The implicit arrangement between science and society—funding and autonomy in exchange for substantial but unpredictable benefits—is under strain. Canadians are increasingly skeptical that scientists conduct themselves ethically, or that the gov
Keeping global temperatures to safe levels will require unlikely and disruptive discoveries from unexpected places. Medicine is a promising frontier.Kin Chan discusses his medical research on DNA damage and cancer, and explains how an enzyme t
A melting Arctic is opening up Canadian waters and coastlines to the world. Canada needs a vision for how it will handle this new activity and build out the necessary infrastructure in previously inaccessible locations.Jackie Dawson explains w
The Arctic is warming at twice the global average. In the Canadian Arctic, it's three times the global average.Jackie Dawson explains the scale of this transformation, and what a melting Arctic means for the future of trade, geopolitics, and N
Climate change is the ultimate disruptor. On timescales that matter for people alive today, it’s a question of slowing climate change down rather than “solving” or “fixing” it. Geoengineering might be our most drastic option.Jason Blackstock e
Nations constantly make decisions about national security in the face of uncertainty or incomplete information. The outcomes of these decisions are often unpredictable, and success is often invisible.Mark Salter explains how the national secur
Misinformation is influencing public opinion, decision making, and even geopolitics. And it’s not just coming from Facebook and Twitter—it’s coming from our political leaders. Yet our ability to detect misinformation is diminishing. Kimberly G
Canada-China relations are in uncharted territory. To understand the current tangle of trade disputes and hostage diplomacy, it helps to go back to the beginning.Margaret McCuaig-Johnston traces Canada's relationship with China back to the est
Big data can dramatically improve decision-making, but the design and imagining of what we can and should use big data for is happening largely outside of the purview of public debate. Kelly Bronson explains big data's arrival in the public sp
We live in an era of information abundance. But converting information into knowledge and applying that knowledge to improve society are massive tasks.Marc Saner explains the challenge of turning increasingly complex scientific knowledge into