Category Archives: writing

Olfactory ethics

Smell is a very charged topic as I learned almost 20 years ago when working on a master’s programme on creating writing and digital technology via distance education. I had innocently suggested that we include the sense of smell when looking at immersive technology.

One of the members in our group of three ‘blew up’. As someone who had led the Irish teams involved in Microsoft’s multimedia efforts, he asserted his superior understanding of multimedia and narrative. Never one to go away quietly, I persisted, as did the other member of our group, in the discussion.

The whole thing culminated in three projects where our ‘expert’ colleague titled his project ‘STFU’. It was a several minute video diatribe starting with the words ‘shut the …’ You can probably fill in the blanks.

It seems that smell is a very charged topic when applied to creative writing and/or literature. Amelia Louks, research supervisor in English literature at the University of Cambridge, writes about her experience with smell and literature in a December 16, 2024 essay on The Conversation, Note: Links have been removed,

In November [2024], I celebrated finishing my PhD. After three and a half years of writing and research, it was an occasion I wanted to share with my academic network, so I posted a photo of myself holding a physical copy of my PhD thesis on X. The post amassed 120 million views and sparked a lot of anger in response to its title: Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose.

The title received criticism from those who were wilfully misrepresenting the nature of the research. “Smells are racist,” became a misguided refrain. One user commented that it was a study of “why it’s racist and/or classist to not like it when people exhibit body odors consistent with poor hygiene”.

My thesis studies how certain authors of the past century used smell in literature to indicate social hostilities, such as prejudice and exploitation. It also connects this to our real-world understanding of the role the sense plays in society.

For instance, in The Road to Wigan Pier (1936), George Orwell states that “the real secret of class distinctions in the West” can be summed up in four frightful words: “The lower classes smell.” Orwell proceeds to unpick the harm that this kind of messaging causes and how we might combat it.

It is well documented that smell has been used as a justification for expressions of racism, classism and sexism. Since the 1980s, researchers have been assessing the moral implications of perceptions and stereotypes related to smell.

My thesis adds to this work by assessing the contributions of a selection of books and films that take smell seriously. In each of the texts I considered, smell takes on a role beyond mere sense perception.

I include examples from well-known works by George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, J.M. Coetzee and Toni Morrison, as well as notable recent examples, such as Bong Joon-ho’s film, Parasite.

…

Sheena Goodyear’s December 5, 2025 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) article based on the interview conducted with Louks for the CBC/s As It Happens radio programme delves further into Louks’ experience with posting about her PhD and how she responded to the barrage,

When Ally Louks posted last week that she was “PhDone” with her English literature thesis, she didn’t expect to find herself at the centre of a culture war.

Louks posted a picture of herself on X, formerly known as Twitter, smiling proudly and holding a bound copy of her University of Cambridge thesis on the “politics of smell” in literature.

One week later, the seemingly innocuous post has been viewed 117.1 million times, made headlines around the world, and put Louks on the receiving end of plenty of praise but also heaps of hate, including a rape threat that’s now under investigation by police.

“I couldn’t possibly have anticipated that this post would even go beyond my little academic community on Twitter of about 200 people,” Louks told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

At the heart of the backlash is the title of Louks’s thesis, visible in the photo: “Olfactory Ethics: The Politics of Smell in Modern and Contemporary Prose.”

CBC reviewed dozens of comments on the post, many from men saying the topic was too “woke,” or a waste of time and money. Others suggested women don’t belong in academia.

“What a stupid f–king thing to ‘study,'” wrote one person.

“You have made no valuable contributions in your thesis, and perhaps in your entire life,” wrote another.

“You would have spent your years better by getting married and having children,” someone else posted.

Louks says she doesn’t take it personally.

“I do think that it’s clear that misogyny is at play [emphasis mine], especially since I’m a young and high achieving woman,” she said.

“But I also think there’s a kind of broader arc here going on about people questioning the value of literary study and of the humanities and, indeed, of academia [emphases mine].”

…

Louks says she decided not to lock her account or take the post down. She also isn’t squabbling with commenters.

“I didn’t want them to think that they’d chased me off or that they’d affected me in any way because they truly haven’t,” she said. “I do feel safe.”

he barrage of hate, she says, was quickly followed by a surge of support.

“This has been a bit of a case study in how we present ourselves online,” she said.

“Being polite and respectful has actually done something kind of magical here in that so many people have rallied around me and supported me just because I didn’t stoop to the level of the online trolls.”

…

May you experience the freedom to explore even topics that seem obscure.

Is there a difference between human-written poetry and AI-generated poetry and which one do people like better?

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The answers to those questions are a little complicated as a November 14, 2024 news item on phys.org explains it, Note: A link has been removed,

Readers are unable to reliably differentiate AI-generated from human-written poetry and are more likely to prefer AI poems, according to new research published in Scientific Reports. This tendency to rate AI poetry positively may be due to readers mistaking the complexity of human-written verse for incoherence created by AI and an underestimation of how human-like generative AI can appear.

Researchers Brian Porter and Edouard Machery, from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Cathedral of Learning, tested the ability of 1,634 participants to distinguish between AI-generated poetry and that written by a human poet.

Participants were presented with ten poems in random order: five written by ten well-known poets—including William Shakespeare, Lord Byron, Emily Dickinson, and T.S. Eliot—and five poems generated by ChatGPT3.5 in the style of these poets. Participants were more likely to guess that the AI poems had been written by a human, and the five poems considered least likely to be human-produced were all written by genuine poets.

In a second experiment, a different group of 696 participants assessed the poems for 14 characteristics such as quality, beauty, emotion, rhythm, and originality. Participants were randomly assigned to three groups where they were told the poems were written by a human, produced by AI, or given no information about the poem’s origins.

Participants who were told that the poems were AI-generated gave lower ratings across 13 characteristics compared to participants who were told the poems were human-written, regardless of whether the poems were actually AI-generated or human-written. Participants who were told nothing about authorship rated AI-generated poems more favorably than human-written ones.

…

Fascinating, eh? There’s more about the implications of the research in Jon Stone’s (Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing, Anglia Ruskin University) November 15, 2024 essay for The Conversation, Note; Links have been removed,

Has the bell finally tolled for Shakespeare and Byron? New research conducted by philosophers of science Brian Porter and Edouard Machery suggests that the latest AI-generated poetry is “indistinguishable from human-written poetry” and “rated more favourably”.

Ten poets, from the medieval Geoffrey Chaucer to modern writer Dorothea Lasky, were successfully impersonated by AI chatbots, with most of the 696 participants slightly preferring the imitation to the real thing.

Porter and Machery conclude that “the capabilities of generative AI models have outpaced people’s expectations of AI”. But they don’t say AI has been proven an adequate replacement for human poets [emphasis mine] – and rightly so, as such a conclusion would require a great deal more testing.

That the research participants were fooled is not particularly worrying. Porter and Machery set out to include a wide range of poem types, which meant choosing poets who mostly belong to ages past. In such cases, modern readers are likely to have a hard time looking past the obvious signs of antiquity – outdated diction, rigid formalism, and obscure cultural references. It’s not so hard to disguise yourself as someone when that person is chiefly known for the odd clothes they wear.

But what about the matter of preference? As well as overall quality, the researchers asked participants to rate poems on a range of qualitative dimensions. How was the imagery, rhythm, sound or beauty? How “inspiring”, “lyrical”, “meaningful”, “moving”, “original”, “profound”, “witty” (and so on) was it? AI won out over Shakespeare and company in nearly every category.

Does this mean human poets have been supplanted? Not really. Participants in the research overall reported “a low level of experience with poetry”. Lack of familiarity with any artform severely limits our ability to get the most out of it. All the AI has to do is sand off the more challenging elements – ambiguity, wordplay, linguistic complexity – in order to produce a version which is more palatable to those with little interest in the art.

…

For now, then, poets have little reason to fret. Is it possible, though, that we aren’t too far off the point where seasoned readers of poetry are able to discover a richness and depth in AI poetry that outstrips similar efforts by humans [emphasis mine]? I think so – not least because a substantial contributor to the emotional and intellectual impact of a poem is the reader’s own imagination.

