Public need to be involved direction of science
Getting the non-scientist public involved in less chatting and more real deliberation on how to apply scientific knowledge is the call from a recent report.My dilemma is how to make it happen.
The more direct discussion and engagement I have with the public – scientists and non-scientists – on emerging technologies such as nanotech, the more I think the public can and should be involved in helping guide the direction of scientific research. This involvement should be at the early stages of the research rather than the end bit where it is ready to be, or already has been thrust into the marketplace.
The question is how to do it and would a reasonable cross section of the public be prepared to be involved. I have no doubt there would be hands-up from a few vocal and concerned minority groups, but although welcome, they hardly represent a cross-section.
There is plenty of literature out there backing the idea of ‘upstream engagement’, as it has been called. One of the latest reports is from the DEEPEN project: “Reconfiguring responsibility”.
Its just a stick
The report emphasizes a strong need to find mechanisms that involve the public helping guide the direction of research towards goals that are broadly acceptable to society. My challenge is to find the mechanism(s). The thing that nags my conscience, however, is that should I or anyone succeed in having the Australian public involved in guiding research in a particular direction, the same knowledge can be used for a completely different purpose elsewhere that may be unacceptable to Australians.
Having unloaded this personal moral predicament on you, I am aware that this predicament has always existed, probably since humans started using tools. The first time someone sharpened a stick and, through some trial and error, realised this would be really cool to throw at and kill animals to feed the family only to find that his neighbour over the hill found what he saw as a better application and used it to spear him and steal his wife. But I put the nagging conscience on ice because if we were to halt scientific research because of fear of what others might do with this knowledge, humans would never have advanced past simply using a stick to keep the fire going.
Stop the chatter
In the DEEPEN report two of their ten lessons for public policy are to move public debate from conversation to deliberation and move away from speculation. So far, in Australia most engagement about nanotech (or any emerging technology) has been limited to conversation: we arrange a forum, workshop or meeting and the public get to ask questions and we have a chat. And we don’t get much deeper than highlighting the potential revolution that is about to change society or the massive risk to human health and environment – ah, but I generalise somewhat here. Then all depart their separate ways and someone writes a report and that is as far as it goes. There are a few exceptions that have involved government, industry, research, and NGO’s sitting in a room and trying to pin down policy areas that all agree need to be worked on. To some extent they probably still count as conversations rather than deliberations and how many of the agreed on ‘action items’ will filter down into action or change, I am unsure, but it is a start. Reports on a couple of these initiatives can be found on DIISR’s site
Day dreaming
As for speculation, I think this is a good thing: dare to dream, free the mind, think outside the square…and other such clichés – or to quote Jim Dator, University of Hawaii 2005, “Any useful idea about the future should appear to be ridiculous.” So speculation should stay, but we also need to focus on the realities and decide the direction of the science that is happening in labs today. It may not be the stuff of Hollywood, but some of it comes close – human enhancement technologies (improving cognitive performance or strength) are likely to be accessible in my lifetime (I am a forty-something). And this is what I want to get the public involved in – just got to work out how and if it will work. All thoughts or speculations about how and if this might be done gratefully accepted.
Jason Major
Sugar cane genome to reveal future of fuel
An Australian perspective on tapping the potential of sugar cane as a source of energy and fuel
Southern Cross University/CRC Sugar: http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20092708-19637.html
Quick chip detects type and severity of cancer
A hand held microchip sensitive enough to determine the type and severity of a patient’s cancer in 30 minutes rather than days has been developed.
University of Toronto: http://www.news.utoronto.ca/lead-stories/u-of-t-researchers-create-microchip-that-can-detect-type-and-severity-of-ca.html
Journey of your genes
Want to know where you come from, even trace your ancestry all the way back to Africa? Uni of Melbourne, in partnership with National Geographic’s Genographic Project, will allow you to do just that, Sunday 4 October.
Where did I come from? Well I can get as far back as England – Welsh peasants, to be precise, but historical records struggle to delve into my ancestry much further.
But if, like me, you live in Melbourne and want to trace your ancestral journey potentially back more than 2000 generations (1000s of years), back even to our African roots, then on Sunday 4 October the Bio21 Institute is hosting the “Journey of your Genes” to allow you to do just that.
Members of the public are invited to rock up to the University of Melbourne’s Bio21 Institute to undergo a cheek swab to analyse DNA markers that will allow the testing team to trace your ancestry back through history along a single line of maternal or paternal descent.
Even cooler, is that for the first 100 people at the door it is free.
The event is being staged as part of the Evolution Festival in partnership with the National Geographic’s Genographic Project and IBM.
