Welcome to the 2020 Science Archive
2020 Science started life in 2007 as a nanotechnology blog written by Andrew Maynard on SafeNano. In the following years it developed into a personal blog addressing emerging technologies, responsible innovation, risk, science communication, and the intersection between science and society more generally.
Andrew made he decision to wind the blog down in 2019 as his focus and writing developed in new directions. This archive contains most of the original posts (there have been occasional clean-ups of content). For more recent articles etc. please visit andrewmaynard.net. And thanks for visiting!
BROWSE THE ARCHIVE
A decade of uncertainty in nanoscale science and engineering
First published in Nature Nanotechnology, 5 March 2014. Nature Nanotechnology 9, 159–160 (2014) doi:10.1038/nnano.2014.43 [Link] Ten years after the publication of an influential report on the uncertainties in nanoscale science and engineering, are we in danger of...
A Scientist’s Manifesto
Four years ago I posted Professor Robert Winston's "Scientist's Manifesto" on 2020 Science. Having just gone back and read this, it still resonate deeply with me - so I'm reposting it in the hope that it will also resonate with others: 1. We should try to...
Mapping global risks and opportunities in 2015
Over the next few days, I'll be joining experts from around the world to address emerging global trends and challenges at the World Economic Forum Summit on the Global Agenda. Framing our discussions will be the just-released Outlook on the Global Agenda 2015 - a...
Risk Bites: Five awesome reasons to subscribe
Between now and the end of the year, we're aiming to reach 10,000 subscribers on the Risk Bites YouTube channel, and we need your help. To find out how, click here or check out the #RiskBites10k hashtag on Twitter Otherwise, keep on reading to find out more. Almost...
Framing Emerging Technologies
How do we chart a path forward toward the effective and responsible development and use of new technologies? For the next two years, the World Economic Forum Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies will be tackling this and other questions as it develops ways of...
Google goes all Polio and Public Health
If you hadn't noticed, today's Google doodle celebrates the 100 year anniversary of Jonas Salk's birth - Salk pioneered the first successful inactivated virus based vaccine for Polio. As The Guardian reminds us, it's a good reminder of the power of vaccines. It's...
BPA and cash register receipts: should you be worried?
I'm a bit of a cash register receipt junkie. I obsessively stuff my wallet with those little slips of thermal paper telling me how much I've spent. And it has to be paper - none of this e-receipt nonsense. But an article published last week in the journal PLOS One...
Combatting Ebola: Moving beyond the hype
As of October 19, over 9,000 cases of Ebola had been reported, with close to 5,000 deaths, almost exclusively in West Africa. And while there have been success stories such as the elimination of Ebola infections from Nigeria and Senegal, the numbers of cases in...
Five things worth knowing about ebola
There's something rather human about being scared of the ebola virus. It's a "bogeyman" virus - the stuff of nightmares; hovering in the shadows of our imagination like a half-glimpsed specter. Like most imagined horrors though, the reality of ebola is much more...
Risky tales: Talking with Seth Shostak at Big Picture Science
I had a roller coaster of an interview with Seth Shostak (Director of the Center for SETI Research and host of Big Picture Science) last week on risk and black swan events. I was poised to talk about rare but high impact events like a mega-eruption at Yellowstone...