Various bits of the UK government have come in for a bit of a bashing recently, and rightly so, but there are other bits that do fire on all cylinders and are actually doing a great job, UK Trade & Investment and the Technology Strategy Board for example. I spent a chunk of yesterday at the TSB’s Collaboration Nation event …
A Traditional Bit of Chaos & Bigotry
It’s always odd how nanotechnology gets blamed for a lot of the world’s ills A common accusation is that nanotech will lead to a loss of privacy, although this is surely more due to the proliferation of databases and processing power to enable facial or car number plate recognition. It is ironic that some of the most vocal protesters use …
The World’s Largest Brainstorming
“World’s Largest Brainstorming” The Summit on the Global Agenda will take place from 20 to 22 November 2009 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in partnership with the Government of Dubai. The Summit will bring together over 700 Global Agenda Council Members, representing some of the most innovative and influential thinkers from over 90 countries – including 300 business leaders, 240 …
Public Engagement – We Got The Wrong Answer, Can We Have Some More Money To Try Again?
The long awaited video from the DEEPEN Project meeting in February is finally out. I mentioned at the time that I didn’t find it particularity useful in terms of fostering wider understanding of science, but it certainly made me much more aware of the need for better public engagement. The problem with many of these projects is that a bunch …
If You Don’t Understand a Technology Don’t Lobby Against It!
Euractiv reports that Robert Madelin, director-general at the European Commission’s health and consumer affairs directorate “has hit out at lobby groups who stoke fear of nanotechnology” and said it was “irresponsible” to use panic in order to attract attention. It is an interesting step forward, as anti nano lobby groups in Brussels have been very vocal in calling for all …
I’m Jonathan Miller And I Want To Know Why!
As expected, Jonathan Miller’s talk reflecting on “the biology of design didn’t disappoint, and was a object lesson in science communication. As a non biologist (my background is mainly physics, materials, surface science, music and finance) I found it fascinating, informative and quite inspiring. As Miller is a celebrated theatre director, scientist, author and a host of other things, the …
The Biology of Design
Al round polymath Jonathan Miller is giving a talk tonight reflecting on “the biology of design – why do we have faces, what are the forces that shape our symmetry and the patterns we see in nature?” It’s a fascinating subject, and as most of what we are doing in nanotechnologies is simply unravelling how various bits of nature work and …
Nanotechnology and Sustainability Podcast
A number of people asked about the possibility of re-recording the podcast of the talk I gave at Green Futures at the weekend as the quality is a bit patchy. It’s something I have been meaning to do for some time, as I can talk several orders of magnitude faster than I can type. I should also point out that this …
The Least Informative Information Of The Year?
Some bizarre statistics about nanotechnology market growth are being bandied around followimg the “Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) along with Department of Science & Technology, (DST), Government of India, Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology (GIST) and Tamil Nadu Technology Development Promotion Council” fourth Nanotechnology Conclave 2009. This looks like a perfect storm of the longest and most complex conference …
Predicting the Unpredictable – Why?
Having spent a few weeks looking at public engagement of science, and not being particularly impressed, a Nature article by ethicist Jens Clausen concerning Brain-Machine interfaces comes as a breath of fresh air. Unusually for an article on ethics, it deals with the facts and resists the temptation to imagine some kind of dystopian or utopian future which would throw …