Tag Archives: Guardian

UK’s Guardian newspaper hosts panel discussion: Should we use nanotechnology to feed ourselves?

This can be a short one. Should you happen to be in London, UK on Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2012, you can join in a panel discussion to be held in the Guardian’s offices (registration required). Here’s more from a Sept. 22, 2013 news item on Nanowerk,

Global society faces a number of stark choices regarding how we produce and consume food. Quite simply, current practices are not sustainable for the growing global population and trends observed in emerging economies of adopting a consumer-heavy Western lifestyle. We need to change.

This panel discussion, on Wednesday, October 9, 2013 at 6 pm, chaired by The Guardian’s Science and Environment Correspondent, Alok Jha, will discuss the contribution nanotechnologies can make to this, and the potential benefits and risks that go hand-in-hand.

Full details can be found here on the event registration page on the Guardian website,

The Guardian, in association with the Nanopinion Project, are delighted to offer readers the chance to attend an evening seminar on Wednesday 9 October, held at the Guardian offices in London.

There will be a panel discussion, chaired by the Guardian’s Science and Environment Correspondent, Alok Jha, to consider the contribution nanotechnologies can make to food production and security, and the potential benefits and risks that go hand-in-hand.

The discussion will reflect on the societal impacts that new technology solutions may have and will include representatives from industry, academia, NGOs and government agencies.

We will be discussing:

• Where are nanotechnologies are being used in the food chain?

• What can we expect in the future?

• What scenarios are likely from using or not using nanotechnologies?

• What are the alternatives?

• How are things different around the globe?

• What are the impacts of different nanomaterials on the environment?

• What about consumer confidence – who has looked at this?

The discussion will then be followed by a Q&A where delegates will have the opportunity to gain further insight from our panel of experts. The seminar will be reported through the Guardian’s online channels to encourage continued discussion and awareness of the key issues among the broader public.

Simply register your details below and you could win one of 20 places to this stimulating event.

Good luck and for those who can’t be bothered to scroll up,  here’s the registration page again. One final thought, it would be nice to know who their experts will be.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper science blogs go nano and experiment with editorial/advertorial

Small World, a nanotechnology blog, was launched today (Tuesday, Apr. 23, 2013)  on the UK’s Guardian newspaper science blogs network. Here’s more from the Introductory page,

Small World is a blog about new developments in nanotechnology funded by Nanopinion, a European Commission project. All the posts are commissioned by the Guardian, which has complete editorial control over the blog’s contents. The views expressed are those of the authors and not the EC

Essentially, Nanopinion is paying for this ‘space’ in much the same way one would pay for advertising but the posts will be written in an editorial style. In practice, this is usually called an ‘advertorial’. The difference between this blog and the usual advertorial is that the buyer (Nanopinion) is not producing or editing the content. By implication, this means that Nanopinion is not controlling the content. Getting back to practice, I would imagine that the Guardian editors are conscious that is an ethically complicated situation. It would be interesting to see what will happen to this paid-for-blog if ‘too many’ posts are negative or if their readership should decide this setup is so ethically questionable that they no longer trust or read the newspaper and/or its blogs.

The first posting on this blog by Kostas Kostarelos, professor of nanomedicine at University College London, on Apr. 23, 2013 is thoughtful (Note: Links have been removed),

There is beauty in exploring the nanoscale. But the idea gets more tainted the more we learn about it, like a young love affair full of expectation of the endless possibilities, which gradually becomes a dysfunctional relationship the more the partners learn about each other. One day we read about wonderful nanomaterials with exotic names such as zinc oxide nanowires, say, or silver nanocubes used to make ultra-efficient solar panels, and the next we read about shoebox bomb attacks against labs and researchers by anti-nanotechnology terrorist groups. It makes me wonder: is there a particular problem with nanotechnology?

As with all human relationships, we run the risk of raising expectations too high, too soon.

He goes on to discuss the dualistic nanotechnology discourse (good vs bad) and expresses his hope that the discourse will not degenerate into a ceaseless battle and says this,

… We should not allow vigilance, critical thinking and scientific rigor to transmute into polemic.

As someone who lives and breathes exploration on the nanoscale – which aims to create tools for doctors and other health professionals against some of our most debilitating diseases – I hope that this blog will offer an everyday insight into this journey and its great promises, flaws, highs and lows. We want to offer you a transparent and honest view of nanotechnology’s superhuman feats and its very human limitations.

I have mentioned Kostarelos in past postings, most recently in a Jan. 16, 2013 posting with regard to his involvement in a study on carbon nanotubes and toxicity.

