Some Electronics Repairs Are Illegal: Federal Law Could Change That

Trouble viewing? View in your browser. View all Scientific American publications.

    

November 16, 2021

Dear Reader, By fixing our devices when they break, we can extend their lives, save money and reduce electronic waste. But independent repair shops and do-it-yourself enthusiasts face steep obstacles—including copyright rules that make some types of repairs illegal. In this week's lead story, right to repair advocate Kyle Wiens explains how federal legislation could help.

Sophie Bushwick, Associate Editor, Technology @sophiebushwick

Policy Some Electronics Repairs Are Illegal: Federal Law Could Change That The U.S. Copyright Office has helped, but fixing the right to repair is now up to Congress By Kyle Wiens

Vaccines This Cheap Device Could Expand the World's Access to Vaccines A new delivery method for certain vaccines could make the lifesaving treatments more effective and accessible By Sam Jones

Memory How Certain Gestures Help You Learn New Words Researchers used headsets that release disruptive magnetic pulses to study how motor brain areas contribute to the effect By Christiane Gelitz

Automobiles The New Deal Came Too Late for Electric Vehicles Lack of energy infrastructure explains the rise of the gasoline car By Josef Taalbi,Hana Nielsen

Space Exploration U.S. Officials Condemn Russian Anti-Satellite Test That Threatened Astronauts "The test has so far generated over 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris," a State Department spokesperson said By Chelsea Gohd,SPACE.com

Materials Science Seashells Inspire New Superstrong Glass Composite The novel material mimics the layered structure of nacre By Sophie Bushwick

Artificial Intelligence Why We Forgive Humans More Readily Than Machines When things go wrong, flexible moral intuitions cause us to judge computers more severely By César A. Hidalgo

Energy What Is a Smart Grid, and How Might One Protect Our Energy Future? Our electric grid is old and fraying, but new technology could insulate us from the possibility of widespread blackouts and cyberattacks. By Michael Tabb,Jeffery DelViscio,Andrea Gawrylewski

Engineering Top 10 Emerging Technologies for 2021 Innovations to help tackle societal challenges—especially climate change

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 325, Issue 6

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Russia said on Tuesday it had conducted a weapons test that targeted an old Russian satellite with 'razor-sharp precision' and denied allegations by the United States, Britain and NATO that the test had been dangerous for orbiting spacecraft." Tom Balmforth, Reuters

ADVERTISEMENT

FROM THE ARCHIVE Tech Waste Is a Danger to Us All Industry and governments are ignoring the problem—as well as some simple solutions By Asad Hamir | February 2020

LATEST ISSUES

Questions?   Comments?

Download the Scientific American App

To view this email as a web page, go here. You received this email because you opted-in to receive email from Scientific American. To ensure delivery please add news@email.scientificamerican.com to your address book. Unsubscribe     Manage Email Preferences     Privacy Policy     Contact Us