2020 Science Archives
Here you’ll find all the currently existing posts on 2020 Science, in reverse date order. Feel free to browse through them, or if you’re looking for something specific, use the search box below.
When risk gets personal
When you're facing a life or death situation, what do the odds mean - to you personally? As Brian Zikmund-Fisher from the University of Michigan School of Public Health pointed out to Robert Siegel on NPR yesterday, "We're never 95 percent alive....
The gathering storm of lab safety
Pathogen safety in federal labs Over the past few weeks, revelations of potentially dangerous errors in US federal labs handling pathogens have placed health and safety high on the national agenda. In June, the US Centers for Disease Control and...
Who’s afraid of carbon nanotubes?
I've been fascinated by the coverage of Surrey nanosystems' carbon nanotube-based Vantablack material this week. The material's had widespread coverage - just Google "vantablack" to see what I mean. But in amongst all the geeked-out media...
New York Times does nanoparticles in sunscreens
What are the risks of nanoparticles in sunscreens? The New York Times has just posted an "Ask Well" article today by Deborah Blum answering the questions What are the risks from nanoparticles of titanium in sunscreens? and I am curious about the...
How safe is the world’s darkest material?
Vantablack - the new black? Over the past few days, the interweb's been awash with virtual "oohs" and "ahs" over Surrey Nanosystems' carbon nanotube-based Vantablack coating. The material - which absorbs over 99.9% of light falling onto...
Nanotubes create the blackest black – Douglas Adams would be proud
If your nanotechnology stream is anything like mine today, it will have been swamped by accounts like this one of "Vantablack" fabric - supposedly the world-s blackest-ever material! The material relies on a carbon nanotube forest that absorbs...
Nanoparticle donut math – crunching the numbers
Having written yesterday about nanoparticle titanium dioxide (TiO2) concentrations in donuts, Raphaël Lévy asked for some clarification on where I got my figures from. I thought it easiest to post the analysis in full - it goes a little deep into...
Nanoparticles in Dunkin’ Donuts? Do the math!
Nanoparticles in food products Over the past couple of years a number of articles have been posted claiming that we're eating more food products containing nanoparticles than we know (remember this piece from a couple of weeks ago?). One of the...
Nanojuice for GI tract imaging – is it safe?
Nanojuice: drinkable nanoparticles for studying the gut Over the past few days, my news and social media streams have been inundated by articles on "nanojuice". The "juice" - developed by researchers at the University of Buffalo and published in...
Do we need a better definition for synthetic biology?
Jim Thomas of the ETC Group has just posted a well reasoned article on the Guardian website on the challenges of defining the the emerging technology of "synthetic biology". The article is the latest in a series of exchanges addressing the...
Can using sunscreen increase your risk of dying?
Sunscreen (non)sense A recent comment on the Risk Science Center Facebook page asked whether we could help make sense of this article, posted on the website realfarmacy.com a few days ago: Scientists Blow The Lid on Cancer & Sunscreen Myth,...
Does reading science blogs decrease nanotechnology knowledge?
A recent paper in the journal Science Communication suggests, amongst other things, that reading science blogs leads to a decreased factual understanding of nanotechnology, and that the effect is greater for readers with lower socioeconomic status...
Step by step guide to making a Risk Bites video
Just for the fun of it, I decided to live-tweet the making of the previous Risk Bites video (Five things worth knowing about nanoparticles and sunscreens - posted June 15 2014). [View the story "Making a Risk Bites video" on Storify] The whole six...
US Federal Government nanotechnology EHS research progress review
A couple of weeks ago, the US National Nanotechnology Initiative released a progress review on its 2011 nanotechnology environmental, health and safety research strategy. This progress review provides a useful and timely update on activities and...
Nanoparticles and food
Mother Jones recently published an article on an apparent upsurge use of engineered nanoparticles in food that was somewhat misleading in places. I take the piece to task here, pointing out that the particles highlighted - predominantly titanium...
FDA releases new draft guidelines on nanomaterials safety and regulation
The US Food and Drug Administration have just released new guidance for industry on nanomaterials in cosmetics - the guidance can bee accessed here. The new guidance document is intended to assist industry and other stakeholders in identifying the...
Five things worth knowing about nanoparticles and sunscreens
Each year for the past several years it seems, the issue of whether nanoparticles used in sunscreens are safe comes up - usually just before summer. I've written quite a lot about this on 2020 Science in the past (check out the archives), but this...
Lost in Nano-Translation: Titanium Dioxide in Food Products
Recently the American publication Mother Jones published an article on the dangers of food laced with tiny metal oxide particles. The article, however, is laced with errors and misinformation. The source material for the article came from a report...
Responsible innovation key to the success of emerging technologies
Top ten breakthrough technologies The World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies today released its annual list of breakthrough technologies. The list highlights 10 trends in technological advancement that could offer...
Last run for the Mind The Science Gap blog
After nearly two years and four hundred posts, the science communication course at the University of Michigan that feeds the Mind The Science Gap blog is coming to and end. In between running a department, directing a research center, teaching,...
Talk to the Hand: Risk Bites, six months on
From Risk Sense: Six months ago, Risk Bites launched as a somewhat quirky YouTube experiment in science communication. Twenty-seven videos on, how are things going? Risk Bites was originally conceived as a way of pulling some rather cool...
Carbon nanotubes as a potent cancer promoter – new data from NIOSH
On Monday, the National Institute for Occupational Safety released new data on the potential role multi-walled carbon nanotubes play as a cancer-promoter - a substance that promotes the development of cancer in the presence of a carcinogen. In the...
Top 10 Most Promising Technology Trends 2013, from the World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies has just published its annual list of the top ten emerging technology trends. Based on expert assessment from council members and others, the list provides insight into...
At the frontiers of the science of health risk – five areas to watch
Cross-posted from Risk Sense This week's Risk Bites video takes a roller-coaster ride through some of the hottest topics in risk science. Admittedly this is a somewhat personal list, and rather constrained by being compressed into a two and a half...
On the benefits of wearing a hat while dancing naked, and other insights into the science of risk
Risk Bites - my new foray into the world of YouTube informal education - was officially launched a few weeks ago (although the transition from "unofficial" to "official" simply meant posting new videos more regularly!). The channel is an...
COP18 Doha, Qatar: A positive view point from low on the totem pole
A guest post by Candace Rowell MPH. Candace is an alum of the University of Michigan School of Public Health Department of Environmental Health Sciences, and a former contributor to Mind The Science Gap. She is currently a research associated with...
Open access academics: Experiments with YouTube, the Science of Risk, and Professional Amateurism
YouTube intrigues me. Having been dragged into the YouTube culture by my teenagers over the past two years, I've been fascinated by the shift from seemingly banal content to a sophisticated social medium. But what has really grabbed my attention...
Why should I wash my hands if I only pee?
Cross-posted from Risk Sense "Why should I wash my hands if I only pee?" It's the sort of question most parents have had to handle at some time - especially if you have pretentious kids who delight in telling you how pure pee is! It's also the...
Jumping the gap between a US and UK high school education
Tomorrow, my 16 year old daughter is leaving her home in the US for the UK. She'll be there for the next two years while she studies for her A levels. It was a heart-rending decision for my wife and I to agree to her living apart from us in a...
YouTube does the the Higgs Boson – Science communication on the quick!
Hot on the heels of yesterday's announcement on the Higgs Boson, some of YouTube's most viewed science communicators have been burning the midnight oil to explain why this is so exciting. Wrapping up this series of posts on YouTube, I thought I...