Tag Archives: UK science

The end of nanotechnology blogs?

I’ve noticed a bit of an information slowdown lately but I assumed that had to with my aggregator. However, Dexter Johnson on his IEEE tech talk blog (June 16, 2009 posting) suggests that the number of nano focused blogs is shrinking. He makes a good case for the disappearance or the morphing into other topic areas of English language nano blogs in the US and UK. I’m not sure whether this is a temporary lull or an indication that nanotechnology is the process of being accepted without too much concern.

Last week, I noticed that Richard Jones (Soft Machines blog) has accepted a new position at Sheffield University and won’t be so involved with nanotechnology issues. In fact, it seems that he won’t have much time for blogging at all. I’m sorry to see that as he offered interesting insights although I wasn’t always able to follow some of his more technical points easily. In his comments to his latest (possibly last?) blog posting he offers some commentary about the UK government moving the Science portfolio. (You’ll note he describes the portfolio as becoming part of a business ministry or business super portfolio.)

Richard Jones says:

The big issue for UK science in the next few years is simply the fact that the public finances are in such a mess (partly from the cost of bailing out the banks, but more because the UK government got used to receiving large revenues from the financial sector which, in retrospect, weren’t based on real wealth creation). A minor side-effect of the recent political shenanigans is that control of the science budget has been seized by Peter Mandelson, who is keen to push a program of industrial activism, and is clearly now the second most powerful figure in the UK government. I suspect science will do better in this environment than it would with a Conservative government with a primary focus on reducing government expenditure, though either way there’s going to be an even greater emphasis on looking for research with demonstrable economic impact.

As for Jones’ new job,

… n my new role at Sheffield – as the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation I’ll be responsible for the health of research right across the University.

I think that does it for today.

UK government minister twitters about science; science festival in Canada, and open source synthetic biology

Last week, June 10, 2009. Nature’s Richard van Noorden posted a news piece about changes for the UK government’s science portfolio. (The article itself is behind a paywall but if you can access it, it’s here.)

Business department expands its remit as government department is scrapped.

It’s a little confusing as I’ve found some comments on Andrew Maynard’s 2020 Science blog which indicate that Lord Drayson, the UK Minister of Defence Procurement will now also have responsibility for science. I’m not sure how this all fits together but what it makes quite interesting to me is that Lord Drayson recently discussed issues about the merger with concerned individuals on Twitter. If you want to see some comments about and a transcript of the Twitter convo, go here to the I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here blog. (Thanks Andrew, for leading me to ‘I’m A Scientist’.)

I found it quite unexpected that the minister would engage directly with citizens and quite refreshing in comparison to our situation here in Canada where our Prime Minister and his ministers seem to insulate themselves from direct and unmediated (no communication flacks managing a ‘spontaneous’ event) contact with the people they are elected to represent.

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (actually it’s a spinoff called, Synthetic Biology Project)  sent a notice about their Synthetic Biology event coming up on Wednesday, June 17, 2009, which I announced here a few weeks ago. From the invitation,


When
Wednesday, June 17, 2009, 12:30-1:30 PM (light lunch available at 12 noon) (NOTE: 9:30 – 10:30 am PT)

Who
Arti K. Rai, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law, Duke Law School
Mark Bünger, Director of Research, Lux Research
Pat Mooney, Executive Director, ETC Group
David Rejeski, Moderator, Director, Synthetic Biology Project

Where

5th Floor Conference Room, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

If you’re planning to attend you can RSVP here or you can watch the webcast live or later at your leisure. I find it interesting that a representative from the ETC group will be there as they are fierce critics of many emerging technologies. I’m glad to see that as the organization provides valuable information inside their research papers although some of their communication can by hyperbolic.

I’m pretty sure the folks at the Perimeter Institute are not stealing ideas from this blog but following on last Friday’s (June 12, 2009) post where I mentioned a science festival in New York, they’ve announced a science festival, Quantum to Cosmos: Ideas for the Future. It will be held in October 15 – 25, 2009 for 10 days in an around Waterloo, Ontario and will commemorate the institute’s 10 anniversary.  You can get more details here on the festival website or you can see the media release here.

Synchronicity, Oprah, Newsweek, and hormones: Part 2

Back to my main programme, hormones are popularly believed to make people, particularly women, crazy.  Teenagers are hormonal (i.e. difficult and crazy to deal with) with females often being considered the more difficult. How many times have you heard, “Boys are easier.” Then there’s PMS, that’s when a menstruating woman’s hormones make her crazy. Finally, we have menopause (when hormonal output changes again) is well known as a time when women get difficult or crazy.

Coincidentally, Oprah is at that age, the menopausal age. Having difficulty swallowing this? Take a look at p. 37, the page I mentioned in yesterday’s with the original or working title for the article. There’s an image there of Oprah in 1972 when she was crowned Miss Black Nashville. What possible reason is there to run an old beauty pageant picture? The only way it makes any sense within the context of the piece is as contrast. Had they gone with original title they would never have been able to justify using that image. Take a good look at the images they use with the article and ask yourself why they included a picture of Oprah seated in a back seat of a car with curlers in her hair.

The article itself is bookend by the hormone story. It starts with Suzanne Somers and the January 2009 hormone show and ends with a mention of Suzanne Somers lest we forget that this is really about the hormones and aging.

One last thing, there are 20 pages of advertising in the Newsweek issue. Two advertisers from the pharmaceutical sector purchased 10 pages of advertising. The other 10 pages are spread between a travel magazine, telecommunications company, beer, audio equipment, non profit, church, automotive, coffee, automobile software, and an insurance company. Oh, Newsweek itself also has a page.

I don’t think the pharamceutical companies dictated the cover story but the folks at Newsweek had to know that the attack on crazy, wackadoodle alternative therapies would not put any future advertising in jeopardy.

No one element puts the article over the top; it’s the combination of elements. Some of them deliberate and some of them serendipitous. Unfortunately, in the end we’re left with a peculiarly vicious attack on aging and being a woman. In Oprah’s case, a powerful and successful woman.

It’s not necessary to denigrate someone when you’re critcising them. For a more thoughtful critique of Oprah’s health programmes, you can check Dr. Rahul Parikh’s article on Salon.com, here.

Tomorrow, Susan Baxter, author of Estrogen Errors, on how the medical establishment (just like Oprah and Suzanne Somers) has had a longtime infatuation with estrogen.

I’m quite surprised, I just checked Rob Annan’s blog, Researcher Forum: Don’t Leave Canada Behind to find some major changes taking place with regard to the science ministry in the UK and science funding in Germany.