Week 1: Formation of Scientific Knowledge I

Formation of Scientific Knowledge

 This module starts with the stages toward the acquisition of scientific knowledge and ends with
responsibilities of scientists to the society.
 The module covers the experimentation on animals and humans and its ethicality, the
application of science to technology and technology to science, the sociopolitical influence on
science and the intellectual property dispute, bio policy, conflicts in scientific study, and
research data recording.
 Read through the text more than once in order to grasp the key details of the lesson..

Facets of Science

 Science may be defined as a “body of organized knowledge” that has been accumulated
through research and that serves as a tool for solving problems, a learning theme, a cultural
resource, or a social enterprise which needs physical facilities (Ziman,1985).
 In this regard, scientific investigations are geared towards obtaining new information for short-
term, long-term, immediate or future use in various fields, including economics, agriculture,
industries, and education, or for publication in scholarly journals, encyclopedias, reference
books and textbooks, and so forth, across several areas of study, for example, biology,
psychology, geology, chemistry or physics.
 As presented below, principles or concepts are used to explain or describe the features or
aspects of science. These are the discovery science, academic science, industrial science,
science as a social enterprise, and science as a cultural resource. Thus science is multifaceted,
for it is an engagement with investigated information and phenomena in the context of society,
education, economics, industries, politics, and culture.

1. Discovery science
 The formation of scientific knowledge starts from the works of scientist that leads to
discovery of novel (new) information explaining or describing a phenomenon.
Through systematic methods, the data relating to the discovery is rigorously
examined for validity prior to its publication as historical knowledge for addressing a
corresponding economic, social, or political problem, issue, or necessity.
2. Academic science
 From the territory of science, scientific knowledge is passed on to the world of
technology.
3. Industrial science
 Technology that emerges from scientific knowledge serves as an instrument to solve
practical problems in areas of sociology, military, commerce, or industry.
 4. Science as a social enterprise/institution
 Scientists have a social responsibility in their quest for novel knowledge, while the
society interacts with science and are becoming increasingly concerned about its
impact to both society and culture.
 In this regard, the community of scientists communicates with one another in order
to arrive at consensus of opinion as to the validity of truthfulness of publicized
outcomes of scientific investigations, while the community of learners examines
such publications through a variety of media, such as books and scholarly journals.
5. Science as a cultural resource
 Scientific knowledge influences cultural beliefs and values.

Dimensions of Science

1. Cognitive/Philosophical Dimension
 Scientific knowledge is spread, for instance, through scholarly publication, which
brings about the historical dimension, as the pieces of scientific knowledge are
stored and organized in an archive to serve as a bridge to future discoveries.
2. Sociological/Communal Dimension
 Scientific knowledge is addressed to a specific segment of society, for example, the
scientific researchers.
3. Psychological Dimension
 The scientific information has a psychological relevance to its author or discoverer
who has an intellectual authority over the information and who deserves

Research toward Scientific Information

The stages of obtaining scientific knowledge are:

1. Describing the natural or physical world or event through expert observation

2. Making generalizations about an observed phenomenon
3. Examining patterns of facts derived from observation
4. Using research instruments to measure and interpret data collected from investigation\
5. Conducting a purposeful, contrived (designed), empirical (real-world or experience-based),
and relatively original experiment
6. Formulating scientific laws or rational (logical) generalizations based on the outcome of the
experimentation
7. Presenting an explanation for the formulated scientific laws or rational generalizations,
which can be (a) a cause-and-effect relationship, (b) a model for the investigated
phenomenon, or (c) a theory
8. Subjecting the rational generalizations or scientific laws to investigation and review by other
members of the scientific community for evaluation
9. Interpolating over the evaluated information for consideration as a scientific frontier (fresh
discovery) or as a support or addition to an already established or widely accepted
knowledge
10. Acknowledging the variety (trueness) of the scientific knowledge

 "Reducing Carbon a Bacterial Approach"

 There is a host of literature that says the abundance of carbon dioxide in our
atmosphere is caused by humans, and it is responsible for climate change. It is up to
us then to offset our addition of gases into the atmosphere.
 Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have recently
presented a progressive technology that converts carbon dioxide into bio-fuels. To
do this, they are taking some hints from nature and using photosynthesis.
 Plants make photosynthesis look easy. Normally it is very difficult to mimic
photosynthesis because it takes far more energy for us to reduce carbon dioxide
than it does for a plant.
 A plant uses its energy efficiently to turn carbon dioxide into many complex
molecules by using a lot of intermediates. It is far harder for us to create and store
these intermediates than the organisms that do it naturally.
  The difficulty in engineering photosynthesis led researchers to enlist some help in
the form of bacteria. Combining materials science and living organisms allows for
the best of both worlds: powerful light absorption tools and the natural synthetic
capabilities of the cell.
 . The researchers used nanowires made of silicon and titanium dioxide to capture
light. The wires absorb light and donate electrons to bacteria, S. ovata, which acts as
a workhorse to reduce the carbon dioxide into acetate. S. ovata works well because
it is acetogenic, meaning, it can produce acetate from carbon dioxide in an
anaerobic environment. At this point, they can add different types of engineered
bacteria that turn acetate into Acetyl-CoA.
 The engineered bacteria then use the Acetyl-CoA they created to synthesize any
number of valuable chemicals such as n-butanol which can be used a bio-fuel and
polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), a biodegradable plastic.
 As a proof of principal, using just water, carbon dioxide and sunlight as the energy
source, they were able to produce acetate at a 0.38% efficiency. With the acetate
and other engineered bacteria, they produced n-butanol with 26% efficiency, and
PHB with 52% efficiency.
 Hybrid technology like this is a huge step in the right direction. Converting harmful
greenhouse gasses to valuable chemicals both reduces emissions and provides
necessary products at seemingly no cost to the environment, other than using up
water. It may appear that the efficiency of reducing carbon dioxide is low, but this is
still a novel technology with plenty of room to increase its efficacy. I hope that
technology like this gets the ball rolling on new ways we can at least slow down the
effects humans have on the environment.

