OUR PICKSBirthright Citizenship and Undocumented Immigrants | Minimum Nuclear Deterrence Is a Bad Idea | Understanding Climate Migration, and more

Why an Offline Nuclear Reactor Led to Thousands of Hospital Appointments Being Canceled  (Chris Baraniuk, Wired)
Radioisotopes are a vital resource for imaging patients’ organs and tumors—but these unstable elements also suffer from an unstable supply chain.

Algorithms Are Coming for Democracy—but It’s Not All Bad  (Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders, Wired)
Beyond the deepfakes and disinformation, the potential for AI to make politics more accessible and equitable cannot be ignored.

The Decisions That Cost Some Lives and Saved Others During Helene’s Wrath  (Samuel Oakford, Kim Bellware and Silvia Foster-Frau, Washington Post)
Six workers, most of whom were Latino, died after showing up for work at a factory in Tennessee. A mile down the road, 70 people stuck at a hospital were rescued from the roof.

The Populist Phantom  (Larry M. Bartels, Foreign Affairs)
Threats to democracy start at the top.

10 Reasons Why Minimum Nuclear Deterrence Is a Bad Idea  (Ben Ollerenshaw, National Interest)
Deterrence is impossible if U.S. strategic offensive forces cannot target the full range of enemy nuclear forces, general-purpose forces, and war-supporting industries.

The U.S. Is Building an Early Warning System to Detect Geoengineering  (Christopher Flavelle, New York Times)
As the planet continues to heat up, the idea of intentionally trying to block solar radiation — sometimes called solar radiation modification, solar geoengineering, or climate intervention — is gaining attention. Many worry that solar geoengineering could have unintended consequences, shattering regional weather patterns and damaging everything from agriculture to local economies. So the United States is building a system that would allow it to determine if and when others may be trying to tamper with the Earth’s thermostat.

Understanding Climate Migration  (Shelly Culbertson, National Interest)
The World Bank estimates that between 44 million and 216 million people will migrate within their countries due to climate change by 2050.

Germany Sees Dramatic Rise in Measles Cases (Elizabeth Schumacher, DW)
Fatal diseases like measles and Hepatitis B are on the rise in Germany, despite accessible vaccines. Anti-vaccine social media, the COVID-19 pandemic and imported cases are thought to be behind the drastic increase.

Birthright Citizenship and Undocumented Immigrants  (Ilya Somin, Just Security)
I have some normative reservations about birthright citizenship. Ideally, I would prefer access to citizenship, residency, and work rights to be less dependent on circumstances of birth. But Trump’s apparent plan to deny citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants would exacerbate the flaws of the system, rather than alleviate them. And, even aside from normative considerations, it is clearly unconstitutional. If the new administration goes through with this proposal whether by executive action or legislation, courts should and most likely would strike it down.