Tag Archives: Dr. Andrew Maynard

Participatory science; wearable batteries; radio interview with Andrew Maynard; shadow science ministers in Canada’s political parties

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Ordinary people (nonscientists like me) have a long tradition of participating in scientific research in areas such as astronomy and ornithology (bird watching). A local example is the eagle count which takes place at Brackendale every year. (Aside: The 2010 count has already taken place but it’s still possible to attend festival events which are now part of the Brackendale eagle count experience.)

Someone whose science interests may be more esoteric can have trouble finding opportunities to pursue their interests. Thanks to the Science Cheerleader there is a new online resource to help you find a project. From the Science Cheerleader blog,

Hot diggity-DOG! After years in the making, my partner, Michael Gold, and I–with generous support from Science House–have officially unveiled the beta version (that means this is still a work-in-progress) of ScienceForCitizens.net . Science journalist, Carl Zimmer, who frequently writes for Discover and Time Magazine, said “It’s like Amazon.com for all sorts of possibilities for doing cool citizen science”. We’ll take that

And thanks to the Pasco Phronesis blog for the info. about the Science Cheerleader.

For an abrupt change of pace: Yes, you could be wearing your batteries at some point in the future. Scientists at Stanford University (CA) have found a way to easily and inexpensively turn cotton or polyester fibres into batteries or, as they call it, wearable energy textiles or e-textiles. From the news item on BBC News,

“Wearable electronics represent a developing new class of materials… which allow for many applications and designs previously impossible with traditional electronics technologies,” the authors [of the study published in ACS Nano Letters] wrote.

A number of research efforts in recent years have shown the possibility of electronics that can be built on flexible and even transparent surfaces – leading to the often-touted “roll-up display”.

However, the integration of electronics into textiles has presented different challenges, in particular developing approaches that work with ordinary fabrics.

Now, Yi Cui and his team at Stanford University in the US has shown that their “ink” made of carbon nanotubes – cylinders of carbon just billionths of a metre across – can serve as a dye that can simply and cheaply turn a t-shirt into an “e-shirt”.

I’ve taken a look at the research paper which, as these things go, is pretty readable. Bravo to the American Chemical Society (ACS) for not placing the material behind a paywall. The article, Stretchable, Porous and Conductive Energy Textiles,  published in the ACS journal Nano Letters is here.

I had the pleasure of listening to a radio interview on Whyy Radio conducted by Marty Moss-Coane where she interviewed Dr. Andrew Maynard, Chief Science Advisor for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnolgies. The interview (approximately 50 mins.)  titled, The Science and Safety of Nanotechnology, is available for listening here. Moss-Coane was well-prepared, asked good questions, and had listeners call in with their own questions. Dr. Andrew Maynard was, as always, very likable and interesting.

After my recent posting on science policy in Canada and the four major political parties, I thought I’d check out the various shadow science ministers or critics. Here’s what I found,

Gary Goodyear, Conservative, Minister of State (Science and Technology)

Jim Maloway, NDP, Science and Technology [portfolio]

Frances Coates, Green Party, shadow minister Science and Technology

Marc Garneau, Liberal Party, Industry, Science and Technology critic

I have looked at all their websites and Garneau seems the most interested in science and technology issues. Given that he’s a former astronaut and is an engineer, one might expect that he would have a major interest in the subject. He’s written a paper on the subject (thanks to the folks at The Black Hole for finding it). If you go here and either read or scroll to the bottom, you will find a link to his paper. He also has a poll on his website, What is the importance of science and technology to create the jobs for tomorrow? You can go here to answer the question. As for the others, Goodyear lists a series of announcements in news releases as accomplishments which makes identifying his actual accomplishments difficult. Jim Maloway does not mention science on his website and Frances Coates posted a few times on her blog in 2008 but made no mention of science.

Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation tidbits; TAPPI and the nanotechnology forestry conference in Alberta; a modern House of Wisdom

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I caught only part of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) event, Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation, due to two factors. (1) I was busy posting here and so was late to the live webcast. (2) About an hour after I started watching, something (either my system choked or the Wilson Center facility was having difficulties or I lost broadband speed for some reason)  happened and the live webcast became unwatchable.