Week 2: Formation of Scientific Knowledge II

Formation of Scientific Knowledge

 This module starts with the stages toward the acquisition of scientific knowledge and ends with
responsibilities of scientists to the society.
 The module covers the experimentation on animals and humans and its ethicality, the
application of science to technology and of technology to science, the sociopolitical influence on
science and the intellectual property dispute, bio-policy, conflicts in scientific study, and
research data recording.
 Read through the text more than once in order to grasp the key details of the lesson. Then, view
the power point presentation while listening to the recording that refers to the details in the
slides.
Biomedical Experimentation with Animals

Sociopolitical Foundation

 Biomedical experimentation using animals as subjects has made breakthroughs in

understanding the functions of body organs and in formulating medicinal drugs for
treating various disorders.
 However, since 1800s, the involvement of animals for the study of anatomy and
physiology of both animals and humans and for the development of therapeutic
drugs has been the subject of criticism of animal rights activists who were then
called antivivisectionists.
 Still considered as the two most influential animal rights philosophers are Peter
Singer (Princeton faculty member) and Tom Regan (North Carolina State University
emeritus professor). Of much influence on the ethical and legal foundations of
biomedical research using human subjects were the 10 principles listed in the
Nuremberg Code of the late 1940s.
 The third principle of the Code validated the use of animals for biomedical
experimentation, whereby the anticipated outcomes of the biomedical research
should justify the experimentation with animals.

Legislation/Regulation

 Regardless of the consensus concerning the use or criticism of the use of animals in
biomedical research, the US has undergone a series of legislation and regulation of
animal research, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Brief history of US legislation/regulation of animal use in research

 The Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (shortened to the Guide)
serves as significant document for both the scientific community and animal care
personnel because of the following reasons:
(1) The Guide provides guidelines concerning the way in which animal research
should be done, including veterinary care and management of facilities for
housing and environment.
(2) The Guide mandates numerous institutional policies that animal researchers
should follow as to the screening and training of the professional animal care
personnel and as to the protection of the staff who come into contact with the
animal subjects.
(3) The Guide addresses the appropriateness of the physical environment where
the experimental animals stay, including ventilation and temperature
conditions, as well as the actual place where animals are experimented upon.
 The Guide requires each research institution to have an Institutional Animal Care
and Use Committee (LACUC) having a minimum of three members, who are
responsible for the welfare of animals used in research and who should evaluate the
living conditions of the animals and the research protocols for approval.
 One of the members of the committee must be a doctor of veterinary medicine
(DVM) who should oversee all aspects of animal care, one practicing scientists, and
at least one non-affiliated personnel.
 The AWA obliges each research institution to have an Institutional Animal Care and
Use Committee (LALUC) having a minimum of three members. The members must
include one DVM and at least one non-affiliated personnel.
 The PHS policy mandates an LALUC that has a minimum of five members. The
members must include one DVM, one practicing scientist, one non-scientist, and at
least one non- affiliated personnel.
 Ethical Guidelines

 As proposed by William Russell and Rex Burch in 1959, animal research institutions
should conform to the three principles (3R’s) concerning the human use of animals for
biomedical experimentation. These principles are:
(1) Replacement- refers to the use of lower species of animals as much as possible, as
lower species are viewed as less susceptible to pain and distress as compared to
higher species of animals, including chimpanzees.
(2) Reduction- refers to the reduction of the number o animals to be used for
experimentation as much as possible.
(3) Refinement- refers to the minimization of frequency or degree of pain and distress
that animal subjects experience in experiments.

Animal Rights Movement

 One of the staunch defenders of animal welfare is the People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals (PETA). Although numerous animal rights activists fight for animal rights
appear to be sincere in their advocacy, some of them have resorted to violence to
discourage the scientific community from using animals as experimental subjects. In this
regard, the US enacted in 2006 the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act to protect
researchers from acts of violence perpetrated by groups of anti-animal research
militants.

Biomedical Experimentation with Humans

Sociopolitical Foundation

 The 10 Nuremberg Principles (Nuremberg Code) served as the ethical and legal
foundation for the future guidelines concerning the use of human subjects for
biomedical research, of which the most notable is the Declaration of Helsinki.
 The statements in the code upheld the protection of human subjects, the analysis of the
risk as contrasted to the benefit of the experiments, the performance of experiments
only by scientists, the right of the human subject to withdraw from the experiment
anytime they wish to, and the initiative of researchers to halt the experimentation for
anticipated injury, disability or death of the human subject in the course of the
experiment.
 The Code actually stemmed from the trails in Nuremberg concerning crimes committed
in World War II. The trials prosecuted all those permission of the human subjects.

International Regulation

 The declaration of Helsinki was formalized in 1964 by the World Medical Association
(WMA) in Helsinki, Finland. Containing guidelines concerning the humane use of
 humans in biomedical research, such document has become the international standard
for biomedical experimentation with humans. Since then, the document underwent a
series of amendments until 2013.

