Tag Archives: Nano & Me

NanoYou and Nano & Me: two nanotechnology public dialogue and engagment sites

I’ve been posting a lot lately about the lack of easily accessible public information on and public discussion of nanotechnology in Canada. In contrast, I bring to your attention two sites that offer a lot of information about opportunities to engage in the nanotechnology discussion, if you’re living in Europe and/or the UK.

There’s NanoYou courtesy of the European Commission. The page I’ve linked to has (if you scroll down slightly) a series of suggestions for activities you might like to engage in. (They co-produced the introductory video featuring Stephen Fry as the narrator, animations, and interviews with scientists from Cambridge University that I posted about April 30, 2010.)

The NanoYou page also provides links to other informational sites such as Nano & Me, a site that is courtesy of a group called Matter (they describe themselves as an ‘action tank’ and are located in the UK). The Nano & Me home page interface provides the standard navigational cues and images with rollover boxes that provide links to more information. e.g., if you roll your mouse over the part of the picture that has a woman, you’ll see a box with a paragraph about cosmetics. If you click in the rollover box, you will then be linked to more information about cosmetics and nanotechnology.

ISEA 2009 and bioart (part 2 of 2); more on the SSHRC brouhaha

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Continuing on from yesterday’s (Sept. 30, 2009) posting about the ISEA 2009 panel discussion, Is the (Art) World Ready for Bioart?, the most striking comment was from Laura Sillars of FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology located in Liverpool, UK) who suggested that risk assessments could be included as part of the presentation/curating process for bioart exhibitions. It never occurred to me that I’d hear the term risk assessment applied to an art exhibition and it was a revelation.

When I compared Tangy Duff’s (the artist whose work was first accepted but ultimately not exhibited) mindset to scientists, it was this comment of Laura Sillars’ that stimulated my insight. I was reminded of the scientists in the biotechnology sector who were thoroughly unprepared for the GM (genetically modified) food panics (Europe, US, UK, Canada, and elsewhere) and stem cell research (largely in the US) panics, which affected public acceptance and public funding for their research.

The scientists (and government policy makers) did learn that public awareness and public engagement as well as discussions about risk assessments are important with bio and other new, emergent technologies.

Upon reflection and after considering Duff’s experience, it now seems obvious that emerging practices such as bioart which are so closely aligned to new and emergent technologies/sciences require at least some of the same discussions.

(Kudos to the organizers at ISEA 2009 for opening up the discussion about this situation with Duff’s canceled art exhibit to the attendees. I found much of the programming quite thought-provoking and this panel was just a sample of what was on offer.)

As for public awareness about new and emerging technology such as nanotechnology, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced (here) a new research strategy to study nanomaterials. The EPA also has a website where they provide general information. (Scroll down and click on the links down the page below the image and the title Nanotechnology Research. The links above the title take you to the general EPA information.) This announcement and the website come on the heels of the UK public information website (Nano & Me) that was recently launched. (I posted about this and other UK initiatives earlier this week, here.) I will come back to these initiatives when I post part 4 of my Science communication in Canada series.

There’s a tempest brewing over the alleged government (of Canada) interference in a conference, Israel/Palestine Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. I first mentioned the controversy here. From the G&M, this last June. It has emerged again as a story in the Globe and Mail (G&M) and in the international journal, Science. From the G&M article, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2009, Government threatened grant agency over Mideast conference by Anne McIlroy, science reporter,

The Science Minister’s [Gary Goodyear] chief of staff warned the arm’s-length agency that finances social-science research in Canada that it could lose any chance of an increase in the next federal budget over a controversial conference on Israel and Palestine, according to an internal e-mail.

and,

At the time of the e-mail, the minister’s office was pressing SSHRC to revisit its decision to provide $19,750 to Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace, hosted June 22-24 in Toronto by York and Queen’s universities.

Jewish groups had been complaining about federal support for the conference, which they objected to because it questioned Israel’s right to exist

I’ve read the conference description and I find that last claim (if accurately described) to be a leap. I understand the concern but the conference description is carefully neutral, while noting the strife and proposing a discussion about a number of possible models that might better address the needs of the peoples in that region. I have no doubt that the question of Israel’s right to exist arose but the conference was not designed to stimulate that particular discussion rather it was to consider all the possibilities and the impact that the current situation has had on the people in the region.

Thanks to Rob Annan for posting about the SSSHRC funding situation and possible federal budget fallout. If you want to read more about it, pursue links, and enjoy a few pithy comments, go to Rob Annan’s postings for the last few days at Don’t leave Canada behind.

