Tag Archives: Howard Lovy

FrogHeart at the 2012 S.NET conference, part 1: the Nanopants attack (protest); more on the Australian nanosunscreen shocker; Hegel; and thanks

I very much enjoyed and appreciated the 2012 S.NET (Society for the Study of Nanoscience and Emerging Technologies) conference in Enschede, Netherlands from Oct. 22-25, 2012. It was my first nano-themed conference and I suffered from an embarrassment of riches so what follows is just a sliver of the available presentation offerings and my opinions.

I’m sad to say that I have no sensible notes from the opening plenary (‘Emerging technologies — From Technology Push to Societal Pull’ with Dave Blank, Christos Tokamanis, and Pat Mooney on a panel moderated by Arie Rip) largely due to the fact that I’d been travelling continuously for about 15 or 16 hours by then and had trouble absorbing information. The next day was much better.

Public risk perceptions: Mary Collins talking about the Nanopants attack (protest) and about scientists’ approaches to public communication about nanotechnology risks ; Frederico Neresini discussing perceptions in Italy; and Craig Cormick providing more details about the nanosunscreen debacle in Australia.

Mary Collins (University of California at Santa Barbara) presented her work analyzing the various points of view from the science and non-science communities regarding discussions of public risk. She noted there is still concern that the GMO (genetically modified organisms) movement could happen again with nanotechnology and scientists are devoutly interested in avoiding this circumstance. By and large, most scientists want to promote some discussion about risks as a means of avoiding a ‘GMO disaster’ although there is no universal agreement as to which groups/social communities should be apprised. Some scientists favour elite groups only while others prefer a more universal dissemination of information. Collins noted that it is very difficult to find any documentation of scientists espousing the belief that communication of risk should be nonexistent. One audience member noted that a policy of suppressing discussion could be inferred by the lack of media coverage for an activist protest known as the ‘Nanopants attack’. Wired Magazine appears to have been the only media outlet to have covered the event by featuring a June 10, 2005 article by Howard Lovy,

On a chilly Chicago afternoon in early May, environmental activists sauntered into the Eddie Bauer store on Michigan Avenue, headed to the broad storefront windows opening out on the Magnificent Mile and proceeded to take off their clothes.

The strip show aimed to expose more than skin: Activists hoped to lay bare growing allegations of the toxic dangers of nanotechnology. The demonstrators bore the message in slogans painted on their bodies, proclaiming “Eddie Bauer hazard” and “Expose the truth about nanotech,” among other things, in light of the clothing company’s embrace of nanotech in its recent line of stain-resistant “nanopants.”

Frederico Neresini, University of Padua (Italy), discussed some of his work polling for attitudes toward nanotechnology risk and his tentative hypothesis that the more public debate there is on the topic, the more important trustworthiness becomes. Trust was discussed many times and in many contexts at the conference and seemed to be an emergent theme.

Craig Cormick, Australian Dept. of Innovation, discussed the surprising results of a recent poll in Australia which showed that 13% of the population doesn’t use any sunscreen due to concern about nanoscale ingredients (this finding was mentioned at more length in my Feb. 9, 2012 posting). He also noted that he was on the receiving end of some very personal attacks once this information was released. I hadn’t realized it was coincidental but, almost simultaneously, there was another project (analyzing sunscreens available on the Australian market for nanoscale ingredients) where they announced findings of many more sunscreens with nanoscale ingredients than were labelled as such. There weren’t many new details for public consumption but it was interesting to hear a first hand account. Cormick did offer a provocative idea during the session, ‘apply the precautionary principle to your risk messages’.

Chris Groves of Cardiff University (Wales) offered a lunchtime plenary talk titled, ‘Horizons of care: from future imaginaries to responsible innovation’. We were treated to a discussion of philosophy which featured Hegel and Deleuze amongst others. What I found most intriguing were Groves’ contentions that ‘vision’ is a problematic metaphor; that living in an ‘age of innovation’ means living in an ‘age of surprises’; and that science interprets the world by looking into the past. His quote from Hannah Arendt, “What we make remakes us” brought home the notion that there is a feedback loop and that science and invention are not unidirectional pursuits, i.e., we do not create the world and stand apart from it; the world we create, in turn, recreates us.

I was particularly taken with one of his last comments, ‘mapping as a metaphor for colonizing the future’. I’ve long been interested by the frequency of ‘mapping’ as a metaphor in scientific pursuits (mapping the genome, amongst many others). His comment reminded me that the great mapping bonanzas are associated with ‘colonizing’ various continents.

A big thank you is due to

US National Science Foundation,
the University of California at Santa Barbara (Valerie Kuan and Barbara Herr Harthorn),
the Canadian Academy of Independent Scholars,
Simon Fraser University,
Luinda Bleackley,
Teresa McDowell,
Zoey Ryan,
Susan Baxter,
Helen Dewar,
Debora Gordon, and
Doug Setter

all of whose financial support helped me get to the conference. I am deeply grateful.

I want to thank the organizers for a sumptuous conference not only in content but also in execution. They even managed to cater most of our meals, which made life ever so much easier. In particular, I want to thank Marcia Clifford and Evelien Rietberg of the local organizing committee for their patience and help as I fumbled about on my arrival.

Part 2: Yet again, I discover information about Canadian nanotechnology efforts through European sources.

ETA Nov. 1, 2012: I made a minor grammatical correction in the section about Chris Groves’ talk and I should mention that I never did quite grasp the relationship of ‘care’ to the concepts he presented.