American Initiative

 In relation to the Declaration of Helsinki, the US PHS issued a memo two years after the
Helsinki Conference, specifying the first requisite to the institutional review boards
(IRBs).
 Such as memo required that research studies that are to be funded by PHS be subjected
to independent review to examine the rights and welfare of study participants. The
accuracy of processing the informed consent, and the possible benefits and risks of the
biomedical research to be conducted.
 In 1979, the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical
and Behavioral Research presented the Belmont Report, which contains three basic
ethical considerations in using humans as subjects for research. Generally accepted by
IRBSs, the three principles are:
(1) Respect for Persons- requires that the research subjects to be capable of making
their own decisions.
(2) Beneficence- requires that the risk to human subjects be minimized and that the
benefits of conducting the research be maximized.
(3) Justice- requires that the burden on human subjects be equally distributed and not
merely concentrated on an individual or a single group of individuals.

"Human Subjects and Diagnostic Genetic Testing"

 There is a vital need for human subjects in research related to drug development, but can we
properly balance the welfare of human research subjects with the need for experimental data?
Medical and psychological studies involving human subjects remain a critical factor in advancing
our scientific knowledge. Despite historical episodes of tragically unethical treatment of humans
in the name of medical science, such as the Tuskegee study, the need for human subjects in
biomedical research is vital for the development of any new drug. But how can we balance the
welfare of human research subjects with the need for valuable data from human
experimentation? Several solutions to this conundrum have been proposed, but none is without
its flaws.

Learning from the Tuskegee Study

 Sadly, there is a long history of the unethical treatment of human subjects in various types of
medical and biological research. For example, one of the most notorious clinical studies of all
time was initiated in 1932, with the goal of tracking the progression of untreated syphilis
infection. At the time, treatments for syphilis included highly toxic mercury, bismuth, and
 arsenic-containing compounds of questionable effectiveness. The study was collaboration
between the Tuskegee Institute and the U.S.
 Public Health Service in Alabama, and was intended to determine the progression of the disease,
the effectiveness of treatments at different stages, and modes of disease transmission. Doctors
recruited 399 black men thought to have syphilis, as well as 201 healthy black men as controls.
Study participants were kept unaware of their diagnosis of syphilis but, in return for
participating in the study, the men were promised free medical treatment if they tested
positive, rides to the clinic, meals, and burial insurance in case of death.
 The initial aim of the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, as it was known,
was perfectly legitimate: to gather medical knowledge. However, during the mid-1940s, when
penicillin had been shown to be a highly safe and effective cure for syphilis infection, the
researchers did not abandon the study, but continued to subject their unwitting participants to
painful complications and death due to syphilis infection until 1972, when a story about the
study appeared in the national press. Public outcry caused an abrupt end to this research,
followed by the filing of a class action lawsuit against the U.S. government on behalf of the
survivors.

Structuring a Clinical Drug Trial

 In spite of the ethical dilemmas associated with the use of human subjects, no new drugs could
ever be developed without thorough human testing to demonstrate their effectiveness; this
process of testing is known as a clinical trial.
 Clinical trials occur at the end of the incredibly lengthy and expensive process of drug discovery.
Only one of about every 5,000 screened substances that are originally synthesized or identified
from natural products makes it through the clinical trial process and is approved as a new
medicine (Pritchard, 2003).
 Of course, a great deal of research and testing occur before drugs are subject to clinical trial.
First, after basic research and screening, promising substances are moved into the development
stage. While in development, the drugs are tested in vitro.
 The next step involves preclinical trials, in which a drug's effectiveness and toxicology are
established in animal models, like mice. Following successful animal studies, the substance is
moved through three phases of clinical testing that involve human subjects.
 The first phase establishes the metabolism and the side effects of the drug treatment; the
second phase gauges the efficacy of the treatment; and the final stage evaluates the overall risk-
benefit ratio.
 The entire process of drug discovery must meet federally mandated standards of scientific
practice, and all drugs that yield successful trial results must receive approval from the U.S
 Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before being released in the market. Moreover, human and
animal testing are also subject to scrutiny by, respectively, institutional review boards (IRBs) and
institutional animal care and use committees (IACUCs), both before and during drug trials.
  Finally, long-term efficacy trials after a drug becomes available help document any additional
effects and are an integral part of producing a safe product (Figure 1).

Making Experimentation Safer: The Creation of IRBs

Human Subjects and Diagnostic Genetic Testing | Learn Science at Scitable

 When the tragic ethical misconduct of the Tuskegee study came to light in the 1970s, it
highlighted the importance of clearly defined regulations on human testing. Thus, on July 12,
1974, the National Research Act was signed into law, thereby creating the National Commission
for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research.
 The Belmont Report of 1979 is a summary of the Commission's recommendations. This report is
a statement of basic principles and guidelines to assist in resolving the ethical problems that
surround the conduct of research with human subjects. One of the major outcomes of this
 document was the mandate of institutional review boards (IRBs) for any federally funded
research program involving human subjects.
 As previously mentioned, the purpose of an IRB is to assure, both in advance and by periodic
review, that appropriate steps are taken to protect the rights and welfare of humans
participating as subjects in a research study. Every institution intending to carry out research
involving human subjects must establish a committee of at least five members with expertise in
science, ethics, and other nonscientific areas to serve as an IRB. IRBs evaluate proposed
research protocols to verify that they are scientifically sound and meet all legal and ethical
standards. These boards can approve, disapprove, or modify any research protocol and must
conduct reviews of approved research protocols at least yearly (U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, 2004). All IRBs must be registered with the Office for Human Research
Protections (OHRP) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Informed Consent