Where: Bio21 Institute, 75 Flemington Rd, Parkville
When: Sunday 4 October
Time: 10am, but they are expecting a bit of a crowd so don’t sleep in
More info: www.humanjourneys.com.au
Jason Major
Graincorp confident it can keep GM canola separate
AUSTRALIA will attempt to keep genetically-modified canola segregated from conventional crops, contradicting earlier reports saying they would be mixed together.
Sydney Morning Herald:
Genetic tests and life insurance
In a Melbourne study people declined to have a genetic test because of concerns about how it might affect their life or health insurance.
Life Matters - ABC radio – podcast
Genetic tests can reveal if you have a gene which increases the risk of bowel cancer but, in a Melbourne study, people declined to be tested because of concerns about how it might affect their life or health insurance.
The study’s authors say these are potentially life-saving tests and want the government and the insurance industry to review the use of genetic information.
Gold rush for algae
No longer lowly pond scum, algae have rocketed in status to what some say is the most promising ‘green’ fuel source of the future.
Nature News - subscription needed. Summary below
Published online 23 September 2009 | Nature 461, 460-461 (2009) | doi:10.1038/461460a
Amanda Leigh Mascarelli
The business of biofuels
No longer lowly pond scum, algae have rocketed in status to what some say is the most promising ‘green’ fuel source of the future.
Algae’s photosynthetic cells produce an oily goo, including various oils and ethanol, that can be converted into advanced biofuels. Since 2007, more than $1 billion has been injected into algae-to-energy research and development, says Will Thurmond, president of Emerging Markets Online, an energy consulting firm in Houston, Texas.
“Algae have several key traits that make them a desirable energy source. They can be grown on non-agricultural land in a fraction of the area required by conventional oil crops such as maize (corn), soybean and palm. In addition, algae capture carbon dioxide and can thrive in domestic waste water or salt water. But experts warn that there are still high hurdles to overcome before algal biofuels can compete economically with conventional fossil fuels. Challenges include finding strains of algae that reliably produce high yields, keeping contamination at bay, developing cost-effective growth chambers and efficiently harvesting oil from the cells. “In the end, it’s all going to come down to economics and what it’s going to cost to produce this algal oil on a large, commercial scale on a dollar-per-gallon basis,” says Al Darzins, who leads the algal biofuels programme at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado.
Immortality in 20 years
Yeh right
The futurist and inventor, Ray Kurzweil, is claiming (again) that by 2020 nanobots and other nanotechnologies, including massive computing power, will be behind our ability to halt and reverse the ageing process – ie living forever.
See yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph article. He also got a mention in the various editions of the train commuter’s bible – MX.
But Kurzweil is repeating what he said in 2004 (which coincidentally was when he released his last book Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever.). So this isn’t exactly new news.
He now has a new book out on this stuff, so I “suspect’ he is, in a very unsubtle way, flogging the book in the best way he knows. Having said this Ray Kurzweil has done some cool stuff in the IT and field of artificial intelligence, but I can’t find a any real scientific consensus to back his claims about immortality and hordes of tiny nanobots repairing our bodies and boosting brainpower by 2020.
Replay
Here is some of what he said in a 2004 interview with PC World
“The killer app for nanotechnology, about twenty years away, is nanobots. Inside our bodies and brains, nanobots will provide radical life extension by destroying pathogens and cancer cells, repairing DNA errors, destroying toxins and debris, and otherwise reversing aging processes.” And on being brainier: “Nanobots in the capillaries of our brains will interact with our biological neurons to vastly expand our biological intelligence. Once nonbiological intelligence gets a foothold in our brains…it will grow in capacity by at least doubling every year…The crossover point will be in the 2020s. By the 2030s, the nonbiological portion of our intelligence will predominate.”
Back to earth
There is no doubt nanotechnologies and advances in computing power will probably lead to radical changes in society in the next 10-20 years, but considering it can take up to 10 years to get any sort of drug or clinical treatment through the research and clinical trial process, and that we are still grappling with the basic research in this area, I feel Kurzweil’s timeframe may be a bit out. But then in 1990 it took 13 years to sequence the human genome. Now it takes about one month.
Personal caveat I have yet to read his book, so the media version may be taking Kurzweil’s concepts out of context.
Further reading
Jason Major
Age at first drink can affect genes and alcoholism risk
An Australian twin study has shown that the age at which a person takes a first drink may influence genes linked to alcoholism, making the youngest drinkers the most susceptible to severe problems.
Alcohilism: Clinical and Experimental Reseach: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118520059/home?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
nano-therapy for erectile dysfunction
Nanoparticles encapsulating nitric oxide or prescription drugs could treat erectile dysfunction without side effects.
In on every other web site, so why not here
Eurekalert: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/aeco-ted091709.php