As for Nanopinion, it put me in mind of another European Commission project, Nanochannels, mentioned in my Jan. 27, 2011 posting,

From the Jan. 17, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

Nanotechnology issues are about to hit the mass media in a big way. The new EC-funded NANOCHANNELS project was launched last week with a two-day kick-off meeting that led to the planning of a dynamic programme of communication, dialogue, and engagement in issues of nanotechnology aimed at European citizens.

Here’s how they describe Nanopinion (from the About Nanopinion page),

Nanopinion is an EC-funded project bringing together 17 partners from 11 countries with the aim of monitoring public opinion on what we hope for from innovation with nanotechnologies. The project is aimed citizens with a special focus on hard-to-reach target groups, which are people who do not normally encounter and give their opinion nanotechnologies at first hand.

Dialogue is facilitated online and in outreach events in 30 countries presenting different participatory formats.

To promote an informed debate, we also run a strong press & social media campaign and offer a repository with more than 150 resources.

Finally, nanOpinion offers an innovative educational programme for schools.

There are differences but they do have a very strong emphasis on communication, dialogue, and outreach both for the public and for schools. Although how a blog in the Guardian science blogs network will help Nanopinion contact ‘hard-to-reach’ target groups is a bit of a mystery to me but perhaps the blog is intended to somehow help them ‘monitor public opinion’? In any event, they sure seem to have a lot of these ‘nano’ dialogues in Europe.

The title of this new Guardian science blog (Small World) reminded me of an old Disney tune, ‘It’s a small world.’ I refuse to embed it here but if you are feeling curious or nostalgic, here’s the link: http://youtu.be/nxvlKp-76io.

Life in 2025 short story competition (for UK residents only)

If you live in the UK, want to write a short story based in the year 2025, and can submit said3000 word story by March 15, 2012, go here. For those who’d like a few more details before committing to a mouse click (from the Guardian’s Unleash your imagination competition page),

Fancy yourself as the next HG Wells, Cormac McCarthy or Margaret Atwood? The Guardian has teamed up with the FutureScapes project to invite all budding writers to submit their visions of the year 2025 to a short story competition.

The winner will have the honour of seeing their story appear alongside work by New York Times bestselling thriller writer Michael Marshall Smith, fantasy children’s author Marcus Sedgwick, Kate Harrison, creator of the Secret Shopper series, “sex and shopping” novelist Lesley Lokko and cultural commentator Markus Albers.

Thanks to changes in the environment, politics, culture and technology, our lives in 2025 are likely to be very different from now. The goal of FutureScapes, a collaboration between Sony and Forum for the Future, is to stimulate creative thinking around just how different our future will be. Not through wild and random imaginings, but informed by the technological changes and cultural shifts that are already underway today.

From 3D printing co-operatives to ultra-efficient energy solutions, the innovations that are being talked out right now may come to maturity over the next decade and radically alter our collective future. How will the human experience change as a result – at home, at work and at play?

Well, a reference to Margaret Atwood who writes what she prefers to call speculative fiction rather than science fiction but no eligibility for Canadians 0r others not resident in the UK. It’s understandable as I suspect they will be flooded with submissions. They do have some stories already from the writers they’ve mentioned (the ones whose stories will be published with the contest winner’s story)  along with some videos to provide inspiration.

Here are the rules (from the Unleash your imagination competition page),

1. The FutureScapes short story competition (the “Competition”) is open to UK residents aged 18 and over (“You”) subject to paragraph 2. below.

2. Employees or agencies of Guardian News & Media Limited (“GNM”, “We”) its group companies or their family members, or anyone else connected with the Competition may not enter the Competition.

3. By entering the Competition you are accepting these terms and conditions.

4. To enter the Competition, you must submit your details on this page, then email a story of no more than 3,000 words to futurescapes.2025@guardian.co.uk. Stories must be about life in 2025 and how and why life has changed. They should address how, in a changed world of 2025, we might need/use new technology to respond to environmental constraints and enhance our day-to-day lives. Stories should primarily be about people, not technologies. All stories must be previously unpublished. They must not reference Sony or any current or future Sony products, FutureScapes or Forum for the Future. It should not mention other existing consumer electronic brands or products. Please include a phone number. If You have any questions about how to enter or in connection with the Competition, please email us at yasmin.al-naama@guardian.co.uk with “FutureScapes short story” in the subject line.

5. You are responsible for the cost (if any) of sending your Competition entry to us.

6. Only one entry is permitted per person.

7. The closing date and time of the Competition is 11:59pm on Thursday 15 March 2012. Entries received after that date and time will not be considered.

