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"What will a day in the life of a Californian be like in 40 years? If the state cuts greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 -- a target mandated by a state executive order -- a person could wake up in a net-zero energy home, commute to work in a battery-powered car, work in an office with smart windows and solar panels, then return home and plug in her car to a carbon-free grid."

On November 21, the 12-member congressional super committee announced that it failed to approve a plan to shrink the budget deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade, triggering an automatic sequester that, if implemented, could result in reductions of $500 billion to planned defense spending over the next decade. These cuts would be in addition to the more than $450 billion in reductions the Pentagon has planned over the next decade.

It has expanded from 10 member countries to 65, negotiated seven international nonproliferation and disarmament treaties, and next March turns 52 years old. It is the Conference on Disarmament (CD) -- the world's only disarmament negotiating forum -- and, for almost 16 years, it has stagnated in deadlock. The ongoing stalemate has led some to question the forum's utility and even to suggest conducting negotiations outside of the multilateral body in order to obtain a treaty to halt the production of fissile materials. This would be a mistake.

The US Supreme Court will likely decide on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act -- which requires American citizens to either buy health insurance or incur a penalty -- sometime this session. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled against the law, while other appeals courts, including one in Cincinnati, have either rejected the case or upheld the law.

There are increasing signs that state parties to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) realize that the lack of biosecurity awareness and education among life scientists represents a serious gap in the overall web of policies designed to prevent bioterrorism and biowarfare. Without such awareness and education, how can practicing life scientists contribute their expertise to the development and implementation of oversight systems and codes of conduct necessary to protect benignly intended work from hostile misuse?

On September 10, 2011, the London Observer newspaper carried a long, affectionate portrait of former US President Jimmy Carter. The author wrote of Carter's life before, during, and after his presidency -- noting approvingly, for example, that Carter didn't start any wars while in office. But my attention was drawn to some of the work Carter embarked on with the Carter Center after he left office.

Scientists estimate that 1,000 people will die from cancer as a result of their exposure to radiation from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. This number is often contrasted with the 20,000 who died in the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that caused the nuclear debacle -- presumably to suggest that the 1,000 deaths are less significant and should not be used to justify a nuclear power shutdown.

It's not often that Hollywood ventures into the realm of epidemics and public health, and when it does, the outcome is usually laughably out of touch with reality -- like Outbreak, the 1995 movie about a deadly Ebola-like virus that infected a city. To prevent the virus from spreading, the military decided to bomb the city to oblivion. Fortunately, a cure was discovered just in the nick of time.

While Washington, DC, is paralyzed by partisanship on most topics, there is one issue that commands overwhelming bipartisan agreement: the threat posed to US national security by nuclear terrorism.

Military responses to problems have a way of creating all sorts of new problems. The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy offers an opportunity to reflect on the costs and benefits of the wars the United States initiated against Iraq and Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks. A comprehensive new study, "Costs of War," sponsored by Brown University (and with which I have been affiliated) suggests that the costs have been wildly out of proportion to  the benefits.

The discussions about the safety of nuclear reactors in the new post-Fukushima world have focused on technical questions: Is it possible to make reactors earthquake-proof? What is the best way to ensure that spent fuel remains safe? What is the optimal design for coolant systems? Can reactors be made "inherently safe"?

The plot just kept getting thicker. First, the culprit was cucumbers and tomatoes from Spain. Then it was bean sprouts from northern Germany. Then it wasn't.