THE NEW ATLANTIS (March 18, 2025): The Spring 2025 issue features How the water system works, how virologists lost the gain-of-function debate, living well with AI, a physics that cares, and more…

How Virologists Lost the Gain-of-Function Debate

For years, scientists kept the debate about risky virus research among themselves. Then Covid happened. As President Trump prepares to crack down on virology research, the expert community must face up to its own failures.

Stop Hacking Humans

From cradle to grave, surrogacy to smartphones to gender surgery to euthanasia, Americans are using technology to shortcut human nature — and shortchange ourselves. Here is a new agenda for turning technology away from hacking humans and toward healing them.

The Mars Dream Is Back — Here’s How to Make It Actually Happen

Between SpaceX’s breakthroughs and Trump’s inaugural promise, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity. But it can’t be realized as an eccentric’s project or a pork banquet. Here’s a science-driven program that could get astronauts on the Red Planet by 2031.