8. You own the copyright to your Competition entry as its author.

9. By submitting an entry to the Competition, You give GNM and Sony:

a. Permission for your entry to be published on guardian.co.uk and grant GNM a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to republish your Competition entry in electronic format and hard copy for purposes connected with the Competition; and

b. The right to use your name and town or city of residence for the sole purpose of identifying You as the author of your entry and/or as a winner of the Competition

c. Permission for your entry to be published on sony.co.uk/futurescapes

10. Your entry must be your own work, must not be copied, must not contain any third-party materials and/or content that You do not have permission to use and must not otherwise be obscene, defamatory or in breach of any applicable legislation or regulations. If We have reason to believe your entry is not your own work or otherwise breaches this paragraph 10, then We may not consider it.

Picking the winner
11 . A Guardian representative will create a shortlist of five stories from all Competition entries. A panel of judges will choose one winning entry from the shortlist. Full details of the judging process and the judges are available on request to yasmin.al-naama@guardian.co.uk

12. When choosing the winner, the judges will be looking for originality, well-crafted and thought-provoking pieces of writing.

13. The judges’ decision of who the winner and shortlisted writers are will be made on or before 22 March. The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

The Prizes
14. One winner will win the opportunity to have their short story published on this Guardian microsite, as well as on Sony’s website and promoted via Sony channels alongside the professional authors. The winner will also win a Sony Tablet and a Sony eReader. Four runners-up will receive a Sony e-reader.

15. The winner and runners-up will be notified by GNM by email on 22 March 2012. If the winner does not respond to GNM between 23 March and 25 March then the prize will be forfeited and GNM shall be entitled to declare an alternative winner from the shortlist. The four runners-up will have to respond to the phone call or email from GNM within 28 days or else they will also forfeit their prize and GNM shall be entitled to select other runners-up.

16. Details of the winner and their winning entry will also be published on guardian.co.uk/futurescapes on 28 March 2012 or (at GNM’s sole discretion) at a later date.

17. The prizes cannot be exchanged or transferred by You and cannot be redeemed by You for cash or any other prize. You must pay all other costs associated with the prize and not specifically included in the prize.

18. We retain the right to substitute the prize with another prize of similar value in the event that the original prize offered is not available.

Some other rules
19. Entries on behalf of another person will not be accepted and joint submissions are not allowed.

20. We take no responsibility for entries that are lost, delayed, misdirected or incomplete or cannot be delivered or entered for any technical or other reason. Proof of delivery of the entry is not proof of receipt.

21. Details of the winner can be obtained by sending a stamped addressed envelope to the following address: FutureScapes short story competition, Yasmin Al-Na’ama, Guardian News & Media Limited, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU.

22. No purchase is necessary.

23. The winner may be required for promotional activity.

24. The Promoter of the Competition is Guardian News & Media Limited whose address is Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Any complaints regarding the Competition should be sent to this address.

25. Nothing in these Terms and Conditions shall exclude the liability of GNM for death, personal injury, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation as a result of its negligence.

26. GNM accepts no responsibility for any damage, loss, liabilities, injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by You as a result of entering the Competition or accepting any prize. GNM further disclaims liability for any injury or damage to You or any other person’s computer relating to or resulting from participation in or downloading any materials in connection with the Competition.

27. GNM reserves the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, this Competition with or without prior notice due to reasons outside its control (including, without limitation, in the case of anticipated, suspected or actual fraud). The decision of GNM in all matters under its control is final and binding.

28. GNM shall not be liable for any failure to comply with its obligations where the failure is caused by something outside its reasonable control. Such circumstances shall include, but not be limited to, weather conditions, fire, flood, hurricane, strike, industrial dispute, war, hostilities, political unrest, riots, civil commotion, inevitable accidents, supervening legislation or any other circumstances amounting to force majeure.

29. The Competition will be governed by English law.

As for submitting your story, there’s a form that must be filled out on the Unleash your imagination competition page, once you’ve done that you can email your story to: futurescapes.2025@guardian.co.uk. Good luck!

Graphene, the Nobel Prize, and levitating frogs

As you may have heard, two  scientists (Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov) who performed groundbreaking research on graphene [Nov. 29, 2010: I corrected this entry Nov. 26, 2010 which originally stated that these researchers discovered graphene] have been awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for Physics. In honour of their award, the journal, Nature Materials, is giving free access to  a 2007 article authored by the scientists. From the news item on Nanowerk,

The 2007 landmark article in Nature Materials “The rise of graphene” by the just announced winners of the 2010 Nobel prize in physics, Andre Geim and Kosta Novoselov, has now been made available as a free access article.

Abstract:

Graphene is a rapidly rising star on the horizon of materials science and condensed-matter physics. This strictly two-dimensional material exhibits exceptionally high crystal and electronic quality, and, despite its short history, has already revealed a cornucopia of new physics and potential applications, which are briefly discussed here.

