Ecology and Nanotechnology

December 17, 2009

By Richard Worthington, Loka Institute

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series
My first scholarly engagement with environmental politics was an honor’s thesis written while I was an undergraduate at Berkeley in the early 1970s.  Back then, the term “environmentalist” was frequently deployed to profile someone held to be a naïve, irresponsible and [...]

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A new era of responsible innovation

December 16, 2009

By Richard Owen, University of Westminster, UK
A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series
This article was first published in Planet Earth, an award-winning magazine funded and published by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).  It is reproduced here with permission from Planet Earth and Richard Owen.
In 1956 one of my [...]

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Stop and Think: A Luddite Perspective

December 16, 2009

By Jennifer Sass Ph.D. Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series
We need make sure that harmful or untested nano-scale chemicals are not manufactured or commercialized in ways that may lead to human exposures or environmental releases. I know, I know, I sound like a Luddite. Well, [...]

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Innovation for a well-fed world – what role for technology?

December 15, 2009

By Geoff Tansey
A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series
Andrew posed the question, “How should technology innovation contribute to life in the 21st century?”
For me, working on creating a well-fed world, the short answer is: in a way that supports a diverse, fair and sustainable food system in which everyone, everywhere can [...]

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Beyond safety: some bigger questions about new technologies

December 15, 2009

By Georgia Miller, Friends of the Earth Australia
A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series
The promise that a given new technology will deliver environmentally benign electricity too cheap to meter, end hunger and poverty, or cure disease is very seductive. That is why the claims are made with many emerging technologies – [...]

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Innovation for whom? Innovation for what? The Impact of Ableism

December 14, 2009

By Gregor Wolbring

A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series
First let me thank Andrew for inviting me to write a piece for his blog. Andrew states that his blog is about “how technology innovation should contribute to living in the 21st century” and about “providing a clear perspective on developing science and [...]

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Biopolitics for the 21st Century

December 14, 2009

By Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, Associate Executive Director of the Center for Genetics and Society
A guest blog in the Alternative Perspectives on Technology Innovation series
Much appreciation is due to Andrew for his courage in soliciting “alternative perspectives” on technology innovation and life in the 21st century.  I can’t help but observe that his nervousness about doing [...]

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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 and Technology Innovation – looking to the future

December 9, 2009

The final part of a series on rethinking science and technology for the 21st century
Nine months ago, I embarked on an ambitious project to flesh out the ideas presented in a seminar given at the James Martin 21st Century School at the University of Oxford.  The seminar was titled ““Rethinking science and technology innovation: A [...]

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Completing the circle: Coupling science & technology outputs to inputs

December 7, 2009

Part 9 of a series on rethinking science and technology for the 21st century
Writing about completing the circle of science and technology policy at the start of the Copenhagen climate summit seems particularly fitting.  Although the climate change context was far from my mind when I started this series, it stands as a stark reminder [...]

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

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 Friday:
Mr. [...]

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Researchers are real people too – thoughts on interviewing scientists

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?

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

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 address [...]

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Serendipity at the Summit on the Global Agenda

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 masterful [...]

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

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

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!

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 inventory, [...]

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Culture Clash – the biopolitics of popular culture

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?

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

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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Risk Innovation… You what?! (Desparately seeking advice!)

October 23, 2009

Here’s something I’ve been chewing over for the past few weeks:  How do you capture succinctly the idea of developing innovative new approaches to identifying, assessing, managing and otherwise dealing with risks to human health?
What I’ve ended up with is “Risk Innovation” – but I’m not convinced it works.
So I thought I would see if [...]

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Riding the wave: Rethinking science & technology policy

October 15, 2009

Part 8 of a series on rethinking science and technology for the 21st century
Much to my embarrassment, I’ve just realized that it was over four months ago that I wrote the previous blog in this series – a series that was supposed to evolve over just a few weeks!  Most inconveniently, other priorities ended up [...]

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Do peer review journals need a media code of conduct?

October 14, 2009

Since when did peer review journals start to put press hits before published data?
Scientific peer review journals are a cornerstone of modern science – providing an authoritative repository of scientific discovery that researchers and others can examine, test and build upon.  Publication in peer review journals is the primary route by which new science is [...]

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“Nano” from the 1970’s. Don Eigler, eat your heart out!

October 1, 2009

Twenty years ago, Don Eigler became the first person to manipulate and position individual atoms, making the breakthrough that many consider a pivotal moment in modern nanotechnology.  Unknown to Don and the rest of IBM team though (I assume), they were pipped to the “nano” post a full ten years earlier… by an Italian sparkling [...]

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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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On the road again – epilogue

September 27, 2009

Sunday September 27, 9:40 AM

Well, I’m back from four days in deepest Colorado, and it’s time to take stock.

One of the more frustrating things I’m asked when traveling is “so what are you getting out of this meeting?”  Just occasionally, it’s tempting to answer “sleep deprivation, a bad back and a divorce.”  But that would [...]

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