 A key requirement for IRB approval of human research is to obtain informed consent from all
study participants. Informed consent is not just a form; it is a process. Information must be
presented to the participation candidates to aid their voluntary decision of whether or not to
take part in the research (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). At a minimum,
consent documents should include the following:
o A description of the expected overall experience
o The extent to which a participant's personal information will be kept in confidence
o Benefits to the subject that may be reasonably anticipated
o The potential for injury and the nature of compensation or treatment that will be
provided in case an injury is sustained
o Whom to contact with questions about the research, one's rights as a research subject,
and research-related injuries
o A clear statement of the voluntary nature of subject participation and the subject's right
to withdraw from the study at any time for any reason

Providing such thorough background and guidelines to study participants ensures mutual
collaboration and minimizes the risks associated with uninformed consent.

Recruitment of Volunteers for Human Studies

 HHS expects IRBs to review any advertisements for the active recruitment of volunteers to
assure that these advertisements are not unduly coercive and do not promise a cure. This is
especially critical when a study may involve subjects who are likely to be vulnerable to undue
influence, such as people who are desperately ill (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 1998).
 The FDA recommends that advertisements to recruit subjects provide the information that
prospective subjects need to determine their eligibility and interest, while refraining from active
encouragement. A decision to take part in a drug study is often driven by the need for more
effective treatment, and it should thus be accompanied by detailed and unbiased information.
 Access to Testing or Treatment That Is Otherwise Unavailable

 Gaining access to a potentially lifesaving treatment is sometimes the impetus for individuals
to enter into a clinical trial. However, the strongest support of the effectiveness of a drug
comes from randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind studies. In this type of study,
patients are randomly assigned to receive either the test drug or a placebo.
 Neither the patients nor the researchers know which participants have been assigned to
which group (hence the term "double blind"). This type of study eliminates evaluator bias
when assessing the outcome of the drug treatment. In this type of clinical trial, volunteers
have only a 50% chance of receiving the drug being tested, a fact that would be disclosed on
the consent forms.
 The FDA recognizes that there are individuals with serious or life-threatening diseases or
conditions who lack any alternative treatments. In an effort to help such individuals while
still maintaining the integrity of the scientific process that brings new drugs to the market,
the FDA has made significant regulatory changes to its policy in recent years to make
investigational therapies more widely available (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2008).
 Proposed in 2006, these changes attempt to increase awareness in the health care setting of
the availability of investigational drugs, and to encourage drug companies to make the
products available to patients by allowing recompense for the provision of the drugs to such
programs.

Financial Incentives for Risky Drug Trials

 Financial incentives are often used when health benefits to research subjects are remote or
nonexistent. For instance, in a 2004 study conducted at the University of California at San Diego
(UCSD), 127 volunteers ages 18 to 35 were paid 15 dollars an hour to be exposed to incremental
doses of chloropicrin, a fumigant used in a variety of pesticides and tear gas (Lee & Clark, 2005).
The experiments intended to establish at what level of chloropicrin the participants would
notice the exposure to the chemical, as well as to establish any associated health risks that were
not observed in animal testing.
 The results of this study were used to provide data for establishing accurate guidelines regarding
the distances that should be maintained between homes and businesses and sites of
chloropicrin fumigation.
 The data were also used to assess the welfare of field-workers who could regularly come in
contact with chloropicrin or of passersby who might be accidentally exposed to the chemical.
 Although the study was heavily criticized by two California lawmakers who issued a report
alleging that such testing unnecessarily puts participants at risk and targets college students in
need of money, the study officials insisted that the research met all legal and ethical standards
and that all participants were fully informed.\

Disclosure of Subjects’ Medical Information

  Some studies collect information that, if disclosed, could have adverse consequences for study
subjects, such as damage to their financial standing, employability, insurability, or reputation.
For such studies, certificates of confidentiality can be requested and issued by the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) and other HHS agencies to protect identifiable research information
from forced or compelled disclosure. These certificates allow the investigator and others who
have access to research records to refuse to disclose identifying information on research
participants in civil, criminal, administrative, legislative, or other proceedings, whether federal,
state, or local. A certificate may be an important deciding factor for some individuals who are
considering whether to participate in a study.
 An alternative to this scenario is one in which full disclosure of all test information is permitted
by the study subject. An example of this is the Personal Genome Project (Harvard University), an
open-ended research study that aims to improve our understanding of genetic and
environmental contributions to human traits.
 To that end, this study recruits volunteers who agree to the collection of full genomic sequence
data and other personal information to be shared with the scientific community and the general
public. One goal of the project is to improve the understanding of personal genomics and its
potential use in the management of human health and disease.

