science diplomacy

Science!, by Quinn Dombrowski

The biggest existential threats, such as climate change and pandemics, are best tackled through science diplomacy.

In view of its versatility, science diplomacy becomes a convenient tool of public diplomacy. There are a number of formal and informal agencies of diplomacy functioning parallel, with and without interaction with each other in public diplomacy. By cultivating people to people connectivity across political borders, scientists, researches, academicians and artists who work in cultural reproduction process operate without borders.

The administration further relaxed economic restrictions on Cuba Friday, allowing more collaboration on medical research, the approval of Cuban drugs for import and the lifting of monetary limits on cigars and rum imports.The moves make the U.S. openings to Cuba "irreversible," President Barack Obama said in a statement.

New Zealand, seen as the nation of cows, could soon become the nation with the highest frequency of space launches anywhere in the world.  A relatively uncongested airspace and an appetite for new technologies, meant Airways had already helped about 120 near-space launches in New Zealand airspace, and Nasa and Google had both chosen the country for balloon launches.

The famed American Museum of Natural History opens an exhibition this fall that its scientists say breaks new ground on multiple fronts. [...] In keeping with the newly relaxed relations between the United States and Cuba, scientists from both countries have broken through more than a half-century of restrictions in place since the Cold War.

In the Middle East, governments and non-state actors alike have tried all forms of diplomacy to solve the challenges they face, with mixed results: shuttle diplomacy by the United States between the Israelis and Palestinians worked for a time, great-power diplomacy over the Syrian civil war largely hasn’t, and direct negotiations with unsavory groups like the Taliban have moved in fits and starts. 

The planet is facing a bevy of “wicked” problems, which threaten global destabilization. Issues such as climate change, food and water, biodiversity preservation, and pandemic disease cut across disciplines and borders and affect people at all levels of society. This new threat set requires cooperation between countries, but such challenges cannot be resolved by the same type of diplomacy that characterized the 20th century.

Recruiting Students in Fight Against Zika

An innovative program by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is empowering student scientists to track the spread of the Zika virus in the United States. 

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