November 2009

Nanotechnology in 24 seconds/7 words, courtesy of Wade Adams and the Ig Nobels

by Andrew Maynard November 30, 2009

How do you describe nanotechnology in 24 seconds, or even in 7 words?  Tough challenge, but Professor Wade Adams, Director of the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science & Technology at Rice University rose to it with aplomb at this year’s Ig Nobel awards. Here’s the transcript of the achievement, from last week’s Science [...]

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Researchers are real people too – thoughts on interviewing scientists

by Andrew Maynard November 29, 2009

Andréia Azevedo Soares has just posted an excellent blog on how to interview scientists over at YS Journal – an on-line journal written, edited and published by students.  The piece is aimed specifically at students from 12 to 20 years old who are engaged with the Young Scientists Journal project from around the world, and [...]

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Science: So what? – So what?

by Andrew Maynard November 27, 2009

I sat down this morning to write a light-hearted blog about the UK government’s “Science: So what? So everything” campaign.  The angle was going to be: Why write about this when people want to read about this? But the more I dug around, the more apparent it became that this is an initiative that seems [...]

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What’s technology innovation got to do with it? Final thoughts on the Summit on the Global Agenda

by Andrew Maynard November 22, 2009

As this weekend’s Summit on the Global Agenda came to a close this morning, I was left with an abiding impression of a looming yet largely hidden potential crisis in global security and prosperity: A failure to develop and use technology innovation effectively in serving the growing needs of society. The summit set out to [...]

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Serendipity at the Summit on the Global Agenda

by Andrew Maynard November 21, 2009

Good brainstorms are oft anticipated and rarely encountered.  So I tend to get a little excited when I find myself in one that stimulates rather than stultifies. Today at the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda had more than it’s fair share of frustrations – including what I can only describe as a [...]

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From the Summit on the Global Agenda: Technology innovation as an enabler of social innovation

by Andrew Maynard November 20, 2009

It’s the end of day one at the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda, and I’m sitting in my rather comfortable hotel room overlooking Palm Island, trying to pull my thoughts together. It was a day for meeting old friends, making new acquaintances, listening to stirring speeches and exploring new challenges.  As you [...]

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Rethinking the world – World Economic Forum style

by Andrew Maynard November 19, 2009

For the next three days I will be participating in and blogging from the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda in Dubai.  If last year’s summit – described as the “World’s largest brainstorming” – is anything to go by, we’re in for an intense few days.  The summit draws on the WEF’s Global [...]

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Looking for the nanotechnology in your life? There’s an app for that!

by Andrew Maynard November 12, 2009

Okay so it’s more of a list of nanotech-enabled products than a lifestyle tool, but at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, we’ve just released an iPhone version of our surprisingly successful web-based nanotech Consumer Products Inventory. With findNano, it’s a piece of cake to search or browse through the 1000+ manufacturer-identified nanotechnology-enabled products in the [...]

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Culture Clash – the biopolitics of popular culture

by Andrew Maynard November 10, 2009

This is a first for 2020 Science – a plug for a meeting which I have nothing to do with!  But next month’s seminar on the Biopolitics of Popular Culture being run by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET) looks so intriguing that I couldn’t resist! (that, and a heads-up from IEET Managing [...]

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Could some nanoparticles inflict harm across normally tight biological barriers?

by Andrew Maynard November 5, 2009

A new paper published on-line today in Nature Nanotechnology hints that some nanoparticles could cause damage to cells on the other side of normally tight barriers – such as the blood brain barrier or the placenta – without actually crossing the barriers.  It’s a study that could raise concerns over the safe  medical use of [...]

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Speaking power to truth – the unfortunate case of David Nutt

by Andrew Maynard November 1, 2009

Sitting 3000 miles away from London in Washington DC, I’ve been following the dismissal of Professor David Nutt as the UK government’s senior scientific advisor on the misuse of drugs, with interest.  Not being steeped in British drugs politics, I was only vaguely aware of the tensions between the Advisory Council on the Misuse of [...]

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