It is a word we hear from time to time, but few of us know what it means.

Utilitarianism is the method most people use to decide whether an action is right or wrong. We decide the moral merits of what we do on whether the consequences of that action are good or bad. But utilitarianism has recently been in the firing line of the press and radio and by some moral philosophers.

We come in peace. redgum, CC BY-NC-SA

By Seth Shostak, SETI Institute

By George Veletsianos, Royal Roads University

The belief that technology can automate education and replace teachers is pervasive. Framed in calls for greater efficiency, this belief is present in today’s educational innovations, reform endeavors, and technology products. We can do better than adopting this insipid perspective and aspire instead for a better future where innovations imagine creative new ways to organize education.

Supersize me: buffet edition. Joanna Servaes, CC BY-NC

By Aaron Blaisdell, University of California, Los Angeles

Credit: Birkbeck Media Services Centre, CC BY-NC-ND

By Gina Rippon, Aston University

Somewhere in this much-incinerated plant lies valuable medicine: perhaps a treatment for cancer or an antidote to obesity.Prensa 420/Flickr, CC BY-NC

By David J. Allsop, University of Sydney and Iain S. McGregor, University of Sydney

Medicinal cannabis is back in the news again after a planned trial to grow it in Norfolk Island was blocked by the federal government last week. The media is ablaze with political rumblings and tales of public woe, but what does science have to say on the subject?