…

… Every recent generation of poets has been deeply interested in adapting and absorbing new technologies, along with shifts in cultural mood. Film poets continue to explore combinations of spoken word and moving image. Flarf poetry collected and reconfigured search engine detritus. And my own research into video game poetry has uncovered rapidly growing interest in a form of poetry that is restlessly interactive, playable, slippery.

…

A John Donne reference and an introduction to ‘flarf poetry’? Thank you. For the curious, Stone’s November 15, 2024 essay has more.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably by Brian Porter & Edouard Machery. Scientific Reports volume 14, Article number: 26133 (2024) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-76900-1 Published: 14 November 2024

This paper is open access.

Wilderness Writing Residency in Port Renfrew, BC, Canada: apply until midnight (Pacific Time) Friday, January 10, 2025

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This is a little late (I’m sorry) but, on the plus side, it’s not a complicated application process. The residency is offered by the Port Renfrew Writers Retreat, from their About webpage,

Founded in 2019 on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Port Renfrew Writers Retreat is a space for writing that relates to the natural world.

Through in-person residencies and year-round self-directed retreats, we support the development and craft of writing projects in one of the most spectacular and storied corners of Canada.

Many of our residents have gone on to publish books and articles based on work done at Port Renfrew Writers Retreat.

…

Why Port Renfrew?

The story of Port Renfrew Writers Retreat starts with the story of a single tree. Big Lonely Doug is a 20-storey, 1000-year-old Douglas Fir that was saved from the saw by a logger named Dennis Cronin. The tree—the second largest of its kind in Canada—was left standing in the Gordon River Valley, a short drive from Port Renfrew, while the entire old-growth forest around it was cut down. The tree has since become an environmental icon, drawing tourists from around the world to glimpse both the spectacular capacity of what nature can create in stark contrast with the reality of industrial logging of old-growth forests on Vancouver Island.

It was this one tree that brought Harley [Harley Rustad] to Port Renfrew in the summer of 2015 to report a magazine article about Big Lonely Doug and Dennis Cronin and then later a book. It’s a corner of Canada with an undeniable magic in the mist coiling through the forests and in the whales breaching off the coast, in breathing the salt-tinged air and spotting a black bear or a cougar or an elk—or stumbling upon one of the largest trees in the country.

…

By Ryan Cutler – Reddit / Imgur, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=145127049

I found information about the retreat and about applying for it on the Wilderness Writing Residency webpage,

The Wilderness Writing Residency is a ten-day, in-person residency in Port Renfrew, British Columbia, for non-fiction writers working on a magazine feature or book project on a theme related to the natural world.

Surrounded by inspiring jagged coastline and old-growth forest, writers will use the solitude for uninterrupted work while also partaking in group work with fellow writers and faculty editors.

…

Write the wild

Writers will critique and challenge ideas of wilderness and nature, and examine our complicated relationships within these complex, thorny terms.

ACCOMMODATION

Accommodation will be provided by the residency at no cost to the writer in the form of a self-contained, one-bedroom cabin within the Wild Coast Cottage development in Port Renfrew.

FOOD

Residents will need to cover most of their own food costs but some group meals will be provided by the residency. More details will be provided.

TRAVEL

Residents will be required to arrange travel to Port Renfrew at their own expense. Grants through the Canada Council for the Arts are available to support travel to attend residency programs.

GROUP WORK

Residents will partake in at least one group session to workshop work-in-progress with peers and faculty, offering and receiving feedback within the group.

BIG TREE TOUR

A guided excursion to some of the most storied forests and trees in the area.

WHO SHOULD APPLY

The Wilderness Writing Residency is open to applications from writers of all levels and backgrounds, but preference will be given to emerging writers.

ELIGIBILITY

Residents must be 18+ at the time of the program start date. International applications are welcome but we are unable to assist with visas.

PROGRAM FEE

$200, due upon acceptance into the residency.

…

Apply for 2025

The Wilderness Writing Residency 2025 will run from February 24 (arrival) to March 7 (departure).

Applications are due Friday, January 10 [2025] at midnight Pacific Time.

Use the form below to submit your application, which must include both a short bio as well as a one-page outline of your project. Application is free.

[scroll down to form on webpage]

Good luck!

World’s first science fiction magazine (English language) launched in 1926

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Not sure how I tripped across this June 26, 2024 posting from the openculture.com archives with updates of the 2017 posting by Josh Jones but I’m glad for it, Note: Links have been removed,

If you haven’t heard of Hugo Gernsback, you’ve surely heard of the Hugo Award. Next to the Nebula, it’s the most prestigious of science fiction prizes, bringing together in its ranks of winners such venerable authors as Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Neil Gaiman, Isaac Asimov, and just about every other sci-fi and fantasy luminary you could think of. It is indeed fitting that such an honor should be named for Gernsback, the Luxembourgian-American inventor who, in April of 1926, began publishing “the first and longest-running English-language magazine dedicated to what was then not quite yet called ‘science fiction,’” notes University of Virginia’s Andrew Ferguson at The Pulp Magazines Project. Amazing Stories provided an “exclusive outlet” for what Gernsback first called “scientifiction,” a genre he would “for better and for worse, define for the modern era.” You can read and download hundreds of Amazing Stories issues, from the first year of its publication to the last, at the Internet Archive.

Like the extensive list of Hugo Award winners, the back catalog of Amazing Stories encompasses a host of geniuses: Le Guin, Asimov, H.G. Wells, Philip K. Dick, J.G. Ballard, and many hundreds of lesser-known writers. But the magazine “was slow to develop,” writes Scott Van Wynsberghe. Its lurid covers lured some readers in, but its “first two years were dominated by preprinted material,” and Gernsback developed a reputation for financial dodginess and for not paying his writers well or at all.

…

“Within a decade,” writes Van Wynsberghe, “science fiction pundits were debating whether or not he had created a ‘ghetto’ for hack writers.” In 1986, novelist Brian Aldiss called Gernsback “one of the worst disasters ever to hit the science fiction field.” His 1911 novel, the ludicrously named Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the Year 2660 is considered “one of the worst science fiction novels in history,” writes Matthew Lasar. It may seem odd that the Oscar of the sci-fi world should be named for such a reviled figure. And yet, despite his pronounced lack of literary ability, Gernsback was a visionary. As a futurist, he made some startlingly accurate predictions, along with some not-so-accurate ones. …

If you have time definitely take a look at Jones’s June 26, 2024 posting for rest of the content and embedded images like this,

[https://www.openculture.com/2024/06/a-huge-archive-of-amazing-stories-the-worlds-first-science-fiction-magazine.html]

Presumably this image is in the public domain. Wish I could find information to credit the artist(s).

More about Hugo Gernsback

As noted previously, Gernsback was controversial and it’s noted in this October 4, 2012 article by Matt Novak for The Smithsonian,

Hugo “Awards” Gernsback was many different things to different people. To his fans, he was a visionary who started some of the most influential (not to mention the first) science fiction magazines of the early 20th century. Ray Bradbury was quoted as saying, “Gernsback made us fall in love with the future.” To his detractors, he was “Hugo the Rat,” known to men like H. P. Lovecraft for being a crooked publisher who sometimes stiffed his writers when payment was due. But above all else, he was a tireless self-promoter.

In 1904, Gernsback emigrated from Luxembourg to the U.S. at the age of 20. Not long thereafter he began selling radio kits to hobbyists, sometimes importing parts from Europe. His radio business and the catalogues he used to promote his wares evolved into a technology-focused magazine empire. Gernsback published over 50 different magazine titles in the course of his life, most of which were hobbyist magazines related to science, technology and the genre he helped popularize for so many in the 1920s: science fiction.

….

Later in the article Novak goes on to focus on Gernsbacks insights and predictions on technology in the future. You may find the Hugo Gernsback Wikipedia entry provides a more comprehensive overview.

As sometimes happens, I came across one more intriguing tidbit..

First science fiction literature: Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (earliest Sumerian text versions c. 2150–2000 BCE)?

There are two schools of thought as to when science fiction as a literary genre was born according to the History of science fiction Wikipedia entry, Note: Links have been removed,

The literary genre of science fiction is diverse, and its exact definition remains a contested question among both scholars and devotees. This lack of consensus is reflected in debates about the genre’s history, particularly over determining its exact origins. There are two broad camps of thought, one that identifies the genre’s roots in early fantastical works such as the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (earliest Sumerian text versions c. 2150–2000 BCE).^[1] A second approach argues that science fiction only became possible sometime between the 17th and early 19th centuries, following the scientific revolution and major discoveries in astronomy, physics, and mathematics.