Changing with the Times

 The establishment of appropriate ethical protections for human research participants has not
been static; it has evolved over time, alongside the evolution of biomedical research and social
values. For example, judges presiding over the Nuremberg trials of the Nazi doctors who
performed experiments on concentration camp prisoners recognized a need for oversight of
medical experiments involving humans.
 Thus, the Nuremberg Code was formulated in 1947, and it provided guidelines for research that
are still adhered to today. Similarly, outrage over the Tuskegee syphilis study led to the Belmont
Report, which ultimately resulted in official regulation of human subject research by the United
States government and the IRB requirement. These and other events have resulted in major
changes in the way human studies have subsequently been conducted.
 More recently, the question of financial interests influencing risky research protocols has come
to the forefront with the death of 18-year-old gene therapy study volunteer Jesse Gelsinger in
1999 (News Weekly, 2000).
 Gelsinger was involved in a trial that aimed to demonstrate the use of a viral vector in replacing
a defective ornithine transcarbamylase gene. Unfortunately, he died of major organ failure due
to a massive immune response to the viral vector. Amid accusations of undisclosed risks and
possible side effects that might have stopped the study before Gelsinger's death, the FDA
temporarily halted all such studies while the NIH conducted thorough reviews of all adverse
reactions and deaths associated with gene therapy trials.
 Future scientific experiments will test medical treatments that are outside the scope of modern
testing standards; therefore, these experiments will undoubtedly prompt further modifications
to the current regulations that ensure the well-being of human research subjects. Throughout
this process of evolution, however, the protocol for using human subjects in medical trials will
most certainly continue to be tightly regulated.
Week 3: Science and Technology

This module will contain the following topics:

1. Science for Technology and Technology for Science

2. Sociopolitical Influence on Science
3. Technoscience and Intellectual Property Tussles

Science for Technology and Technology for Science

Our societies are dominated and even ‘driven’ by ideas and products from science and
technology (S&T). It is very likely that the influence on S&T on our lives will continue to increase
in the years to come. Scientific and technological knowledge, skills and artefacts ‘invade’ all
realms of life in our modern society: The workplace and the public sphere is increasingly
dependent on new as well as the more established technologies. So are also the private sphere
and our leisure time. Knowledge and skills in S&T are crucial for most of our actions and
decisions, as workers, as voters, as consumers etc. Meaningful and independent participation in
modern democracies assumes ability to judge evidence and arguments in the many socio-
scientific issues that are on the political agenda.

In short, modern societies need people with S&T qualifications at the top level as well as a
general public with a broad understanding of S&T contents, methods and as a social force
shaping the future. S&T are major cultural products of human history. All citizens, independent
of occupational ‘needs’, need to be acquainted with this part of human culture. S&T are
important for economical well-being, but also seen from the perspective of a broadly based
liberal education.

One might expect that the increasing significance of S&T should be accompanied with a parallel
growth in the interest in these subjects as well as increasing understanding of basic scientific
ideas and ways of thinking. This does, however, not seem to be the case.

The evidence for such claims are in part based on ‘hard facts’ (educational statistics etc.) , in part
on large comparative studies and in part based on research and analysis of trends in our
societies. The situation is described briefly described and analyzed in the following.

Who needs Science and Technology and Why?

The problematic situation for S&T can be seen from different perspectives and different
interests. These range from industry’s concern about national, economical
competitiveness to a concern about an empowerment at the grassroots level for the
protection and conservation of nature. Different conceptions of ‘the crisis may possibly
lead to different solutions. Here is an indication of possible arguments for learning S&T.
1. Industry needs people with qualifications in S&T. Modern industry is high tech and
often called ‘knowledge industry’. This industry is in need for highly qualified
scientists and engineers to survive in a competitive global economy. This aspect is of
importance for the economy of the nation. (But young people do not base their
educational choices on what is good for the nation!)
2. Universities and research at high international level and to provide good learning
possibilities for coming generations of experts, researchers and teachers.

The above-mentioned two groups constitute highly skilled elite. But the actual number
of such people may not necessarily be very high. It would also be a mistake to have
mainly these groups in mind when reforming S&T in schools. A policy based on this
perspective could even further decrease the proportion of young people who find S&T
interesting, and who would choose to continue with S&T. The next perspective is one of
high importance for a much larger group, the teaching profession:

3. Schools need qualified teachers in S&T.

The decline in recruitment has already hit the teaching profession. Well-qualified
and enthusiastic teachers constitute the key to any improvement of S&T in schools
-- and for the further development of knowledge, interest and attitudes of ordinary
citizens when they have left school. The S&T teachers also play a key role in the
recruitment of people to the S&T sector. The long-term effects of a lack role in the
recruitment of people to the S&T sector. The long-term effects of a lack of good S&T
teachers could be very damaging, although the effects are not so immediately
observable as the lack of qualified people in industry and research. The S&T
teachers need a broad basis for their activities. A solid foundation in the academic
discipline is important, but not enough. They need broader perspectives and skills
on order to cope with challenges of the sort outlined earlier in this document. In
short: S&T teachers do not only need a foundation in S&T, they also need to have
perspectives on S&T in a historical and social context. This may require reforms in
teacher training.

The next points, although different, are of importance for more or less all citizens.

4. A broader labor market needs S&T competencies

People in general need qualifications in S&T to compete on the modern labor
market. The need is great and growing fast, as knowledge and skills based on
science and technology become prerequisites in new areas and new parts of the
labor market. Not only doctors, pharmacists, engineers and technicians need S&T.
Health workers handle complicated and dangerous equipment, secretaries and
office staff need good computer literacy etc. New as well as more traditional
technologies often dominate the workplaces, and those with skills in these areas
may have a competitive advantage for their further career. Many countries have
 also identified a need for people with S&T skills to replace those retiring in the near
future.
There is also a general need to become flexible and able to learn. A foundation in
S&T as well as mathematics is of great importance to develop such learning skills.
Besides, most of the changes are likely to be related to technological innovations,
and people with basic S&T skills may be better equipped to cope with changes and
innovations.