Here’s a description of the scientists and their work from the BBC News article by Paul Rincon,

Prof Geim, 51, is a Dutch national while Dr Novoselov, 36, holds British and Russian citizenship. Both are natives of Russia and started their careers in physics there.

The Nobels are valued at 10m Swedish kronor (£900,000; 1m euros; $1.5m).

They first worked together in the Netherlands before moving to the UK. They were based at the University of Manchester when they published their groundbreaking research paper on graphene in October 2004.

Dr Novoselov is among the youngest winners of a prize that normally goes to scientists with decades of experience.

Graphene is a form of carbon. It is a flat layer of carbon atoms tightly packed into a two-dimensional honeycomb arrangement.

Because it is so thin, it is also practically transparent. As a conductor of electricity it performs as well as copper, and as a conductor of heat it outperforms all other known materials.

The unusual electronic, mechanical and chemical properties of graphene at the molecular scale promise ultra-fast transistors for electronics.

Some scientists have predicted that graphene could one day replace silicon – which is the current material of choice for transistors.

It could also yield incredibly strong, flexible and stable materials and find applications in transparent touch screens or solar cells.

Geim and Novoselov first isolated fine sheets of graphene from the graphite which is widely used in pencils.

A layer of graphite 1mm thick actually consists of three million layers of graphene stacked on top of one another.

The technique that Geim and Novoselov used to create the first graphene sheets both amuses and fascinates me (from the article by Kit Eaton on the Fast Company website),

The two scientists came up with the technique that first resulted in samples of graphene–peeling individual atoms-deep sheets of the material from a bigger block of pure graphite. The science here seems almost foolishly simple, but it took a lot of lateral thinking to dream up, and then some serious science to investigate: Geim and Novoselo literally “ripped” single sheets off the graphite by using regular adhesive tape. Once they’d confirmed they had grabbed micro-flakes of the material, Geim and Novoselo were responsible for some of the very early experiments into the material’s properties. Novel stuff indeed, but perhaps not so unexpected from a scientist (Geim) who the Nobel Committe notes once managed to make a frog levitate in a magnetic field.

I’ll get to the levitating frog in a minute but first the bit about using regular adhesive tape to peel off single sheets only atoms thick of graphite from a larger block of the stuff reminds me of how scientists at Northwestern University are using shrinky dinks (a child’s craft material) to create large scale nanopatterns cheaply (my Aug. 16, 2010 posting).

It’s reassuring to me that despite all of the high tech equipment that costs the earth, scientists still use fairly mundane, inexpensive objects to do some incredibly sophisticated work. The other thing I find reassuring is that Novoselov probably was not voted ‘most likely to be awarded a Nobel Prize’. Interestingly, Novoselov’s partner, Geim, was not welcomed into a physics career with open arms. From the news item on physoorg.com,

Konstantin Novoselov, the Russian-born physicist who shared this year’s Nobel prize, struggled with physics as a student and was awarded a handful of B grades, his university said Wednesday.

The Moscow Physics and Technology University (MFTI) posted report cards on its website for Novoselov, who at 36 won the Nobel prize for physics with his research partner Andre Geim.

The reports reveal that he gained a handful of B grades in his term reports for theoretical and applied physics from 1991 to 1994.

He was also not strong on physical education — a compulsory subject at Russian universities — gaining B grades. And while he now lives in Britain, he once gained a C grade for English.

The university also revealed documents on Nobel prize winner Geim, who studied at the same university from 1976 to 1982. His brilliant academic career was only marred by a few B-grades for Marxist political economy and English.

Geim was turned down when he applied first to another Moscow university specialising in engineering and physics, and worked as a machinist at a factory making electrical instruments for eight months.

Given the increasing emphasis on marks, in Canadian universities at least, I noticed that Novoselov was not a straight-A student. As for Geim, it seems the fact that his father was German posed a problem. (You can find more details in the physorg.com article.)

As for levitating frogs, I first found this information in particle physicist Jon Butterworth’s October 5, 2010 posting on his Guardian blog,

Geim is also well known (or as his web page puts it “notorious”) for levitating frogs. This is a demonstration of the peculiar fact that all materials have some magnetism, albeit very weak in most cases, and that if you put them in a high enough magnetic field you can see the effects – and make them fly.

Why frogs? Well, no frogs were harmed in the experiments. But also, magnetism is a hugely important topic in physics that can seem a little dry to students …

I hunted down a video of the levitating frog on youtube,

As a particle physicist, Butterworth notes that the graphene work is outside his area of expertise so if you’re looking for a good, general explanation with some science detail added in for good measure, I’d suggest reading his succinct description.