…

Ancient and early modern precursors

One of the earliest and most commonly-cited texts for those looking for early precursors to science fiction is the ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, with the earliest text versions identified as being from about 2000 BCE. American science fiction author Lester del Rey was one such supporter of using Gilgamesh as an origin point, arguing that “science fiction is precisely as old as the first recorded fiction. That is The Epic of Gilgamesh.”^[3] French science fiction writer Pierre Versins also argued that Gilgamesh was the first science fiction work due to its treatment of human reason and the quest for immortality.^[4] In addition, Gilgamesh features a flood scene that in some ways resembles a work of apocalyptic science fiction. However, the lack of explicit science or technology in the work has led some^[5] to argue that it is better categorized as fantastic literature.

Ancient Indian poetry such as the Hindu epic the Ramayana (5th to 4th century BCE) includes Vimana, flying machines able to travel into space or under water, and destroy entire cities using advanced weapons. In the first book of the Rigveda collection of Sanskrit hymns (1700–1100 BCE), there is a description of “mechanical birds” that are seen “jumping into space speedily with a craft using fire and water … containing twelve stamghas (pillars), one wheel, three machines, 300 pivots, and 60 instruments”.^[6] The ancient Hindu mythological epic the Mahabharata (8th and 9th centuries BCE) includes the story of King Kakudmi, who travels to heaven to meet the creator Brahma and is shocked to learn that many ages have passed when he returns to Earth, anticipating the concept of time travel.^[7]

One frequently cited text is the Syrian-Greek writer Lucian of Samosata’s 2nd-century satire True History, which uses a voyage to outer space and conversations with alien life forms to comment on the use of exaggeration within travel literature and debates. Typical science fiction themes and topoi in True History include travel to outer space, encounter with alien life-forms (including the experience of a first encounter event), interplanetary warfare and planetary imperialism, motif of giganticism, creatures as products of human technology, worlds working by a set of alternative physical laws, and an explicit desire of the protagonist for exploration and adventure.^[8] …

It goes on to mention Japanese writing, Arabic writing, medieval writers (from Europe and elsewhere) and more whose work could be thought of as science fiction. It’s a fascinating trip through history and cultures. If you have the time, here’s a link to the History of science fiction Wikipedia entry.

Books can be toxic (literally)

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I do love word play although I am pushing it a bit with ‘book’, ‘literature’, and ‘literal’.

These poison books each contain heavy metals used to create striking colours [in] the 1800s. Source: Museums Victoria Photo: Rob French [downloaded from https://museumsvictoria.com.au/article/if-books-could-kill-poison-heavy-metal-and-l iterature/]

Mark Lorch’s, Professor of Science Communication and Chemistry at the University of Hull (UK), April 29, 2024 essay on The Conversation (h/t April 30, 2024 news item on phys.org) provides an interesting account of the dangers associated with literature, Note: Links have been removed,

In our modern society, we rarely consider books to be dangerous items. However, certain books contain elements so hazardous that they require scrutiny before being placed on the shelves of public libraries, bookstores or even private homes.

The Poisonous Book Project [also known as, Poison Book Project], a collaborative research project between Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library and the University of Delaware, is dedicated to cataloguing such books. Their concern is not with the content written on the pages, but with the physical components of the books themselves — specifically, the colours of the covers.

The project recently influenced the decision to remove two books from the French national library. The reason? Their vibrant green cloth covers raised suspicions of containing arsenic.

This concern is rooted in historical practices in bookbinding. During the 19th century, as books began to be mass produced, bookbinders transitioned from using expensive leather covers to more affordable cloth items. To attract readers, these cloth covers were often dyed in bright, eye-catching colours.

…

One popular pigment was Scheele’s green, named after Carl Wilhelm Scheele, a German-Swedish chemist who in 1775 discovered that a vivid green pigment could be produced from copper and arsenic. This dye was not only cheap to make, it was also more vibrant than the copper carbonate greens that had been used for over a century.

Scheele green eventually fell out of favour because it had a tendency to fade to black when it reacted with sulphur-based pollutants released from coal. But new dyes based on Scheele’s discovery, such as emerald and Paris green, proved to be much more durable. …

These pigments, however, had a significant drawback: they degraded easily, releasing poisonous and carcinogenic arsenic. The frequent reports of green candles poisoning children at Christmas parties, factory workers tasked with applying paint to ornaments convulsing and vomiting green water and warnings of poisonous ball dresses raised serious concerns about the safety of these green dyes.

…

Green isn’t the only colour to worry about, however. Red is also of concern. The brilliant red pigment vermilion was formed from the mineral cinnabar, also known as mercury sulfide. This was a popular source of red paint dating back thousands of years. There is even evidence that neolithic artists suffered from mercury poisoning. Vermilion red sometimes appears on the marbled patterns on the inside of book covers.

Yellow has also caught the eye of the poisonous book project. In this case, the culprit is lead chromate. The bright yellow of lead chromate was a favourite with painters, not least Vincent van Gogh, who used it extensively in his most famous series of paintings: Sunflowers. For the Victorian-era bookbinders, lead chromate allowed them to create a range of colours from greens (achieved by mixing chrome yellow with Prussian blue) to yellows, oranges and browns.

…

So what should you do if you come across a green cloth book from the 19th century? First, don’t be overly concerned. You would probably have to eat the entire book before you’d suffer from severe arsenic poisoning. However, casual exposure to copper acetoarsenite, the compound in the green pigment, can irritate the eyes, nose and throat.

It is more of a concern for folks who may regularly handle these books where frequent contact could result in more serious symptoms. Therefore, anyone who suspects they might be handling a Victorian-era book with an emerald green binding is advised to wear gloves and avoid touching their face. Then clean all surfaces afterwards.

…

If you have a bit of time, Lorch’s April 29, 2024 essay is fascinating. If you have more time, there’s the undated “If books could kill: poison, heavy metal and literature” article on the Museums Victoria (Australia) website,

Books are not usually thought of as hazardous objects, but you will want to be careful with these ones from the Melbourne Museum’s Rare Book Collection.

Poisonous heavy metals permeate their very fabric, and the last 150-odd years has done nothing to lessen their toxicity.

How did it happen though?

This is not some dastardly Name of the Rose-esque plot [a reference to Umberto Eco and his 1986 novel, The Name of the Rose] but rather a combination of fashion, vanity, and workers’ rights (or lack thereof) in the years following the Industrial Revolution.

And it has left a dangerous legacy for modern-day museums.

…

Lastly, you can find the Poison Book Project here.

Announcing an online science magazine, Sequencer and National Geographic Storytelling grants (plus a Jeremy Hansen extra)

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This morning (March 26, 2024) a notice from the Science Media Centre of Canada (SMCC) arrived (via email) with two bits of news I’m including here.

A freshly launched online science magazine, Sequencer,

From the Science Media Centre of Canada’s March 26, 2024 notice,

Science journalists launch new online science magazine
Sequencer is a writer-owned, subscriber-based platform to explore the world’s weird, exciting, rage-inducing, or even hilarious phenomena.

There was more about this new science magazine in a March 21, 2024 posting by Neel Dhanesh for the Nieman Lab blog, (Note 1: The Nieman Lab appears to be an initiative of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University; Note 2: Links have been removed),

Last year, freelance journalist and National Geographic alum Michael Greshko predicted that a worker-owned science publication would be born in 2024. On Thursday, his prediction came true with the launch of Sequencer.
Sequencer is looking to fill a gap that’s been created by the withering of science desks at newsrooms across the country. The four founders — Max G. Levy, Dan Samorodnitsky, Shi En Kim, and Maddie Bender, all of whom are alums of Massive Science, which stopped publishing in 2021 — write that “traditional science media is broken” in a letter introducing the site:
…
Like its worker-owned brethren (see: Defector, 404 Media, Hell Gate, Aftermath, and more), Sequencer plans to be reader-supported, with subscriptions starting at $7 per month. I, like many others in the world of science journalism, am incredibly excited. …

Now, onto the Sequencer website,

There’s more about the cat called Masha, formerly known as Velveteen, and the author in a March 21, 2024 blog posting on Sequencer.

