Science & Technology

The U.S. energy revolution is not confined to a single fuel or technology: oil and gas production, renewable energy, and fuel-efficient automobile technologies all show great promise. To best position the country for the future, U.S. leaders should capitalize on all these opportunities rather than pick a favorite; the answer lies in ‘most of the above.’

With predictions about climate change growing direr every week, geoengineering (which includes everything from fertilizing the oceans in an attempt to cajole great blooms of carbon-sucking phytoplankton to spraying particles into the upper atmosphere to make the earth more reflective) is starting to look more attractive. But the science still lags behind the ambitions. To understand how such schemes would work in practice -- and what their consequences would be -- it is time to start small-scale field tests.

In recent decades, the world has been rocked by revolutions in the digitization of computation and communication. Now the physical world is being digitized, thanks to new technologies that can turn data into things and things into data. Digital fabrication will let people build custom home furniture, living organs out of cells, and drones that can fly out of a printer; science fiction is becoming industrial fact.

The European Commission alleges that Google is preventing competition in the markets for Web search and advertising. But its concerns are unsubstantiated and it has yet to propose any workable remedies. Europe should stop trying to fix what isn't broken.