Communications of the ACM
Generative AI Degrades Online Communities
How large language models are influencing online communities.
From ACM Opinion
Why Scientists Must Share Their Research Code
Many scientists worry over the reproducibility of wet-lab experiments, but data scientist Victoria Stodden's focus is on how to validate computational research:...
From ACM Opinion
The Worlds of H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells (1866–1946) occupies a singular place in science and culture.
From ACM Opinion
Obama's Science Legacy: Betting Big on Biomedical Science
When president-elect Barack Obama chose physicist John Holdren as his top science adviser in December 2008, some biomedical researchers worried that the pick signalled...
From ACM Opinion
Take Responsibility For Electronic-Waste Disposal
The world is producing ever more electrical and electronic waste.
From ACM Opinion
The Science That Fed Frankenstein
In 1816, a teenager began to compose what many view as the first true work of science fiction—and unleashed one of the most subversive attacks on modern science...
From ACM Opinion
Validate Personal Air-Pollution Sensors
The public is increasingly aware of the health and economic costs of air pollution.
From ACM Opinion
se or Lose Our Navigation Skills
In 1984, I was part of a team that was developing a receiver for a satellite-navigation system. After weeks of debugging, the blur of random digits settled on a...
From ACM Opinion
Digital Intuition
Napoleon had it and so did Charles Darwin. Tennis champion Roger Federer has it in spades. The dictionary defines intuition as knowledge obtained without conscious...
From ACM Opinion
Genome-Editing Revolution: My Whirlwind Year with Crispr
Some 20 months ago, I started having trouble sleeping.
From ACM Opinion
The Science to Look Out For in 2016
A Swiss company is set to become the first firm to capture carbon dioxide from the air and sell it on a commercial scale, a stepping stone to larger facilities...
From ACM Opinion
Crispr: A Path Through the Thicket
The ease of use, accuracy and efficiency of the genome-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 has led to its broad adoption in research, as well as to preliminary applications...
From ACM Opinion
Informatics: Make Sense of Health Data
If you are wondering whether exposure to some chemical could increase your chances of getting colon cancer, you could easily find supportive evidence from animal...
From ACM Opinion
Lust and the Turing Test
By and large, we watch movies to be entertained, not to be provoked into deep thought. Occasionally, a film does both.
From ACM Opinion
Statistics: P Values Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg
There is no statistic more maligned than the P value.
From ACM Opinion
Top 10 Hubble Images
As the famous telescope turns 25, scientists who worked on the project choose their favourite pictures.
From ACM Opinion
Don't Edit the Human Germ Line
It is thought that studies involving the use of genome-editing tools to modify the DNA of human embryos will be published shortly.
From ACM Opinion
Microscopy: Hasten High Resolution
The best electron and scanning probe microscopes today can resolve individual atoms and chemical bonds.
From ACM Opinion
Satellites: Make Earth Observations Open Access
Changes in land cover affect the global climate by absorbing and reflecting solar radiation, and by altering fluxes of heat, water vapour, carbon dioxide and other...
From ACM Opinion
Academics Should Not Remain Silent on Hacking
The revelation that U.S. and British spy agencies have undermined a commonly used encryption code should alarm researchers.
From ACM Opinion