As for Sequencer and its founders, there’s the About Us webpage,

Sequencer is a place to decode our world with stories about science. It’s a venue for readers who care about pressing scientific questions and appreciate the weird, exciting, rage-inducing, spine-tingling, mind-bending, or even hilarious phenomena around us. It’s a platform for perennially curious journalists who don’t take themselves too seriously. It’s an invitation to discover alongside us.
We – Dan, Kim, Maddie, and Max [more about the founders later in this posting] – are not just the writers and editors, we’re also the founders and owners. We’re established science journalists and alumni of The Daily Beast, Scientific American, WIRED, Quanta, Smithsonian, C&EN, and more. We’re also all former scientists. Sequencer is our experiment.
Like any good experiment, Sequencer exists atop a heavily researched, rigorously tested, science-backed hypothesis: Traditional science media is broken, so it’s time for something new.

I found this bit particularly interesting,

This is typically how the sausage gets made in our industry: A scientist, usually someone who works at one of a handful of American or European universities, publishes their new work in a prestigious journal. Their well-funded institution’s PR team crafts a press release, puts the work under embargo, and emails it to journalists on their press list.
When it works, this model earns many important labs their 15 minutes of fame; millions of people learn about a breakthrough. But when it’s the governing model of science journalism, it constrains any content to bounds that are sterile and homogenous. There’s little room for analysis and perspective about the work that goes into doing science, let alone criticism or any reckoning with the future. At a time where climate change is laying waste to the planet and a historic pandemic trudges on and on, science journalism is too-often blank-faced and credulous.
That’s all assuming the model works. More and more, we’re realizing that it doesn’t. Bedrock science publications are dying. Or rather, they’re being actively killed by layoffs, predatory venture capital firms, and mega-conglomerates that keep inexplicably pivoting to video. It would be funny if it weren’t so bleak. [emphases mine]
…

My March 8, 2024 posting, “Science journalism … ch-ch-ch-ch-changes” provides more context for the phrases I’ve highlighted in the excerpt in the above,

Sequencer is subscriber-supported,

Sequencer is subscriber-supported. That means we are cutting out the middleman and going directly to the reader. We depend on your money to power us, and your feedback to shape our coverage. Do you like our stories? Are we missing something? What do normal people want to see in a science publication? Tell us! Email us at hello@sequencermag.com
We’re choosing $7/month because if you live in a major American city, $7 is the price of a latte. We deserve a latte, don’t you think?

Meet the founders,

Maddie Bender
Maddie is a science, health, and technology journalist. She has worked in print, digital, audio, and video media. Some reporting highlights include covering spotted lanternfly fetish content, brain-breaking pseudoscience, and metaverse fitness. She lives in Honolulu, HI, and deeply misses her cat (not dead, just in New York.)
…
Dan Samorodnitsky
Dan is a science journalist based in Minneapolis, MN. He’ll write about anything but specializes in biology, genetics, health, and the history of science. He has also written about Dairy Queens, church fish fries, and local politics. He has a cat, Masha, who will definitely appear in newsletters and posts.
…
Shi En Kim
Kim is a Malaysian-born, DC-based journalist whose writing spans the scientific gamut (please don’t make her pick a favorite beat). Outside of science writing, she dabbles in art, plans for backpacking trips faster she can go on them, and plots the next move against her imposter syndrome in a never-ending tussle.
…
Max G. Levy
Max is a science journalist whose favorite work tells the human stories behind discoveries in public health, climate change and tech. Max’s work appears in news outlets, magazines, and science videos on YouTube. He’s got sand in his hair as he writes this from his home in Los Angeles. If he goes a couple weeks without mentioning his late pet rats (R.I.P. Fiona, Syd, and Mouse) please call for help.
…

Storytelling grants and the National Geographic

This is the second item of interest from the SMCC March 26, 2024 notice,

National Geographic Storytelling Grants
Submission deadline has been extended. New submission deadline: April 11, 2024 | 23:59 ET
The grants fund individuals working on projects in science, conservation, storytelling, education, and technology that align with one or more of our focus areas …

I found the page where the grants are described to be confusing. First, storytelling grants are part of the National Geographic’s ‘Grants and Investments program known as ‘National Geographic Explorers’ and there are two levels of grant opportunities with ‘storytellers’ being at Level II.

If you scroll down the National Geographic Grants and Investments webpage about 80% of the way, you’ll find Additional Resources, which includes the Level II Grants Program Storytelling Application Template. Good luck!

Extra

In the next day or so (probably by March 28, 2024), you may be seeing some articles about moon-bound Canadian astronaut, Jeremy Hansen, He’s giving a virtual presentation at the University of British Columbia (UBC). From a March 26, 2024 UBC media advisory (received via email),

Hansen is one of four crew members for the Artemis II mission, which will send astronauts around the Moon on the first crewed flight of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, no earlier than September 2025. He has lived in a cave underground and on the ocean floor in space mission simulations, and will be the first Canadian to participate in a lunar mission.

I don’t believe this event is open to the public, which is why I haven’t included details but you can be on the lookout for articles particularly in local (Vancouver, Canada) publications over the next few days.

Health/science journalists/editors: deadline is March 22, 2024 for media boot camp in Boston, Massachusetts

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A February 14, 2023 Broad Institute news release presents an exciting opportunity for health/science journalists and editors,

The Broad Institute of MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] and Harvard is now accepting applications for its 2024 Media Boot Camp.
This annual program connects health/science journalists and editors with faculty from the Broad Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Harvard’s teaching hospitals for a two-day event exploring the latest advances in genomics and biomedicine. Journalists will explore possible future storylines, gain fundamental background knowledge, and build relationships with researchers. The program format includes presentations, discussions, and lab tours.
The 2024 Media Boot Camp will take place in person at the Broad Institute in Cambridge, MA on Thursday, May 16 and Friday, May 17 (with an evening welcome reception on Wednesday, May 15).
APPLICATION DEADLINE IS FRIDAY, MARCH 22 (5:00 PM US EASTERN TIME).
2024 Boot Camp topics include:

Gene editing
New approaches for therapeutic delivery
Cancer biology, drug development
Data sciences, machine learning
Neurobiology (stem cell models of psychiatric disorders)
Antibiotic resistance, microbial biology
Medical and population genetics, genomic medicine

Current speakers include: Mimi Bandopadhayay, Clare Bernard,Roby Bhattacharyya, Todd Golub, Laura Kiessling, Eric Lander,David Liu, Ralda Nehme,Heidi Rehm, William Sellers, Feng Zhang, with potentially more to come.
This Media Boot Camp is an educational offering. All presentations are on-background.
Hotel accommodations and meals during the program will be provided by the Broad Institute. Attendees must cover travel costs to and from Boston.
Application Process
By Friday, March 22 [2024] (5:00 PM US Eastern time [2 pm PT]), please send at least one paragraph describing your interest in the program and how you hope it will benefit your reporting, as well as three recent news clips, to David Cameron, Director of External Communications, dcameron@broadinstitute.org
Please contact David at dcameron@broadinstitute.org, or 617-714-7184 with any questions.

I couldn’t find details about eligibility, that said, I wish you good luck with your ‘paragraph and three recent clips’ submission.

FrogHeart’s 2023 comes to an end as 2024 comes into view

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My personal theme for this last year (2023) and for the coming year was and is: catching up. On the plus side, my 2023 backlog (roughly six months) to be published was whittled down considerably. On the minus side, I start 2024 with a backlog of two to three months.

2023 on this blog had a lot in common with 2022 (see my December 31, 2022 posting), which may be due to what’s going on in the world of emerging science and technology or to my personal interests or possibly a bit of both. On to 2023 and a further blurring of boundaries:

Energy, computing and the environment

The argument against paper is that it uses up resources, it’s polluting, it’s affecting the environment, etc. Somehow the part where electricity which underpins so much of our ‘smart’ society does the same thing is left out of the discussion.