E-paper technology takes another step forward, spooky magnetic attractions, and the business of nano

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If you’ve read Neal Stephenson’s ‘Diamond Age’ then you’ll probably remember a passage near the beginning where a main character unrolls his flexible screen before glancing at the daily news. We’re not there yet with e-paper because there’s a problem with brightness (reflectance of ambient light). Most e-paper screens give 40% reflectance and that’s not been enough until this week when Gamma Dyanmics took a step closer to achieving the e-newspaper dream with their electrofluidic display. They are working on a international joint project with the University of Cincinnati, Sun Chemical, and Polymer Visual. They’ve unveiled a prototype and published a paper in the May issue of Nature Photonics (this is behind a paywall). For a consumer-friendly article describing the work, go to Fast Company here. For more technically-minded descriptions go here for a longer version and here for a shorter version.

Thanks to Fast Company, I found this video called, Magnetic Attractions. Artists at NASA created a short video illustrating various magnetic forces. What makes it spooky? They even show the forces extending through walls. You can see it here.

You might want to take a boo at Howard Lovy’s March 2009 posting about nano business and nano possibilities on Small Tech Talk. It was written in response to this (from Lovy’s post),

It has gotten to the point now where Scott E. Rickert, chief executive of Nanofilm Ltd., has gone as far as to declare that “the era of endless exploration is over — at least as long as the economy stumbles.” Writing in IndustryWeek, Rickert expresses his impatience now with nanotech information that is not directly related to business.

“Nanobusiness is business. Period. First, last, always,” Rickert declares.

I like Lovy’s response to this. As for me, some of the business people have extremist positions not that far removed from those of some scientists who think that they should be allowed to research whatever they want and that business is a dirty word.

How are Canadian businesses responding to this fuzzy reporting plan?

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It’s really one response and I thank Howard Lovy (nanobot.blogspot.com) for pointing me to his interview with Neil Gordon (entrepreneur and ex-president of the defunct Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance) in Small Times here. Not unexpectedly, Gordon feels that this new requirement (although it’s a one-time request at this point) will chase nano-based business out of Canada. I have mixed feelings about the comment; I’m mildly sympathetic and at the same time exasperated.

On the sympathy side, this sounds like a very poorly thoughtout plan for some sort of registry. Maybe there’s more to it than we know but now Environment Canada scientists are no longer allowed to talk with journalists directly (since Feb. 2008, all queries have to be sent to a central communications office and then you get an email answer or possibly granted an interview with someone), it’s less easy than it used to be to get information. in any event, implementation is the key to these things and I’m not sure how you could implement it. Here are a few sample questions: Do you send out a form? (Anyone who’s ever designed a form or a questionnaire from scratch can tell you that it’s not easy.) Who fills it out? Are you going to fine businesses that don’t fill it out? What happens if you do get information? Did you ask questions that would give you useful information?

If it’s not done well, businesses will lose time, money, and energy for absolutely no purpose. I’m not against information-gathering exercises per se but you’d better do it the right way otherwise it is a colossal waste.

As for the exasperation, I’ve heard this type of ‘business will leave’ comment before (many times). These kinds of government information-gathering exercises exist because they need the information. Ultimately, it could prove helpful to Canadian business.

As for Gordon’s disgruntlement over nanotechnology funding and how all the money goes to university and government laboratories … hmm. I think the problem goes a little deeper. As far as I’ve been able to find out, there is no nanotechnology funding strategy for Canada. The whole thing seems rather higgledy piggledy. Also, research in Canada has mostly been done traditionally in university and government laboratories and not in business laboratories. There are exceptions but those laboratories have disappeared or are disappearing (as they seem to be even in the US [Bell Labs] where they have a tradition of business laboratories).

I might be somewhat biased in my view of Canadian business since I come from British Columbia and the business model for high technology (I’m shoving nano into the high tech category) is pretty simple. You graduate from university or work there, get a good idea, create a startup company, become successful, and sell it to a large US company for a fortune. Creating a substantive and ongoing research laboratory (e.g. IBM, HP Labs, and Xerox PARC), is not part of the equation.

For some of Howard Levy’s other February and January 2009 postings about the proposed information-gathering about nanotechnology use in business exercise, go here. Or for more specific posting addresses, see the comments to my Feb. 2, 2009 posting.

Talking nano

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I’ve come across a couple interesting blog postings and a podcast about the journalistic, marketing, and communication problems posed by nanotechnology. First here’s my take as informed by reading the postings and listening to the podcast. The journalistic issue is that nanotechnology is one of those science stories that are tough to sell because if people don’t understand at least some of the underlying scientific principles making nanotechnology very hard to discuss without a lot of ‘educational detail’ and that kind of detail can limit your potential audience. You can find another perspective on this by Howard Lovy here.

From a marketing communications or public relations perspective, there’s a lot of promising research that suggests beneficial applications and/or potentially serious risks. It’s hard to tell if the word nano will be perceived as good, bad, or descriptive (e.g. electronic is a neutral description whereas atomic and nuclear have accrued negative connotations). Here‘s another take on the issue.

Making the whole writing/journalism/marketing communication/activism (aside: activists also want to stake nanotechnology territory) thing even harder is the (generally accepted but not official) definition of nanotechnology is a measurement. This fact is still debated within the scientific community (some don’t accept the current definition) and it doesn’t mean much to most people outside the scientific community. As for why it matters? We need ways to discuss things that affect us and it seems that if scientists have their way, nanotechnology will. For more about why it’s important to find ways to talk about nanotechnology, go here for a podcast interview with Stine Grodal, a professor at Boston University.