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
Enough meetings already!
My worst nightmare—I’m sitting at the back of a small plane (by the bathroom), my knees up round my ears (because someone else with a bigger case got to the overhead storage before me), and a small child screaming its head off two rows down. But unlike a nightmare,...
Nano-silver: Looking a little tarnished?
The author Neal Stephenson got it wrong—at least, if this week’s nano-news is anything to go by! In his landmark 1995 novel “The Diamond Age,” Stephenson described a future built on nano-innovation. But thirteen years later, nanotechnology seems to be ushering in...
Nanotechnology—in bed with Madonna?
If you want proof that nano is mainstream, just pick up the U.S. May edition of fashion magazine “Elle.” Sharing cover-space with Madonna is the latest article on nanotech and the beauty business. Elle might not be your first choice of reading for cutting edge...
U.S. nanotechnology risk research funding—separating fact from fiction
The most recent estimate from the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) puts nanotechnology risk research investment at $68 million for 2006 (the only year complete figures are currently available for—apparently). Yet theProject on Emerging...
Of jellybeans and buckyballs…
Here’s a small diversion for a slow Sunday afternoon: Take sixty jellybeans and ninety cocktail sticks, and try to construct a model of a buckyball—a carbon-60 molecule. It’s tricky, but not impossible. Constructing a candy buckminster fullerene is one of ten nano...
I’m breathing in nanoparticles, so why aren’t I dead already?
Read some accounts of nanotechnology risks, and you might be forgiven for concluding that a single engineered nanoparticle can kill you. Of course, a little critical thinking soon dispels this notion—we are constantly bombarded with incidental nanoparticles from...
US town faces nanotechnology crisis
The small American town of Sunnyville is a town in crisis. Against a backdrop of job losses that have decimated the local community, citizens are struggling to decide whether to welcome two major nanotech-enabled industries into the town, or whether to reject them...
The passing of a science hero
On March 18th, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke died in his home in Sri Lanka at the age of 90. A master developer and assembler of ideas, Clarke will be remembered fondly by many for igniting their enthusiasm for science, and how it might be used to...
Smart science for the 21st century
Can current approaches to doing science sustain us over the next one hundred years? An increasing reliance on technological fixes to global challenges — including nanotechnology — demands a radical rethink of how we use science in the service of society. Over the...
Communicating nanotechnology: Image counts!
What determines your view of nanotechnology—the message, or the messenger? Most of us would like to think it is the message that governs our internal risk-benefit analysis. But research published this week suggests other factors may be at work. Dan Kahan at Yale Law...