Science & Technology

This article outlines current U.S. government processes to bolster biosecurity and biosafety measures and summarizes five key findings from biosecurity experts.

With the looming threat of increased conflict in Ukraine, businesses around the world should be preparing now, write Paul R. Kolbe, Maria Robson Morrow, and Lauren Zabierek. Corporate security and intelligence teams have said they’re seeing an increase in cyber probes, and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the European Central Bank have both issued warnings about potential Russian cyberattacks. At this point, companies should be taking the following steps: 1) Review business continuity plans; 2) Closely examine supply chains; 3) Actively engage peer networks, vendors, and law enforcement around cyber intrusions; 4) Instill a security mindset in employees; and 5) Make sure corporate intelligence and IT teams are working closely together on solutions.

U.S. President Joe Biden has spoken frequently of restoring the United States’ credibility as a global leader. That task, which comes at a moment of global crisis, will require the United States to recommit to multilateral diplomacy, even while managing a dangerously deteriorating relationship with China. By acting on biosecurity—a neglected priority hiding in plain sight—Biden can make progress on all of these goals. Washington has an opportunity to lead in an era of heightened great-power competition, address the need for arms control measures that reduce the risk of biological weapons, and potentially even push China to cooperate to that end.  

Joseph Nye writes that the world is increasingly obsessed with the ongoing power struggle between the United States and China. But the technology-driven shift of power away from states to transnational actors and global forces brings a new and unfamiliar complexity to global affairs.

Joel Clement appeared on CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront on April 23, 2020.  In this blog post for the Union of Concerned Scientists, he elaborates on what he wishes he had said during that interview.

All national leaders must put their countr's interests first, but the important question is how broadly or narrowly they define those interests. Both China and the US are responding to COVID-19 with an inclination toward short-term, zero-sum approaches, and too little attention to international institutions and cooperation.

David Eaves writes that the most significant lesson coming out of the COVID-19 crisis  is the importance of having a digital strategy and a technological infrastructure in place at both the national and local levels.

Because hand-to-hand exchange of physical currency could transmit the coronavirus, countries around the world are being forced to reconsider the use of cash. In fact, COVID-19 might turn out to be the catalyst that finally brings digital payments fully into the mainstream. Not surprisingly, the digital-payments industry is already focusing on the opportunities created by the crisis.

Technology and all of objective science are caught in a crisis of reputation. From investigations into competition practices to legislative scrutiny over the application and safety of new products, innovators are facing a reckoning for their seeming absence of principles such as privacy, security, inclusion, transparency, and accountability. But it is possible to bend the arc of innovation toward overall public purpose.

The Technology and Public Purpose Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and WIRED are excited to announce the inaugural Tech Spotlight, which will recognize products, initiatives, and policies that embrace principles such as privacy, security, safety, transparency, accountability, and inclusion—and that aim to minimize technological harms.  Nomination will be open until November 30, 2019 at 11:59pm EST.

The authors explain how the risks of computer systems are transferring to biological systems. The difference is that biological systems have the potential to cause a greater degree of damage than computer systems. Stringent biocontainment helps, but no containment system provides zero risk.