Neuromorphic (brainlike) computing and lower energy

Before launching into the stories about lowering energy usage, here’s an October 16, 2023 posting “The cost of building ChatGPT” that gives you some idea of the consequences of our insatiable desire for more computing and more ‘smart’ devices,

…
In its latest environmental report, Microsoft disclosed that its global water consumption spiked 34% from 2021 to 2022 (to nearly 1.7 billion gallons , or more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools), a sharp increase compared to previous years that outside researchers tie to its AI research. [emphases mine]
“It’s fair to say the majority of the growth is due to AI,” including “its heavy investment in generative AI and partnership with OpenAI,” said Shaolei Ren, [emphasis mine] a researcher at the University of California, Riverside who has been trying to calculate the environmental impact of generative AI products such as ChatGPT.
…
Why it matters: Microsoft’s five WDM [West Des Moines in Iowa] data centers — the “epicenter for advancing AI” — represent more than $5 billion in investments in the last 15 years.
Yes, but: They consumed as much as 11.5 million gallons of water a month for cooling, or about 6% of WDM’s total usage during peak summer usage during the last two years, according to information from West Des Moines Water Works.

The focus is AI but it doesn’t take long to realize that all computing has energy and environmental costs. I have more about Ren’s work and about water shortages in the “The cost of building ChatGPT” posting.

This next posting would usually be included with my other art/sci postings but it touches on the issues. My October 13, 2023 posting about Toronto’s Art/Sci Salon events, in particular, there’s the Streaming Carbon Footprint event (just scroll down to the appropriate subhead). For the interested, I also found this 2022 paper “The Carbon Footprint of Streaming Media:; Problems, Calculations, Solutions” co-authored by one of the artist/researchers (Laura U. Marks, philosopher and scholar of new media and film at Simon Fraser University) who presented at the Toronto event.

I’m late to the party; Thomas Daigle posted a January 2, 2020 article about energy use and our appetite for computing and ‘smart’ devices for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s online news,

For those of us binge-watching TV shows, installing new smartphone apps or sharing family photos on social media over the holidays, it may seem like an abstract predicament.
The gigabytes of data we’re using — although invisible — come at a significant cost to the environment. Some experts say it rivals that of the airline industry.
And as more smart devices rely on data to operate (think internet-connected refrigerators or self-driving cars), their electricity demands are set to skyrocket.
“We are using an immense amount of energy to drive this data revolution,” said Jane Kearns, an environment and technology expert at MaRS Discovery District, an innovation hub in Toronto.
“It has real implications for our climate.”
…

Some good news

Researchers are working on ways to lower the energy and environmental costs, here’s a sampling of 2023 posts with an emphasis on brainlike computing that attest to it,

January 30, 2023 posting: “Synaptic transistors for brainlike computers based on (more environmentally friendly) graphene“
January 31, 2023 posting, “New chip for neuromorphic computing runs at a fraction of the energy of today’s systems“
June 15, 2023 posting “Combining silicon with metal oxide memristors to create powerful, low-energy intensive chips enabling AI in portable devices“
July 26, 2023 posting (I was late, the news was from March 2023), “Memristors based on halide perovskite nanocrystals are more powerful and easier to manufacture“
October 12, 2023 posting, “IBM’s neuromorphic chip, a prototype and more“
October 17, 2023 posting, “100-fold increase in AI energy efficiency“
November 24, 2023 posting, “NorthPole: a brain-inspired chip design for saving energy“

If there’s an industry that can make neuromorphic computing and energy savings sexy, it’s the automotive indusry,

February 23, 2023, “Neuromorphic (brainlike) computing and your car (a Mercedes Benz Vision AVTR concept car)“

On the energy front,

October 11, 2023 posting, “General Fusion: update to October 10, 2023“

Most people are familiar with nuclear fission and some its attendant issues. There is an alternative nuclear energy, fusion, which is considered ‘green’ or greener anyway. General Fusion is a local (Vancouver area) company focused on developing fusion energy, alongside competitors from all over the planet.

Part of what makes fusion energy attractive is that salt water or sea water can be used in its production and, according to that December posting, there are other applications for salt water power,

December 13, 2023 posting, “Powered with salt water“

More encouraging developments in environmental science

Again, this is a selection. You’ll find a number of nano cellulose research projects and a couple of seaweed projects (seaweed research seems to be of increasing interest).

March 6, 2023, “Seaweed battery“
March 13, 2023 posting, “Cellulose nanofibers as an alternative material for petroleum-based plastics?“
March 16, 2023 posting, “Plant fibers (nanocellulose) for more sustainable devices“
June 8, 2023 posting, “Fairy-like robot powered by wind and light“
June 20, 2023 posting, “Enabling a transparent wood battery that stores heat and regulates indoor temperature with lemons and coconuts“
June 27, 2023 posting, “Biobattery with a 100-year shelf life“
July 6, 2023 posting, “Greener cellulose-based products“
July 26, 2023 posting, “Biodegradable electronics: a seaweed biosensor“
July 25, 2023 posting, “A structural colour solution for energy-saving paint (thank the butterflies)“
August 3, 2023 posting, “Remove 80 percent of dye pollutants from wastewater with wood nanocrystals“
October 26, 2023 posting, “Using insect corpses to create biodegradable plastics“
November 8, 2023 posting, “Nanocellulose and food waste, an Australian perspective“
December 4, 2023, “The University of British Columbia and its November 28, 2023 Great UBC Bug Bake Off“
December 5, 2023 posting, “AI for salmon recovery“

All by myself (neuromorphic engineering)

Neuromorphic computing is a subset of neuromorphic engineering and I stumbled across an article that outlines the similarities and differences. My ‘summary’ of the main points and a link to the original article can be found here,

June 23, 2023 posting, “Neuromorphic engineering: an overview“

Oops! I did it again. More AI panic

I included an overview of the various ‘recent’ panics (in my May 25, 2023 posting below) along with a few other posts about concerning developments but it’s not all doom and gloom..

May 1, 2023 posting, “Canada, AI regulation, and the second reading of the Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022 (Bill C-27)“
May 25, 2023 posting, “Non-human authors (ChatGPT or others) of scientific and medical studies and the latest AI panic!!!“
July 21, 2023 posting, “Lero (Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Software) researchers need to know (survey): Will artificial intelligence (AI) end civilization?“
September 6, 2023 posting, “AI art threatens your humanity according to a study“
October 19, 2023 posting, “AI ‘author’ steals another author’s identity“
November 14, 2023 posting, “AI incites hiring of poets“
November 28, 2023 posting, “An artificial, multisensory integrated neuron makes AI (artificial intelligence) smarter“
December 7, 2023 posting, “AI-led corporate entities as a new species of legal subject“

Governments have realized that regulation might be a good idea. The European Union has a n AI act, the UK held an AI Safety Summit in November 2023, the US has been discussing AI regulation with its various hearings, and there’s impending legislation in Canada (see professor and lawyer Michael Geist’s blog for more).

A long time coming, a nanomedicine comeuppance

Paolo Macchiarini is now infamous for his untested, dangerous approach to medicine. Like a lot of people, I was fooled too as you can see in my August 2, 2011 posting, “Body parts nano style,”

In early July 2011, there were reports of a new kind of transplant involving a body part made of a biocomposite. Andemariam Teklesenbet Beyene underwent a trachea transplant that required an artificial windpipe crafted by UK experts then flown to Sweden where Beyene’s stem cells were used to coat the windpipe before being transplanted into his body.
It is an extraordinary story not least because Beyene, a patient in a Swedish hospital planning to return to Eritrea after his PhD studies in Iceland, illustrates the international cooperation that made the transplant possible.
The scaffolding material for the artificial windpipe was developed by Professor Alex Seifalian at the University College London in a landmark piece of nanotechnology-enabled tissue engineering. …

Five years later I stumbled across problems with Macchiarini’s work as outlined in my April 19, 2016 posting, “Macchiarini controversy and synthetic trachea transplants (part 1 of 2)” and my other April 19, 2016 posting, “Macchiarini controversy and synthetic trachea transplants (part 2 of 2)“.

