Communications of the ACM
Innovation Is Overrated: A Provocation
Digital innovation is not working in the interest of the whole of society. It is time to radically rethink its purpose without…
From ACM Opinion
Obama's Top Scientist Talks Shrinking Budgets, Donald Trump, and His Biggest Regret
John Holdren is no stranger to the spotlight. Over his long career in science, Holdren—a physicist by training—has worked on controversial issues such as climate...
From ACM Opinion
Genome-Editing Revolution: My Whirlwind Year with Crispr
Some 20 months ago, I started having trouble sleeping.
From ACM Opinion
Crispr Germline Engineering—the Community Speaks
With the first papers appearing in the literature that describe CRISPR-Cas9 engineering of human reproductive cells, are we at a new Asilomar moment?
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
Space-Time Visionary
Thanks to theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, real science is embedded in Christopher Nolan's film Interstellar, in which explorers seek a new home for humankind.
From ACM Opinion
The Sci-Fi Optimist
Best-selling science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson's works cover everything from cryptography to Sumerian mythology.
From ACM Opinion
Take a Virtual Voyage Into Darwin's Library
In his celebrated journey around the world on the HMS Beagle from 1831 to 1836, Charles Darwin collected a plethora of information on the geology, animals, plants...
From ACM Opinion
Oscar-Winning Visual Effects Mastermind Behind Gravity, Talks Physics Lessons, Nasa Imagery, and Defining the Art of Cg 'weightlessness' in Space
Tim Webber is a visual effects supervisor who has worked on an array of critically acclaimed blockbusters.
From ACM Opinion
Publishing: Open Citations
When Heather Piwowar set out in May last year to investigate whether making research data publicly available increased the citation rates of articles, she never...12