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
We need to make the PhD system more student-supportive and student-centric
Not everyone aspires to getting a PhD. But for those who do, pursuing one should be the pinnacle of their educational experience. Yet for many graduate students, studying for their doctoral degree turns into nightmare that continues to haunt them long after they’ve...
The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future: Beginnings
As The Moviegoer's Guide to the Future book comes together over the next few weeks, I thought it would be interesting to post excerpts from the early drafts. These will change during editing -- drastically so in some cases I suspect. But they might pique your...
The BS and the Science of Nanotechnology
In case you missed it, Elon Musk called BS on the field of nanotechnology last week. The ensuing Twitter spat was admittedly rather small on the grand scale of things. But it did throw up an important question: just what is nanotech, and where does the BS end and the...
I just signed a book deal – The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future’s happening!
The big news is that I've just signed a book deal with the publisher Mango! The working title for the book is The Moviegoer's Guide to the Future (Update: the final title is Films from the Future: The Technology and Morality of Sci-Fi Movies), and it's going to be a...
10 potential risks of artificial intelligence we should probably be thinking about now
To unpack some of the challenges around the risks and benefits Artificial Intelligence, Risk Bites has a 5 minute introduction to ten potential risks of AI we should probably be thinking about now
Humility in science communication
A few weeks ago, I was asked to give a keynote on Knowledge Mobilization for the annual Graduate College Impact Awards at Arizona State University (the video's at the end of this post). The talk was to be science communication. But on reflection, I took the...
After Tempe fatality, self-driving car developers must engage with public now or risk rejection
Andrew Maynard, Arizona State University; Jameson Wetmore, Arizona State University, and Thaddeus R. Miller, Arizona State University On Sunday evening, March 18, an Uber SUV hit and killed a pedestrian in the Arizona city of Tempe. In a place where vehicle-related...
Eager to dye your hair with ‘nontoxic’ graphene nanoparticles? Not so fast!
Graphene is something of a celebrity in the world of nanoscale materials. Isolated in 2004 by Nobel Prize winners Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, these ultrathin sheets of carbon atoms are already finding novel uses in areas like electronics, high-efficiency...
What is the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and why should you care?
We have a new video up on the YouTube Risk Bites channel that asks what the fourth industrial revolution is, and looks at the technological trends underpinning it. If you've ever wondered what the fourth industrial revolution is, why it's so important, what whatever...
‘Geostorm’ movie shows dangers of hacking the climate – we need to talk about real-world geoengineering now
Jane A. Flegal, University of California, Berkeley and Andrew Maynard, Arizona State University Hollywood’s latest disaster flick, “Geostorm,” is premised on the idea that humans have figured out how to control the Earth’s climate. A powerful satellite-based...