5. S&T for citizenship and democratic participation:

As stated in the introduction, our modern society is dominated by S&T. Many
aspects of life have a dimension related to S&T. All citizens are confronted with such
issues as consumers and as voters. As consumers we have to take decisions about
food and health, quality and characteristics of products, claims made in
advertisements etc. As voters we have to take a stand and be able to judge
arguments on all sorts of issues. Many of these political issues also have an S&T
dimension. In such cases, knowledge of the S&T involved has to be combined with
values and political ideals. Issues relating to the environment are obviously of this
nature, but also relating to energy, traffic, health policy etc. have S&T dimensions. It
is indeed hard to think of any contemporary issue that does not have some aspects
relating to S&T.
Social and political issues should not be seen as ‘technical’ – and left in the hands of
the ‘expert’. A broad Public understanding of science and technology may in fact be
a democratic safeguard against ‘scientism’ and domination of experts.
The above ‘democratic argument’ does not only assume that people have some
grasp of the contents of S&T. It also requires some public understanding of the
nature of S&T and the role they play in society. Among other things, people need to
know that scientific knowledge is based on argumentation and evidence, and those
statistical considerations about risky play an important role. Everybody cannot
become ‘experts’, but everybody should have tools to be able to judge which
‘expert’ and what kind of arguments one should trust.

Science and Technology in schools – recent trends and responses

The challenges for S&T education outlined in this document have been met in different
ways. Many countries have introduced more or less radical reforms, and there has been
support to curriculum development and experiments. Reforms are related to the
content and framing of the curriculum as well as to pedagogies: teaching methods and
organization of the learning processes.

A general trend is that here seems to be less influence from the (traditional) academic
organization of curricula and contents. An underlying concern is that S&T should
contribute to more general aims of schooling in a situation where ‘everybody’ attends
school for 12-13 years. The general tendency is a widening of the perspective and a
gradual redefinition of what counts as valid school science. Social and ethical aspects of
S&T are often becoming part of the curriculum. The following is a listing of some trends.
Many are related, but still mentioned separately. Not all these trends are found in all
countries, but together they represent a series of identifiable tendencies:

A. Towards “Science for all”

More weight on aspects of science that can be seen to contribute to the
overall goals of schooling. Key concern: liberal education (‘allmen dannelse’.
‘allmann Bildning’ Bildung, Formation…..) Hence; there is less weight on
traditional academic contents and science as mainly as preparation for
tertiary studies in science. Specialization postponed to the last few years of
school.
B. Towards more subject integration.
In the early years of schooling, S&T is usually more or less integrated with
other school subjects. Only later are the sciences presented as separate
disciplines. The level where this specialization starts varies between
countries. It is a general trend that separate science subjects are taught only
at a late stage. (e.g. in Norway, only the two last years of upper secondary
school have single science subject.)
C. Widening perspectives
More weight on cultural, historical and philosophical aspects of science and
technology. S&T are presented as human activities. These aspects may also
appeal to the pupils that are in search for ‘meaning’, not only factual
information and the accepted correct explanations.
D. NOS: The Nature of Science
The ‘Nature of science’ has become an important concern in the curriculum.
This often means a rejection of the often stereotypical (and false) image of
science as a simple search for objective and final truths based on
unproblematic observations. The weight on recent understanding of the
nature of science. Science is presented as knowledge that builds on
evidence as well arguments in a creative search for meaning and
explanation. This aspect also strengthens that human and social relevance
of science, and may attract pupils who value such aspects.
E. Contexts become important
More weight on putting science and technology in meaningful contexts for
the learner. This often implies examples from everyday life and current
socio-scientific issues. These themes or topics are by their nature
interdisciplinary, and require teacher cooperation. Such issues often require
methods like project work. (For which teachers have to be adequately
educated.)
F. Concern for the environment
Towards more weight on environmental questions as part of the S&T
curriculum. (The name of the S&T subject in the New Norwegian curriculum
is “Science and environmental study”) Environmental issues are often
requires project work in interdisciplinary settings.
G. Weight on Technology
Technology has recently been introduced in many countries as a subject in
its own right, also in the general part of the education system. In other
countries, it has received a broader place within the science curriculum, not
only as interesting concrete examples to illustrate scientific theories and
principles. (The name of the new S&T subject in Denmark is “Nature and
Technology”). The curricular definition of ‘technology’ is, however, often
confusing and incoherent. In some countries technology is placed in a
context of ‘design and technology’ (in the UK). In other countries the term
technology implies modern information technology and ICT. In some places,
the stress is on the technical (and underlying scientific) aspect of
technology. In other countries the weight is put on human relations to
technology, society and technology etc.
H. STS: Science, Technology and Society
STS has become an acronym for a whole ‘movement’ within S&T education.
The key concern is not only the Science and the Technology content, but
also the relationship between S&T and society. The trends described in the
preceding points (relevant contexts, stress on the environmental and the
role of technology) can also be seen as belonging to an increase of the STS
perspective.
I. Inclusion of ethics
When S&T issues are treated in a wider context, it becomes evident that
many of the topics have ethical dimensions. This is of course the case when
dealing with socioscientific issues. But ethics is also involved in discussions
relating to ‘pure’ science, like what sorts of research one ought to prioritize
(or even allow), and the moral dilemmas in e.g. using animals in research.
Again, this ethical dimension may contribute to giving S&T a more human
face. It is also likely to empower future voters on important political issues
on which they are invited to take a stand.
J. “Less is more”
This has become a slogan for curriculum development. More weight is put
on ‘great stories’ of S&T and on presentation of key ideas and their
development, often in an historical and social context. These key ideas
replace (the impossible) attempt to give an encyclopedic coverage of the
whole of science. One hopes to avoid the curse of the overcrowded
curriculum that leaves so little time for reflection and search for meaning.
By choosing ‘typical’ and important stories, one hopes to convey an
 understanding of the nature of S&T. One also hopes to nourish curiosity and
respect for S&T – and to inspire some students to pursue S&T. ‘ Narratives’
have become a key word for this development.
K. Information technologies as subject matter and as tools
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are products that by
their definition ‘belong’ to the S&T sector. (The ‘hardware’ is science-based
technologies; the ‘software’ builds on basic mathematics etc.) Hence, the
underlying physical and technical ideas are to an increasing extent treated
as important subject matter on their own right in S&T curricula.