This was an international collaborative project titled, Regulating Nanotechnologies in the EU and US. Researchers from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), Chatham House, the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), and PEN at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars worked together to produce a report, a briefing paper, and a slide presentation about their findings and recommendations that can be downloaded from here.

The Washington, DC presentation was yesterday (Sept. 23, 2009) at the Wilson Center facility. There were two panels and I missed the introduction for the first group but I did recognize the moderator, David Rejeski who’s PEN’s executive director. The discussion was about the report and the recommendations.

One of the more interesting bits was the mention of a discrepancy between the UK and EU food industries submissions to some sort of inquiry. The UK representative claimed there are 2 nano type food products on the market (in the UK,  i.e. Europe) while in an earlier meeting elsewhere an EU representative claimed there are 20 such products on the market in Europe. No one was able to explain the discrepancy, which is troubling.

As for the participants in the project, there was general agreement that some sort of regulatory system needs to be developed quickly. Amongst other recommendations:

  1. Voluntary reporting of the use and manufacture of nano materials should be made mandatory.
  2. There should be a ‘technology label’ for food and cosmetic products that contain nanomaterials.
  3. A global approach to nanotechnology regulation that draws together major players such as China and India, as well as many others, needs to be adopted.

There was some mention of Canada at one point. I believe the speaker was referring to an Environment Canada initiative, i.e. a one-time inventory of nanomaterials used in manufacturing products which is mandatory. (I commented on this matter in my Feb. 3, 4, and 6, 2009 postings.) I haven’t heard anything about their progress lately but it is used as an example of a mandatory nanotechnology inventory. Interestingly, they never mention that it is supposed to be one time only.

As for the second panel (moderated by Dr. Andrew Maynard, Chief Science Advisor for PEN), this was oriented to some of the practicalities of introducing nano regulation into current regulatory environments. At least, I think that’s what it was about as things began to malfunction shortly after the introductions.

TAPPI (Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry) held a nanotechnology forestry conference in Alberta this last June. I should have mentioned it at the time but, trite as it is,  better late than never.  From today’s news item about the conference on Nanowerk,

More than 180 nanoscience experts from 12 countries met in June to discuss the potential of nano-enabled biomaterials. Held in Edmonton, AB, Canada, and co-sponsored by TAPPI and the Alberta Ingenuity Fund, the conference revealed developments for revolutionizing paper and wood products, as well as capturing sustainability-focused markets with bionanocomposites and capitalizing on wood-derived nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) and nanofibrillar cellulose (NFC).

The 2010 conference will be held in Helsinki, Finland.

The House of Wisdom existed from the 9th to 13th centuries CE (common era) in Baghdad. Originally intended as a library whose main purpose was for the translation of books from Persian into Arabic, the House of Wisdom became a centre for the study of the humanities and sciences that was unrivaled in its time. One of its great scholars (Al-Khawarizmi) is known as the ‘father of algebra’. They invented the library catalogue where books were organized according to subjects. Note: I was recently at the oldest library at Trinity College in Dublin and the guide mentioned that those books are organized on the shelves by size, weight, and the colour of their bindings. (I got my information about the House of Wisdom here in Wikipedia and from a Nanowerk Spotlight article by Michael Berger.)

I mention the House of Wisdom because of Berger’s article which uses it as a metaphor to discuss a modern attempt to recreate the ‘house’,  this time, in Saudi Arabia. A new, 36 square kilometer,  science/technology campus/city called the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) opened yesterday on Sept. 23, 2009.

From the article,

Much more than a future elite university, the vision behind KAUST is to create the nucleus of a modern society, free from the strict religious dictates of a conservative Islamic culture, and laying the foundation for a science and technology based society of future generations.

This sounds quite ambitious for a conservative Islamic country that doesn’t have public entertainment facilities such as cinemas or theaters – they are regarded as incompatible with Islam; where most schools have focused on religion much more than on science and other modern knowledge; and where a strict interpretation of Islam imposes many restrictions on women’s daily lives.

This all is supposed to change with mega projects like the $8bn Knowledge Economic City (KEC), the King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) a $26.6 billion project that will generate more than 500,000 jobs upon completion in 2016; and nearby KAUST, intended to catapult Saudi Arabia’s education system into the 21st century and prepare its society for the time after oil. This move to a knowledge-based society is a top priority for the country – in 2009 alone, 25.7% of Saudi Arabia’s budget has been allocated to educational development.