This year, Gretchen Vogel (whose work was featured in my 2016 posts) has written a June 21, 2023 update about the Macchiarini affair for Science magazine, Note: Links have been removed,

Surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who was once hailed as a pioneer of stem cell medicine, was found guilty of gross assault against three of his patients today and sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison by an appeals court in Stockholm. The ruling comes a year after a Swedish district court found Macchiarini guilty of bodily harm in two of the cases and gave him a suspended sentence. After both the prosecution and Macchiarini appealed that ruling, the Svea Court of Appeal heard the case in April and May. Today’s ruling from the five-judge panel is largely a win for the prosecution—it had asked for a 5-year sentence whereas Macchiarini’s lawyer urged the appeals court to acquit him of all charges.
Macchiarini performed experimental surgeries on the three patients in 2011 and 2012 while working at the renowned Karolinska Institute. He implanted synthetic windpipes seeded with stem cells from the patients’ own bone marrow, with the hope the cells would multiply over time and provide an enduring replacement. All three patients died when the implants failed. One patient died suddenly when the implant caused massive bleeding just 4 months after it was implanted; the two others survived for 2.5 and nearly 5 years, respectively, but suffered painful and debilitating complications before their deaths.
In the ruling released today, the appeals judges disagreed with the district court’s decision that the first two patients were treated under “emergency” conditions. Both patients could have survived for a significant length of time without the surgeries, they said. The third case was an “emergency,” the court ruled, but the treatment was still indefensible because by then Macchiarini was well aware of the problems with the technique. (One patient had already died and the other had suffered severe complications.)
…

A fictionalized tv series ( part of the Dr. Death anthology series) based on Macchiarini’s deceptions and a Dr. Death documentary are being broadcast/streamed in the US during January 2024. These come on the heels of a November 2023 Macchiarini documentary also broadcast/streamed on US television.

Dr. Death (anthology), based on the previews I’ve seen, is heavily US-centric, which is to be expected since Adam Ciralsky is involved in the production. Ciralsky wrote an exposé about Macchiarini for Vanity Fair published in 2016 (also featured in my 2016 postings). From a December 20, 2023 article by Julie Miller for Vanity Fair, Note: A link has been removed,

Seven years ago [2016], world-renowned surgeon Paolo Macchiarini was the subject of an ongoing Vanity Fair investigation. He had seduced award-winning NBC producer Benita Alexander while she was making a special about him, proposed, and promised her a wedding officiated by Pope Francis and attended by political A-listers. It was only after her designer wedding gown was made that Alexander learned Macchiarini was still married to his wife, and seemingly had no association with the famous names on their guest list.
Vanity Fair contributor Adam Ciralsky was in the midst of reporting the story for this magazine in the fall of 2015 when he turned to Dr. Ronald Schouten, a Harvard psychiatry professor. Ciralsky sought expert insight into the kind of fabulist who would invent and engage in such an audacious lie.
“I laid out the story to him, and he said, ‘Anybody who does this in their private life engages in the same conduct in their professional life,” recalls Ciralsky, in a phone call with Vanity Fair. “I think you ought to take a hard look at his CVs.”
That was the turning point in the story for Ciralsky, a former CIA lawyer who soon learned that Macchiarini was more dangerous as a surgeon than a suitor. …

Here’s a link to Ciralsky’s original article, which I described this way, from my April 19, 2016 posting (part 2 of the Macchiarini controversy),

For some bizarre frosting on this disturbing cake (see part 1 of the Macchiarini controversy and synthetic trachea transplants for the medical science aspects), a January 5, 2016 Vanity Fair article by Adam Ciralsky documents Macchiarini’s courtship of an NBC ([US] National Broadcasting Corporation) news producer who was preparing a documentary about him and his work.
[from Ciralsky’s article]
“Macchiarini, 57, is a magnet for superlatives. He is commonly referred to as “world-renowned” and a “super-surgeon.” He is credited with medical miracles, including the world’s first synthetic organ transplant, which involved fashioning a trachea, or windpipe, out of plastic and then coating it with a patient’s own stem cells. That feat, in 2011, appeared to solve two of medicine’s more intractable problems—organ rejection and the lack of donor organs—and brought with it major media exposure for Macchiarini and his employer, Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, home of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Macchiarini was now planning another first: a synthetic-trachea transplant on a child, a two-year-old Korean-Canadian girl named Hannah Warren, who had spent her entire life in a Seoul hospital. … “

Other players in the Macchiarini story

Pierre Delaere, a trachea expert and professor of head and neck surgery at KU Leuven (a university in Belgium) was one of the first to draw attention to Macchiarini’s dangerous and unethical practices. To give you an idea of how difficult it was to get attention for this issue, there’s a September 1, 2017 article by John Rasko and Carl Power for the Guardian illustrating the issue. Here’s what they had to say about Delaere and other early critics of the work, Note: Links have been removed,

…
Delaere was one of the earliest and harshest critics of Macchiarini’s engineered airways. Reports of their success always seemed like “hot air” to him. He could see no real evidence that the windpipe scaffolds were becoming living, functioning airways – in which case, they were destined to fail. The only question was how long it would take – weeks, months or a few years.
Delaere’s damning criticisms appeared in major medical journals, including the Lancet, but weren’t taken seriously by Karolinska’s leadership. Nor did they impress the institute’s ethics council when Delaere lodged a formal complaint. [emphases mine]
Support for Macchiarini remained strong, even as his patients began to die. In part, this is because the field of windpipe repair is a niche area. Few people at Karolinska, especially among those in power, knew enough about it to appreciate Delaere’s claims. Also, in such a highly competitive environment, people are keen to show allegiance to their superiors and wary of criticising them. The official report into the matter dubbed this the “bandwagon effect”.
With Macchiarini’s exploits endorsed by management and breathlessly reported in the media, it was all too easy to jump on that bandwagon.
And difficult to jump off. In early 2014, four Karolinska doctors defied the reigning culture of silence [emphasis mine] by complaining about Macchiarini. In their view, he was grossly misrepresenting his results and the health of his patients. An independent investigator agreed. But the vice-chancellor of Karolinska Institute, Anders Hamsten, wasn’t bound by this judgement. He officially cleared Macchiarini of scientific misconduct, allowing merely that he’d sometimes acted “without due care”.
For their efforts, the whistleblowers were punished. [emphasis mine] When Macchiarini accused one of them, Karl-Henrik Grinnemo, of stealing his work in a grant application, Hamsten found him guilty. As Grinnemo recalls, it nearly destroyed his career: “I didn’t receive any new grants. No one wanted to collaborate with me. We were doing good research, but it didn’t matter … I thought I was going to lose my lab, my staff – everything.”
This went on for three years until, just recently [2017], Grinnemo was cleared of all wrongdoing.
…
It is fitting that Macchiarini’s career unravelled at the Karolinska Institute. As the home of the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, one of its ambitions is to create scientific celebrities. Every year, it gives science a show-business makeover, picking out from the mass of medical researchers those individuals deserving of superstardom. The idea is that scientific progress is driven by the genius of a few.
It’s a problematic idea with unfortunate side effects. A genius is a revolutionary by definition, a risk-taker and a law-breaker. Wasn’t something of this idea behind the special treatment Karolinska gave Macchiarini? Surely, he got away with so much because he was considered an exception to the rules with more than a whiff of the Nobel about him. At any rate, some of his most powerful friends were themselves Nobel judges until, with his fall from grace, they fell too.
…

The September 1, 2017 article by Rasko and Power is worth the read if you have the interest and the time. And, Delaere has written up a comprehensive analysis, which includes basic information about tracheas and more, “The Biggest Lie in Medical History” 2020, PDF, 164 pp., Creative Commons Licence).

I also want to mention Leonid Schneider, science journalist and molecular cell biologist, whose work the Macchiarini scandal on his ‘For Better Science’ website was also featured in my 2016 pieces. Schneider’s site has a page titled, ‘Macchiarini’s trachea transplant patients: the full list‘ started in 2017 and which he continues to update with new information about the patients. The latest update was made on December 20, 2023.

Promising nanomedicine research but no promises and a caveat

Most of the research mentioned here is still in the laboratory. i don’t often come across work that has made its way to clinical trials since the focus of this blog is emerging science and technology,

January 25, 2023 posting, “Lab-made cartilage gel for stiff, achy knees“
May 9, 2023 posting, “Research on how the body will react to nanomedicines is inconsistent“
June 14, 2023 posting, “Biohybrid device (a new type of neural implant) could restore limb function“
July 14, 2023 posting, “Artificially-grown mini-brains (organoids)—without animal components— offer opportunities for neuroscience“
*July 17, 2023 posting, “Unveiling the Neurotechnology Landscape: Scientific Advancements, Innovations and Major Trends—a UNESCO report“
August 23, 2023 posting, “Nanoparticle drug delivery could reduce rejection rates for corneal transplants“
December 1, 2023 posting, “Scientists at Indian Institute of Science (IISc) created hybrid nanoparticles made of gold and copper sulfide that can kill cancer cells“
December 15, 2023 posting, “Reducing toxicity of Alzheimer’s proteins with graphene oxide“

*If you’re interested in the business of neurotechnology, the July 17, 2023 posting highlights a very good UNESCO report on the topic.

