Your Phone Could Be Used to Prosecute for Getting an Abortion: Here's How

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

    

May 24, 2022

Dear Reader, Phones collect a vast amount of data about their users, data that can be used to determine whether someone is pregnant or considering an abortion. In the U.S., there are few restrictions limiting how companies can store, use or sell this information. As a result, data on one's private health and reproductive choices are easily available through data brokers and other companies.

Sophie Bushwick, Associate Editor, Technology

Reproduction Your Phone Could Be Used to Prosecute for Getting an Abortion: Here's How Technology editor Sophie Bushwick breaks down the precedent for using your phone to monitor personal health data. By Sophie Bushwick,Tulika Bose

Politics To Prevent Nuclear Annihilation, Resume Negotiations Immediately The war in Ukraine shows the urgency of nuclear arms control By The Editors

Space Exploration Will NASA Save Europe's Beleaguered Mars Rover? Russia's invasion of Ukraine ended hopes of launching the ExoMars rover in 2022. Now the mission may never lift off at all By Jonathan O'Callaghan

Artificial Intelligence AI Can Predict Potential Nutrient Deficiencies from Space New work maps a region's nutrient landscape By Rachel Berkowitz

Consciousness We Shouldn't Try to Make Conscious Software--Until We Should Eventually, the most ethical option might be to divert all resources toward building very happy machines By Jim Davies

Climate Change Climate-Fueled Heat Waves Will Hamper Western Hydropower Earlier snowmelt can leave less water available to generate power during the height of summer By Benjamin Storrow,E&E News

Climate Change Air-Conditioning Should Be a Human Right in the Climate Crisis We need to protect vulnerable people from killer heat without destroying the environment By Rose M. Mutiso,Morgan D. Bazilian,Jacob Kincer,Brooke Bowser

Robotics Drones Could Spot Crime Scenes from Afar A system could aid forensic searches and crime-scene mapping by detecting reflections from human materials By Rachel Berkowitz

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 326, Issue 6

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Platforms will be powerless to regulate speech praising terrorists and those who engage in murderous campaigns, with horrendous potential ramifications if even a single person engages in copycat activity." Ars Technika

FROM THE ARCHIVE 50, 100 & 150 Years Ago: June 2022 Innovation and discovery as chronicled by Scientific American By Mark Fischetti | June 2022

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