Besides, ICT provide new tools that are very suitable for teaching and
learning in S&T. The whole range of ‘ordinary’ software is used, including
databases, spreadsheets, statistical and graphical programs. In addition,
modeling, visualization and simulations of processes are important. ICT is
also used for taking time series of measurements for a wide variety of
parameters (‘data logging’).

S&T subjects are likely to be key elements in strategies to develop ICT to

become a better educational tool. It is also likely that S&T teachers are
better educationally equipped for this task than most other teachers –
although they are also in need for ways to be updated and retained.

Cultural Influence in Science

THE JOY OF SCIENCE

For most scientists, a powerful psychological motivation is curiosity about “how things work”
and a taste for intellectual stimulation. The joy of scientific discovery is captured in the following
excerpts from letters between two scientists involved in the development of quantum
mechanics: Max Planck (who opened the quantum era in 1900) and Erwin Schrodinger (who
formulated a successful quantum theory in 1926).

[Planck, in a letter to Schrodinger, says] “I am reading your paper in the way a curious child
eagerly listens to the solution of a riddle with which he has struggled for a long time, and I
rejoice over the beauties that my eye discovers.” [Schrodinger replies by agreeing that]
“everything resolves itself with unbelievable simplicity and unbelievable beauty, everything
turns out exactly as one would wish, in a perfectly straightforward manner, all by itself and
without forcing.”

OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL MOTIVES and PRACTICAL CONCERNS

Most scientists try to achieve personal satisfaction and professional success by forming
intellectual alliances with colleagues and by seeking respect and rewards, status and power in
the form of publications, grant money, employment, promotions, and honors.

When a theory (or a request for research funding) is evaluated, most scientists will be influenced
by the common-sense question, “How will the result of this evaluation affect my own personal
and professional life?”

Maybe a scientist has publicly taken sides on an issue and there is ego involvement with a
competitive desire to “win the debate”; or time and money has been invested in a theory or
research project, and there will be higher payoffs, both practical and psychological, if there is a
favorable evaluation by the scientific community. In these situations, when there is a substantial
investment of personal resources, many scientists will try to use logic and “authority” to
influence the process and result of evaluation.

IDEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES are based on subjective values and on political goals for “the way
things should be” in society. These principles span a wide range of concerns, including,
socioeconomics structures, race relations, gender issues, social philosophies and customs,
religions, morality, equality, freedom, and justice.

A dramatic example of political influence is the control of Russian biology, from the 1930s into
1960s, by the “ideologically correct” theories and research programs of Lysenko, supported by
the power of the Soviet government.

OPINIONS OF “AUTHORITIES” can also influence evaluation. The quotation marks are a
reminder that a perception of authority is in the eye of the beholder. Perceived authority can be
due to an acknowledgement of expertise, a response to a dominant personality, and/or
involvement in a power relationship. Authority that is based at least partly on power occurs in
scientists’ relationships with employers, tenure committees, cliques of colleagues, professional
organizations, journal editors and referees, publishers, grant reviewers, and politicians who vote
on funding for science.

SOCIAL-INSTITUTIONAL CONTEXTS. These five factors (psychology, practicality, metaphysics,

ideology, authority) interact with each other, and they develop and operate in a complex social
context at many levels – in the lives of individuals, in the scientific community, and in society as
a whole. In an attempt to describe this complexity. The analysis-and-synthesis framework of ISM
includes: the characteristics of individuals and their interactions with each other and with a
variety of groups (familial, recreational, professional, political); profession-related politics
(occurring primarily within the scientific community) and societal politics (involving broader
issues in society); and the institutional structures of science and society.

The term “cultural-personal” implies that both cultural and personal levels are important. These
levels are intimately connected by mutual interactions because individuals (with their
motivations, concerns, worldviews, and principles) work and think in the context of a culture,
and this culture (including its institutional structure, or operations, and politics, and its shared
concepts and habits of thinking) is constructed by and composed of individual persons.

Cultural-personal factors are influenced by the social and institutional context that constitutes
the reward system of scientific community. In fact, in many ways this context can be considered
a causal mechanism that is partially responsible for producing the factors. For example, a desire
for respect is intrinsic in humans, existing independently of a particular social structure, but the
situations that stimulate this desire (and the responses that are motivated by these situations)
do depend on the social structure. An important aspect of a social-institutional structure is its
effects on the ways in which authority is created and manifested, especially when power
relationships are involved.

What are the results of mutual interactions between science and society? How does science
affect culture, and how does culture affect science?