Funky music (sound and noise)

I have couple of stories about using sound for wound healing, bioinspiration for soundproofing applications, detecting seismic activity, more data sonification, etc.

January 5, 2023 posting, “Sound absorbing wallpaper inspired by moth wings“
January 23, 2023 posting, “Stifle the noise with seaweed“
January 25, 2023 posting, “Making longer lasting bandages with sound and bubbles“
February 13, 2023 posting, “It’s not just the sound, it’s the vibration too (a red-eyed treefrog calls for a mate)“
May 4, 2023 posting, “A fish baying at the moon?“
June 12, 2023 posting, “Music of the chemical elements“
June 14, 2023 posting, “The sound of dirt“
June 30, 2023 posting, “Sound waves for wearable patches that deliver drugs painlessly“
August 18, 2023 posting, “Animals: Art, Science and Sound at the British Library in London, UK until August 28, 2023 and Digital Storytelling until October 15, 2023“
December 12, 2023 posting, “Shape-changing speaker (aka acoustic swarms) for sound control“
December 18, 2023 posting, “When the rocks sing “I got rhythm”“
December 19,2023 posting, “The sounds of recent (December 2023) seismic activity in Iceland“

Same old, same old CRISPR

2023 was relatively quiet (no panics) where CRISPR developments are concerned but still quite active.

January 12, 203 posting, “What is CRISPRnano?“
March 8, 2023 posting, “Even a ‘good’ gene edit can go wrong“
August 2, 2023 posting, “Gene-edited food: better tasting and/or allergen-free?“
August 7, 2023 posting, “CRISPR-like system found in animals“
December 22, 2023 posting, “Gene editing to identify and change parts of chicken DNA and limit the spread of bird flu virus“

Art/Sci: a pretty active year

I didn’t realize how active the year was art/sciwise including events and other projects until I reviewed this year’s postings. This is a selection from 2023 but there’s a lot more on the blog, just use the search term, “art/sci,” or “art/science,” or “sciart.”

While I often feature events and projects from these groups (e.g., June 2, 2023 posting, “Metacreation Lab’s greatest hits of Summer 2023“), it’s possible for me to miss a few. So, you can check out Toronto’s Art/Sci Salon’s website (strong focus on visual art) and Simon Fraser University’s Metacreation Lab for Creative Artificial Intelligence website (strong focus on music).

My selection of this year’s postings is more heavily weighted to the ‘writing’ end of things.

February 10, 2023 posting, ““The Heart’s Knowledge: Science and Empathy in the Art of Dario Robleto” from Jan. 27 to July 9, 2023 at The Block Museum of Art (Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois)“
March 28,k 2023 posting, ““Living in a Dream,” part of Cambridge Festival (on display March 31 and April 1, 2023 in the UK)“
April 4, 2023 posting, “Algorithmic haiku: Basho in the machine“
April 5, 2023 posting, “Perimeter Institute (PI) presents: The Jazz of Physics with Stephon Alexander“
May 15, 2023 posting, “‘Poetic meditation’ could enhance qualitative data analysis“
June 9, 2023 posting, “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the scientist who may have helped inspire the story, and a poetry/science project“
June 22, 2023 posting, “Physics in James Joyce’s Ulysses and physics amongst the penguins“
August 2, 2023 posting, “Every thing old is new again: using fairy tales to communicate science (energy research)“
September 11, 2023 posting, “Leaning Out of Windows (LOoW): An Art and Physics Collaboration (2023 book) in Vancouver (Canada)“

Boundaries: life/nonlife

Last year I subtitled this section, ‘Aliens on earth: machinic biology and/or biological machinery?” Here’s this year’s selection,

February 9, 2023 posting, “Living photovoltaics with carbon nanotubes (CNTs)?“
March 17, 2023 posting, “Coelacanth (a living fish fossil) may provide clue to making artificial organs for transplantation“
March 23 2023 posting, “Transforming bacterial cells into living computers“
June 6 2023 posting, “In vitro biological neural networks (BNNs): review paper“
June 30, 2023 posting, “International conference “Living Machines” dedicated to technology inspired by nature in Genoa, Italy (July 10 – 13, 2023)“
July 13, 2023 posting, “Growing electrodes in your brain?“
October 3, 2023 posting, “The art and science of architecture that is ‘living-like’“
November 3, 2023 posting, “Nanoscale tattoos for individual cells“
December 6, 2023 posting, “They glow under stress: soft, living materials made with algae“

Canada’s 2023 budget … military

2023 featured an unusual budget where military expenditures were going to be increased, something which could have implications for our science and technology research.

April 24, 2023 posting, “The 2023 Canadian federal budget: science & technology of the military and cybersecurity and some closing comments (2 of 2)“

Then things changed as Murray Brewster’s November 21, 2023 article for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) news online website comments, Note: A link has been removed,

There was a revelatory moment on the weekend as Defence Minister Bill Blair attempted to bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality in the Liberal government’s spending plans for his department and the Canadian military.
Asked about an anticipated (and long overdue) update to the country’s defence policy (supposedly made urgent two years ago by Russia’s full-on invasion of Ukraine), Blair acknowledged that the reset is now being viewed through a fiscal lens.
“We said we’re going to bring forward a new defence policy update. We’ve been working through that,” Blair told CBC’s Rosemary Barton Live on Sunday.
“The current fiscal environment that the country faces itself does require (that) that defence policy update … recognize (the) fiscal challenges. And so it’ll be part of … our future budget processes.”
…
One policy goal of the existing defence plan, Strong, Secure and Engaged, was to require that the military be able to concurrently deliver “two sustained deployments of 500 [to] 1,500 personnel in two different theaters of operation, including one as a lead nation.”
In a footnote, the recent estimates said the Canadian military is “currently unable to conduct multiple operations concurrently per the requirements laid out in the 2017 Defence Policy. Readiness of CAF force elements has continued to decrease over the course of the last year, aggravated by decreasing number of personnel and issues with equipment and vehicles.”
Some analysts say they believe that even if the federal government hits its overall budget reduction targets, what has been taken away from defence — and what’s about to be taken away — won’t be coming back, the minister’s public assurances notwithstanding.
…

10 years: Graphene Flagship Project and Human Brain Project

“Graphene and Human Brain Project win biggest research award in history (& this is the 2000th post)” on January 28, 2013 was how I announced the results of what had been a a European Union (EU) competition that stretched out over several years and many stages as projects were evaluated and fell to the wayside or were allowed onto the next stage. The two finalists received €1B each to be paid out over ten years.
…

See the September 26, 2023 posting, “10 years of the European Union’s roll of the dice: €1B or 1billion euros each for the Human Brain Project (HBP) and the Graphene Flagship“

Future or not

As you can see, there was plenty of interesting stuff going on in 2023 but no watershed moments in the areas I follow. (Please do let me know in the Comments should you disagree with this or any other part of this posting.) Nanotechnology seems less and less an emerging science/technology in itself and more like a foundational element of our science and technology sectors. On that note, you may find my upcoming (in 2024) post about a report concerning the economic impact of its National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) from 2002 to 2022 of interest.

Following on the commercialization theme, I have noticed an increase of interest in commercializing brain and brainlike engineering technologies, as well as, more discussion about ethics.

Colonizing the brain?

UNESCO held events such as, this noted in my July 17, 2023 posting, “Unveiling the Neurotechnology Landscape: Scientific Advancements, Innovations and Major Trends—a UNESCO report” and this noted in my July 7, 2023 posting “Global dialogue on the ethics of neurotechnology on July 13, 2023 led by UNESCO.” An August 21, 2023 posting, “Ethical nanobiotechnology” adds to the discussion.

Meanwhile, Australia has been producing some very interesting mind/robot research, my June 13, 2023 posting, “Mind-controlled robots based on graphene: an Australian research story.” I have more of this kind of research (mind control or mind reading) from Australia to be published in early 2024. The Australians are not alone, there’s also this April 12, 2023 posting, “Mind-reading prosthetic limbs” from Germany.