A nanotechnology anniversary (IBM style); Nano & Me; Democracy and nanotechnology; funding research innovation in UK and funding basic science in the US

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According to an IBM news release, today (Sept. 28, 2009) marks the 20th anniversary of the first time anything was written at the nanoscale. The news release has a somewhat different take on it but since I’m a writer I’ve decided to focus on the fact that when Don Eigler used a scanning tunneling microscope to move Xenon (an inert gas) atoms he wrote the letters I B M. Contrast my take on the matter with this from the news item on Azonano,

“Don Eigler’s accomplishment remains, to this day, one of the most important breakthroughs in nanoscience and technology,” said T.C, Chen, IBM Fellow and vice president, Science & Technology, IBM Research. “At the time, the implications of this achievement were so far-reaching they almost seemed like science fiction.

Azonano also features a video clip with Don Eigler (produced by IBM so it does hype nanotechnology) and information about the originators (who also worked for IBM) of the scanning tunneling microscope which was itself a breakthrough. (Side note: In 2007, Eigler described his feat as graffiti using more visual art metaphors than writing metaphors here in a podcast that’s available on San Francisco’s Exploratorium web site. One of the links at the bottom of the podcast takes you to Eigler’s image gallery.)

Over at 2020 Science, Andrew Maynard is highlighting a new nanotechnology website intended for a general interest audience; it’s called Nano & Me. Andrew offers a guide to some of the material on the site. I’d like to add two things, read the whole page and make sure you scroll in all directions. I often skim website pages and don’t bother to scroll too much so I was unimpressed when I read this lede paragraph on their What is Nano? page,

Nano is short for ‘nanotechnology’, although the word itself just means really, really small.

They’ve used techniques that work well in magazines i.e. the lede paragraph is in a larger font (to grab your attention) but all I saw was the paragraph followed by a graphic. I did scroll down a bit but the following paragraphs are in a much smaller font and I didn’t bother reading them given my impression from the lede paragraph.

I then clicked on a couple of other pages to further check out the site later returning to What is Nano? and, based on my other experience, made an effort to read more. Part of the reason I persisted and clicked through to other pages is that I had read Andrew’s description of the site and I find he’s usually a pretty good judge of these things (notwithstanding our discussion of the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School as per my Aug. 14, 2009 posting and comments section). One final reminder about the Nano & Me website, don’t forget to scroll from side to side as there’s lots of material in the sidebars.

My interest in research funding and innovation has been piqued again by a few recent items. One such item ( found last week) is on changes to research funding in the UK. From the article by Lin Edwards at Physorg.com,

The UK government is developing a new scheme, the Research Excellence Framework (REF), to assess university research proposals and allocate public funds for research. The scheme is being developed in collaboration with higher education bodies in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland, and will make much greater use of quantitative information (bibliometrics) than its predecessor.

The REF will come into effect in 2012 to replace the current system of assessment, the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). The scheme will allocate the 1.76 billion British pounds (approximately $2.7 billion US) spent annually on university research according to three main elements — outputs, impact, and environment — which are considered to be indicative of excellence in research

The article goes on to note that academics are warning that the new system’s emphasis on outputs will have a bad effect on research that has no direction application, i.e. research that’s described as basic (or fundamental or speculative or curiosity-driven).

Meanwhile, Rob Annan (Don’t leave Canada behind) has posted (US also ponders role of basic research in innovation) about a speech that Barack Obama recently delivered. If you’re interested in reading Obama’s entire speech on Innovation and Sustainable Growth of Sept. 21, 2009, you can find it here.

Do check out Rob’s other postings too. I particularly recommend this posting about Michael Ignatieff’s Sept. 22, 2009 speech to the Toronto Board of Trade. Rob notes that the Liberals do not present a substantive, detailed position on research funding.

Here’s a reminder that the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies is having its Nanotechnology, Synthetic Biology, and Biofuels: What does the public think? event tomorrow at 12:30 pm EST in Washington, DC. If you want to attend the live event, register here. If you want to watch the live webcast tomorrow, go here and click on the live webcast link.

That’s it for today. Will try to write part 4 of my science communication in Canada series soon.

FrogHeart

Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts

Tag Archives: Nano & Me

NanoYou and Nano & Me: two nanotechnology public dialogue and engagment sites

A nanotechnology anniversary (IBM style); Nano & Me; Democracy and nanotechnology; funding research innovation in UK and funding basic science in the US