As an oil-producing country, Saudi Arabia is getting ready for a time when there won’t be any left to pump out of the ground. Do read the article as there’s much more about the facilities which, according to Berger, “… will enable top-notch nanotechnology research.”

It reminds me a little of the situation in Alberta where they are currently trying to extract oil from sand only because the oil that was easy to access is almost gone while heavily investing in emerging advanced technologies such as nanotechnology.

Marketing, safety, and nanotechnology plus there’s another Synthetic Bio event

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There’s a new study that suggests that scientists and the general public (in the US) have differing attitudes to nanotechnology. The study conducted by Dietram Scheufele and Elizathe Corley (professors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Arizona State University, respectively) shows that scientists are focusing on potential risks and economic values while the public is focusing on potential benefits when asked about regulating nanotechnology. More details about the study and where it’s been published can be found here on Azonano.

This information provides an interesting contrast to a media release about a conference in Brussels (June 10, 2009) where Dr. Andrew Maynard, Chief Science Advisor for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnolgies, expressed concern that companies in Europe are beginning to drop the mention of nanotechnologies on product labels.

“We have seen some companies drop the ‘nano’ claim while continuing to use nanotechnology. This suggests nanotechnology is going underground,” [Maynard]said.

Harald Throne, researcher at the National Institute for Consumer Research in Norway, echoed concerns that companies may be becoming less inclined to highlight nanomaterials.

He searched a website run by a major international cosmetics company, using keywords like ‘nanotechnology’ and ‘nano’, to estimate how many products contain nanotechnology. Throne’s search turned up 29 products in 2007, but when he repeated the same exercise recently, there were zero hits.

This, he said, suggests that companies may now view ‘nano’ as a negative label rather than an added value.

You can read more about it here on the Euractiv website. I couldn’t find the Brussels conference they mention but maybe you’ll have better luck.

These contrasting reports would suggest that attitudes in Europe differ from attitudes in the US where we’re discussing the general public. I make this inference from the fact that companies in Europe are not making the nanotechnology claim and presumably that is because they are concerned about the public’s attitude.  It should be noted that a European industry representative quoted in the media release claims that the problem lies with the difficulty of actually defining a nanomaterial. The representative does have  a point of sorts. Still, I do wonder why companies were able to make the nanotechnology claim in 2007 despite the lack of definitions.

There’s a synthetic biology event coming up this Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 9:30 am. to 10:30 am PST.

When
Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 12:30-1:30 PM (light lunch available at 12 noon)
Who
Erik Parens, Senior Research Scholar, The Hastings Center
Gregory Kaebnick, Research Scholar, The Hastings Center
David Rejeski, Moderator, Director, Synthetic Biology Project
The emerging field of synthetic biology will allow researchers to create biological systems that do not occur naturally as well as to re-engineer existing biological systems to perform novel and beneficial tasks. Synthetic biology promises significant advances in areas such as biofuels, specialty chemicals, agriculture, and medicine but also poses potential risks. As the science and its applications develop, a comprehensive approach to addressing ethical and social issues of emerging technologies as a whole is called for if scarce intellectual resources are to be used optimally, according to a new report authored by Erik Parens, Josephine Johnston, and Jacob Moses of The Hastings Center.
In Ethical Issues in Synthetic Biology: An Overview of the Debates, the authors examine how the ethical issues raised by a variety of emerging technologies are often similar and familiar.  They find that these similarities are abundant enough to justify an effort to develop an ethical framework that cuts across emerging and converging technologies.  Indeed, rather than stovepiping ethical questions into the hyphenated areas of bio-ethics, nano-ethics, neuro-ethics and so on, it is time to begin speaking about the ethics of emerging technologies as a whole.
On June 24, Erik Parens will discuss the report’s findings, exploring the differences between physical and non-physical harms and pro-actionary and pre-cautionary frameworks, in an effort to better define the ethical issues around synthetic biology.  Gregory Kaebnick, also of The Hastings Center, will describe the Center’s new, multi-year project that will examine the ethical issues raised in the report in greater depth.