Broadsides & Intelligence

Did the Covid virus jump naturally from an animal species to humans, or did it escape from a laboratory experiment?  In this essay, science writer Nicholas Wade explores the two scenarios and argues that, on present evidence, lab escape is the more likely explanation.

We are now entering the third and greatest phase of space exploration and development. In the first stage, visionaries imagined the future and tinkered with small rockets. In the second, big government programs proved that the visionaries’ visions were possible, though expensive.

We are now witnessing the build-out of society’s first foundationally new infrastructure in nearly a century: the Cloud. It is an ecosystem of information-digital hardware, at the heart of which resides massive warehouse-scale datacenters unlike anything ever built.

Social media giants are poisoning our journalism, our politics, our relationships and ultimately our minds. Glenn Reynolds looks at the up and downsides of social media and at proposals for regulation, and offers his own fix that respects free speech while reducing social media’s toll.

Are robots finally replacing humans? Does the emerging age of artificial intelligence and automation mean we will soon see “peak jobs” and the need for a Universal Basic Income to support a widening swath of hapless citizens unsuited for employment in a future “knowledge” workforce? Productivity—reducing labor-hours per unit of product or service—has been the hallmark of progress for centuries.

Government agencies regulate Americans in the full range of their lives, including their political participation, their economic endeavors, and their personal lives. As a result, administrative power is a pervasive feature of American life. But is this power constitutional?

New medicines in the pipeline can extend lives, save money, and even help prevent disease before symptoms appear – if we don’t discourage their innovators and investors by trying to lower drug prices artificially. Unlocking Precision Medicine explores the environment necessary for creation of these health care game-changers, and explains how the marketplace can effectively make them more affordable to all without killing the golden goose.  

Entire industries are being transformed, consumers have more power than ever before, and people are finding new ways to earn a living—even in today’s slow economic recovery. All of these improvements stem from the rise of the so-called sharing economy.