From the category archives:

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Why we need technology ratchets

March 7, 2010

A lot of things keep me up at night – everything from the trivial (“did I remember to brush my teeth?”) to the to the profound (“does it matter?” ).  But recently, I’ve been plagued more than usual in the wee small hours by the challenge of developing sustainable and resilient technologies.
Blame it on reading [...]

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Why I don’t believe in technology innovation

February 17, 2010

Sitting here in Denver Airport, I think I have finally lost my faith in technology innovation.  And the reason?  That fiendish creation of the Gates empire, Microsoft Word.
Like a good believer, I have persevered with my faith in technology innovation as a driver of social progress.  There have been niggling doubts for sure.  But I’ve [...]

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Davos 2010 wrapup – inspired by youth

January 31, 2010

Well, I’ve survived my first “Davos” and lived to tell the tale.  I feel I should write about how profoundly important and influential these meetings are (and without a doubt, they are).  But it’s two o’clock in the morning, and I wanted to wrap up this blog series with a minimum of effort before hitting [...]

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No Small Matter – a taste of the nanoscale

January 18, 2010

To accompany the review just posted of Felice Frankel and George Whitesides’ book “No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale” the authors kindly allowed me to post this series of excerpts.  What I wanted to capture here was the synergy between the images and the prose – and how together they pull the reader in.

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Ten emerging technology trends to watch over the next decade

December 25, 2009

Ten years ago at the close of the 20th century, people the world over were obsessing about the millennium bug – an unanticipated glitch arising from an earlier technology.  I wonder how clear it was then that, despite this storm in what turned out to be a rather small teacup, the following decade would see [...]

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Hooked on tech – ten alternative perspectives on technology innovation

December 10, 2009

2020 Science is something of a labor of love – it’s a website where I explore my thoughts and ideas surrounding the interface between science, technology and society beyond the constraints of my “day job” (currently Chief Science Advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson Center).  I like to think I [...]

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Science: So what? – So what?

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 to have [...]

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Rethinking the world – World Economic Forum style

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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So you’re curious about nanotechnology…

September 28, 2009

Curious, concerned or just plain confused about nanotechnology?  The new website Nano & Me might be just what you are looking for.

Funded in part by the UK department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and developed by the Responsible Nano Forum, Nano & Me is aimed at providing clear and balanced information on an emerging [...]

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Want the low-down on nanotechnology safety? Try these ten helpful resources

September 14, 2009

Where’s the best place to look for down to earth information on nanotechnology safety?  Surprisingly, given how much time I spend speaking and writing about the subject, I don’t think I have ever sat down and compiled such a list.  But while preparing for this year’s annual meeting of the Nanotechnology Informal Science Education Network [...]

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Hooked on science – ten things that inspired me to become a scientist

September 3, 2009

How exactly did I get hooked on science?  It’s not something I’ve thought about too much before. But an invitation to discuss how to inspire the next generation of scientists, technologists and engineers next week has got me thinking…

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Ten things everyone should know about nanotechnology safety

August 29, 2009

Asked to conclude the Fourth International Conference on Nanotechnology, Occupational and Environmental Health in Helsinki this year, I rather rashly came up with the above title for my talk—thinking that I would find inspiration in the multitude of new research on nanotech safety being presented at the meeting.
As it turns out, events conspired against me [...]

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Is nanotechnology poised for the ride of its life?

August 18, 2009

In the wake of a new study linking “nanotechnology” to two deaths and five additional cases of lung disease, the emerging technology of the ultra-small could be in for a rough ride.  Yet the real risk is that in the rush to use or even abuse the findings, the science and it’s true relevance are [...]

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Geoengineering: Are we grown up enough to handle it?

June 14, 2009

If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to unite global warming “denialists” on both sides of the aisle, it’s geoengineering – the intentional planet-wide manipulation of the environment.  At least, you might be left with that impression after reading the comments following a thoughtful piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal by Jamais Cascio.

Cascio describes himself as [...]

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To tweet or not to tweet – social media and the scientific meeting

June 3, 2009

Should live tweeting and blogging from scientific meetings be controlled?
Back in May, Daniel MacArthur – a researcher and blogger – wrote a number of on-the-spot blogs on the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Biology of Genomes meeting.  By all accounts a number of people were tweeting and blogging from the meeting.  But Daniel had the [...]

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Nanotechnology: From nano-novice to nano-genius in 13 steps

May 26, 2009

Back in April, the folks at the PBS station THIRTEEN asked me to answer 13 questions on nanotechnology and the environment for their website feature Green Thirteen.   The questions ended up covering most of nanotechnology – what it is, what it’s good for, what the downsides might be, and how we might overcome potential problems [...]

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Roll over nanotechnology, synthetic biology is coming!

May 18, 2009

So you’re looking for a new technology concept—something that will stimulate research funding, make a buck or two, and maybe save the world—at least for another year or so.  What do you need?
Here’s a quick checklist:

Something that’s revolutionary. Evolutionary change doesn’t hack it these days I’m afraid—your new technology needs to make a distinct break [...]

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The long shout

May 13, 2009

In the long run, does art trump science?
Lateral communication—sending information from point to point around the world—is so fast and efficient these days that we tend to take it for granted.  But how good are we at passing information forward in time—what you might call longitudinal communication?  If we wanted to send a message to [...]

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Cultural smokescreens

May 6, 2009

50 years on, have we missed the point of C.P. Snow’s “Two-cultures?”
50 years ago, long before Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme,” the British scientist, public figure and novelist Charles Percy Snow planted an idea into the collective consciousness that has since grown to have a profound influence on science and the arts in Western [...]

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Science influence on Twitter

April 22, 2009

This is by way of a quick follow-on to yesterday’s post on the number of people on Twitter  following science-focused users.  As was pointed out, just logging the number of followers someone has on twitter is a poor indicator of either success or influence.  So, spurred into action, here is a rather more sophisticated analysis [...]

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Confessions of a “media hog”

March 26, 2009

There are some things they don’t cover in media training, like giving interviews while suffering from stomach flu, talking to reporters thousands of miles away while on a dodgy cell phone connection, or speaking intelligently while your three-year-old niece runs rings around your legs.  It’s probably because they come under the “so bloody stupid no [...]

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Are we ready for synthetic biology?

March 25, 2009

A new report looks at the challenges of regulating first generation products of synthetic biology.
At the J. Craig Venter Institute, scientists are on the verge of creating a living organism from “dead” chemicals, by rebooting a microbe with a new—and completely artificially constructed—genome.
At the University of California Berkeley, researchers are modifying microbes to act as [...]

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Blogging the demise of science journalism

March 20, 2009

This week’s edition of Nature includes a thought provoking piece by Geoff Brumfiel on the decline of mainstream science journalism and the rise of science blogging.  The big question: Can one replace the other?  It’s a sobering read: Blumfiel paints a picture of old media in crisis—science coverage in the mainstream media is being cut [...]

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A 2020 Science Taster

February 19, 2009

Given the recent surge in 2020science readers (thanks to Lon S. Cohen at Mashable), I thought it about time I did a short retrospective—a taster for the type of stuff you can expect to read here.  So here are five pieces from the past year that cover everything from nanotechnology to synthetic biology, and ethics [...]

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Five more good books

December 31, 2008

Science gone right, science gone wrong, science gone social, science gone political—it’s all here in five off-beat book recommendations to kick off 2009.  Ranging from Darwin’s Origin of Species to Sir Terry Pratchett’s Nation, the one thing I think I can guarantee is that you will struggle to find an odder bunch of literary bed-fellows!  [...]

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