My May 12, 2023 posting, “Virtual panel discussion: Canadian Strategies for Responsible Neurotechnology Innovation on May 16, 2023” shows Canada is entering the discussion. Unfortunately, the Canadian Science Policy Centre (CSPC), which held the event, has not posted a video online even though they have a youtube channel featuring other of their events.

As for neurmorphic engineering, China has produced a roadmap for its research in this area as noted in my March 20, 2023 posting, “A nontraditional artificial synaptic device and roadmap for Chinese research into neuromorphic devices.”

Quantum anybody?

I haven’t singled it out in this end-of-year posting but there is a great deal of interest in quantum computer both here in Canada and elsewhere. There is a 2023 report from the Council of Canadian Academies on the topic of quantum computing in Canada, which I hope to comment on soon.

Final words

I have a shout out for the Canadian Science Policy Centre, which celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2023. Congratulations!

For everyone, I wish peace on earth and all the best for you and yours in 2024!

AI incites hiring of poets

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This is not the first time that I’ve come across information such as this. According to a September 28, 2023 posting by Karl Bode for the TechDirt website, companies in Silicon Valley (California, US) are hiring poets (and other writers) to help train AI (artificial intelligence), Note: Links have been removed,

… however much AI hype-men would like to pretend AI makes human beings irrelevant, they remain essential for the underlying illusion and reality to function. As such, a growing number of Silicon Valley companies are increasingly hiring poets, English PHDs, and other writers to write short stories for LLMs [language learning models] to train on in a bid to improve the quality of their electro-mimics:
“A string of job postings from high-profile training data companies, such as Scale AI and Appen, are recruiting poets, novelists, playwrights, or writers with a PhD or master’s degree. Dozens more seek general annotators with humanities degrees, or years of work experience in literary fields. The listings aren’t limited to English: Some are looking specifically for poets and fiction writers in Hindi and Japanese, as well as writers in languages less represented on the internet.”
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So it’s clear we still have a long way to go before these technologies actually get anywhere close to matching both the hype and employment apocalypse many predicted. LLMs are effectively mimics that create from what already exists. Since it’s not real artificial intelligence, it’s still not actually capable of true creativity:
“They are trained to reproduce. They are not designed to be great, they try to be as close as possible to what exists,” Fabricio Goes, who teaches informatics at the University of Leicester, told Rest of World, explaining a popular stance among AI researchers. “So, by design, many people argue that those systems are not creative.”
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The problem remains that while the underlying technology will continuously improve, the folks rushing to implement it without thinking likely won’t. Most seem dead set on using AI primarily as a bludgeon against labor in the hopes the public won’t notice the drop in quality, and professional writers, editors, and creatives won’t mind increasingly lower pay and tenuous position in the food chain.

In the last paragraph, Bode appears to be alluding to the Writers Guild of America strike (known popularly as the Hollywood writers strike), which ended on September 26, 2023 (for more details, see this September 26, 2023 article by Samantha Delouya for CNN).

Four years ago, I used this head “Ghosts, mechanical turks, and pseudo-AI (artificial intelligence)—Is it all a con game?” for a more in depth look at how AI is overhyped; see my September 24, 2019 posting.

October 31, 2023 data analysis and visualization workshop for science writers

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Thanks to the Science Media Centre of Canada for the notice about this upcoming workshop for science writers, (from the Data Analysis and Visualization Tools for Science Writers page on eventbrite.com), Note: There is a fee of $125 (I assume this is US currency) and a limited number of discounts are available (keep reading either here or on the event page for details about the discounts),

[downloaded from https://www.eventbrite.com/e/data-analysis-and-visualization-tools-for-science-writers-tickets-692049688247]

Also from the event page,

This workshop will focus on reporting & producing data stories about science topics, highlighting free tools for analysis & visualization.
Date and time
Tuesday, October 31 · 12:30 – 2pm PDT
Location
Online
Refund Policy
Contact the organizer to request a refund.Eventbrite’s fee is nonrefundable.
About this event
1 hour 30 minutes Mobile eTicket
Science writers are used to encountering data, whether we’re reading through dense scientific papers or trying to figure out what a statistic means for our readers. But sometimes, datasets themselves can be sources for stories—and they have led to some of the most widely read science stories of the last few years, from El Pais’ visualization of coronavirus spread to ProPublica’s investigation of burning sugar cane. Datasets can help us make complex topics accessible, visualize patterns from research, or even investigate instances of wrongdoing.
A science writer interested in pursuing stories like these could find a wide variety of resources to help them get started on a data project. But the growing data journalism field can be overwhelming: you might not be sure how to pick an initial project, which online course to try, which tools to use, or whether you need to learn how to code first. (Spoiler alert: you don’t!)
This 90-minute hands-on workshop from The Open Notebook, building on the instructor’s TON article about this topic [TON = The Open Notebook], will provide a crash course in data reporting basics. It’s designed for science writers who are interested in pursuing data stories but aren’t quite sure how to get started, and for editors who are interested in working with writers on these stories.
You’ll get an introduction to all of the steps of reporting and producing a data story, from finding story ideas to editing and fact-checking. The workshop will include an interactive tutorial showcasing two common tools that you can start using immediately.
You will learn how to:
Recognize potential data stories on your beat
Search for public datasets that you can use
Use free tools for data analysis and visualization
Work with a data team or independently as a freelancer
Make your data stories accessible
The workshop will be recorded and made available to registered participants for three months following the workshop.
Instructor
Betsy Ladyzhets is an independent science, health, and data journalist focused on COVID-19 and the future of public health. She runs the COVID-19 Data Dispatch, a publication that provides news, resources, and original reporting on COVID-19 data. Recently, she was a journalism fellow at MuckRock, where she contributed to award-winning COVID-19 investigations. She also previously managed the Science & Health vertical at Stacker and volunteered at the COVID Tracking Project. Her freelance work has appeared in Science News, The Atlantic, STAT, FiveThirtyEight, MIT Technology Review, and other national publications.
Registration Fee
The registration fee is $125.
About our discounted rates: Our goal at The Open Notebook is to support the advancement of science journalists around the world. In particular, we want to ensure that the resources we provide are accessible to those who have experienced higher-than-average barriers to entry in our field. A limited number of discounted slots are available on a first-come, first-served basis to individuals who are members of communities that have historically been underrepresented in science journalism or whose economic circumstances would make the full cost of the workshops a financial strain. To use this discount, add the promo code TON_70DISCOUNT for a 70 percent discount. (The promo code box is above the workshops listing on the sign-up page.)

I found out a little more about The Open Notebook, from their About tab Missio n page,

Our Mission
The Open Notebook is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is widely regarded as the leading online source of training and educational materials for journalists who cover science. We are dedicated to fostering a supportive, diverse, and inclusive global community that enables reporters and editors who cover science to learn and thrive. Through our comprehensive library of articles on the craft of science journalism and our extensive training and mentoring programs, we empower journalists at all experience levels, around the world, to tell impactful, engaging stories about science.
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Why We’re Here
At no other time in human history has the meaning of what constitutes a fact—a valid piece of knowledge—been more at risk than it is today. Journalists’ ability to report stories about science clearly, accurately, and engagingly has never been more critical for public understanding of science and for a well-functioning democracy. Journalists who cover science play a crucial and demanding role in society—they must not only explain the newest advances in scientific research, but also provide critical context and analysis on issues ranging from climate change to infectious disease to artificial intelligence; shed light on the human beings behind the research; and serve as watchdogs to help ensure the continued freedom and integrity of the scientific enterprise.
To fulfill such a role takes skill. And the skills that science journalists need are endangered. Only a fraction of working science journalists are trained in formal journalism programs. And with the shrinking number of traditional staff jobs available, science journalism is fast moving toward a “gig economy” that relies on freelancers to produce work once done by staffers. One effect of that shift is that fewer journalists have the opportunity to master skills through the natural mentoring that takes place in newsrooms. In addition, science journalists who are from historically underrepresented communities face formidable barriers to entry and participation in the field. The Open Notebook is dedicated to helping journalists cultivate fundamental skills necessary for covering science and to helping foster a more inclusive community of voices covering science.
What We Do
Since The Open Notebook was founded in 2010, more than a million people from around the world have visited the site. Thousands of journalists have taken part in our courses, workshops, and mentoring programs. Below is a summary of our major programs.
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There you have it.