of Edinburgh announced a $115 million dollar Stem Cell Research Institute to be directed […]

Every Tuesday, the Project for Excellence in Journalism will be releasing their weekly news index report, an analysis that tracks the major stories across media sectors including daily newspapers, online […]

Gallup just released the latest in their trends on news consumption patterns. There’s a lot to debate about these poll measures, but they do provide one indicator among many about […]

This week all eyes will be on Capitol Hill as Nancy Pelosi and the newly elected House majority push for stem cell legislation that would override President George W. Bush’s […]

After spending the past three years on the faculty at Ohio State, I remain ambivalent about the vast commercialization and big time money pouring into college athletics. Of course, it […]

In an article fronting today’s Washington Post, Rick Weiss gives us a preview of the rhetorical struggle that is sure to be part of this week’s House stem cell debate, […]

The Washington Post has these details on the problems House Dems face as they juggle Iraq with the agenda items of stem cell research, minimum wage, and other domestic issues.

As I predicted, stem cell opponents have issued a press release “pleading” with Dems to hold off on a stem cell bill in light of the Nature Biotechnology study on […]

As a follow up to a previous post, NPR runs this story on the use of “surge” to describe the Administration’s plan for more of the same in Iraq, featuring […]

Despite my misgivings about the vast commercialization of college athletics, and its impact on university culture, I did tune in to at least parts of Monday night’s BCS championship game. […]

Over at the Huffington Post, David Roberts concedes my point about why the Pandora’s Box frame of looming catastrophe may not be the best way to communicate the urgency of […]

This afternoon, as expected, the House passed the stem cell funding bill, 253 to 174, falling well short of the 290 votes needed to overturn a Bush veto. Debate now […]

Think Progress has the video of Sunday’s speculation at ABC News This Week that newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi may appoint a special committee on global warming. […]

In DC over the weekend, the conversational buzz at coffee shops, wine bars, and holiday parties has focused on the graphic reports of Saddam Hussein’s execution. Friends from both sides […]

Looks like the the folks at the Project for Excellence in Journalism are about to launch a very interesting and much needed monthly media content analysis. Funded by the Pew […]

Over the weekend, Andrew Revkin at the NY Timeswrote a very timely and important peice detailing the growing unease among many scientists and policy experts with the new “normal’ in […]

Citizens are cognitive misers, meaning they rely on images and short cuts rather than knowledge to make up their minds about issues. It might run counter to democratic ideals and […]

Over at Nanopublic, Dietram Scheufele reminds me of something I overlooked last week when I spotlighted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s framing of environmental issues as a public health matter. According to […]

On YouTube over the weekend, John Edwards announced his candidacy for president. Apart from his “Two Americas” theme on economic and racial justice, science issues stand as a secondary part […]

Time out for a bit of soft journalism….Variety reports that after an eighteen year wait, Indiana Jones 4 is going into production and will be released in May 2008. After […]

In case you were wondering, why in an era of extreme media fragmentation, polls show that Republicans rank global warming as less of a priority than flag burning or the […]

Part 1 of Segment Part 2 of SegmentStay the Course versus Cut and Run versus Surge and Accelerate. Over the past month, as the Bush team has unpacked its new […]

Haven’t heard of Second Life? It’s a 3-D virtual world built by users or “residents” worldwide. Imagine the video game World of Warcraft, but no game, just a cyber-community evolving […]

It’s year six of your presidency, and historians are already debating whether you are the worst U.S. leader in history. Can a new communication strategy help repair your reputation? At […]

Over at the “ideas site” World Changing, David Zaks offers up an interview with the NY Times’ Andrew Revkin. As I’ve written on this blog before, Revkin is one of […]