SCIENCE AFFECTS CULTURE

The most obvious effect of science has been its medical and technological applications, with the
accompanying effects on health care, lifestyles, and social structures. But science also influences
culture, in any modern societies, by playing a major role in shaping cultural worldviews,
concepts, and thinking patterns. Sometimes this occurs by the gradual, unorchestrated diffusion
or ideas from science into the culture. At other times, however, there is a conscious effort, by
scientists or nonscientists, to use “the authority of science” for rhetorical purposes, to claim that
scientific theories and evidence support a particular belief system or political program.

CULTURE AFFECTS SCIENCE

ISM, which is mainly concerned with the operation of science, asks “How does culture affect
science?” Some influence occurs as a result of manipulating the “science affects culture”
influence described above. If society wants to obtain certain types of science-based medical or
technological applications, this will influence the types of scientific research that society
supports with its resources. And if scientists (or their financial supporters) have already
accepted some cultural concepts, such as metaphysical and/or ideological theories, they will
tend to prefer (and support) scientific theories that agree with these cultural-personal theories.
In the ISM diagram this influence appears as a conceptual factor, external relationships with
cultural-personal theories. For example, the Soviet government supported the science of
Lysenko because his theories and research supported the principles of Marxism. They also
hoped that this science would increase their own political power, so their support of Lysenko
contained a strong element of self-interest.

PERSONAL CONSISTENCY

Some cultural-personal influence occurs due to a desire for personal consistency in life.
According to the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1956), if there is a conflict between
ideas, between actions, or between thoughts and actions, this inconsistency produces an
unpleasant dissonance, and a person will be motivated to take action aimed at reducing the
dissonance. In the overall context of a scientist’s life, which includes science and much more, a
scientist will seek consistency between the science and non-science aspects of life.

Because groups are formed by people, the principles of personal consistency can be
extrapolated (with appropriate modifications and with caution) beyond individuals to other
levels of social structure, to groups that are small or large, including societies and governments.
For example, during the period when the research program of Lysenko dominated Russian
biology, the Soviets wanted consistency between their ideological beliefs and scientific beliefs. A
consistency between ideology and science will reduce a psychological dissonance, and it is also
logically preferable. If a Marxist theory and a scientific theory are both true, there tends to be a
decrease in logical status for all theories that are inconsistent with Marx, and an increase in
status for theories consistent with Marx. This logical principle, applied to psychology, forms the
foundation for theories of cognitive dissonance, which therefore also predict an increase in the
status of Lysenko’s science in the context of Soviet politics.

Usually scientists (and others) want theories to be not just plausible, but also useful. With
Lysenko’s biology, the Soviets hoped that attaining consistency between science policy and the
principles of communism would produce increased problem-solving utility. Part of this hope was
that Lysenko’s theories, applied to agricultural policy, would increase the Russian food supply;
but nature did not cooperate with the false theories, so this policy resulted in decreased
productivity. Another assumption was that the Soviet political policies would gain popular
support if there was a belief that this policy was based on (and was consistent with) reliable
scientific principles. And if science “plays a major role in shaping cultural….thinking patterns,”
the government wanted to insure that shaping-of-ideas by science would support their
ideological principles and political policies. The government officials also wanted to maintain
and increase their own power, so self interest was another motivating factor.

FEEDBACK

In the ISM diagram, three large arrows point toward “evaluation of theory” from the three
evaluation factors, and three small arrows point back the other way. These small arrows show
the feedback that occurs when a conclusion about the theory status already has been reached
based on some factors and, to minimize cognitive dissonance, there is a tendency to interpret
other factors in a way that will support this conclusion. Therefore, each evaluation criterion is
affected by feedback from the current status of the theory and from the two criteria.

THOUGHT STYLE

In the case of Lysenko there was an obvious, consciously planned interference with the
operation of science. But cultural influence is usually not so obvious. A more subtle influence is
exerted by the assumed ideas and values of a culture (especially the culture of a scientific
community) because these assumptions, along with explicitly formulated ideas and values, form
a foundation for the way scientists think when they generate and evaluate theories, and plan
their research programs. The influence of these foundational ideas and values, on the process
and content of science, is summarized at the top of the ISM diagram: “Scientific activities…are
affected by culturally influenced thought styles

OVER-GENERALIZING
When scholars are thinking about cultural-personal factors and their influence in science, too
often there is too much over-generalizing. It’s easy to get carried away into silly ideas, unless we
remember that all of these cultural-personal factors vary in different areas of science and in
communities within each are, and for different individuals, so the types and amounts of
resulting influences (on the process of science and the content of science) vary widely.

CONTROVERSY

Among scholars who study science there is a wide range of views about the extent to which
cultural factor influence the process and content of science. An extreme emphasis on cultural
influence is neither accurate nor educationally beneficial, and that even though there is a
significant cultural influence on the process of science, usually (but not always) the content of
science is not strongly affected by cultural factors.

Technoscience
Technoscience refers to the strong interactions in contemporary scientific research and
development (R&D) between that which traditionally was separated into science
(theoretical) and technology (practical), especially by philosophers. The emphasis that
the term techno (-) science places on technology as well as the intensity of the
connection between science and technology varies. Moreover the majority of scientists
and philosophers of science continue to externalize technology as applications and
consequences of scientific progress. Nevertheless they recognized the success and
efficiency of technology as promoting realism, objectivity, and universality of science.

The prehistory of the concept of technoscience goes back at least to the beginning of
modern science. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) explicitly associated knowledge and power;
science provided knowledge of the effective causes of phenomena and thus the capacity
for efficient intervention within them. The concept became clearer during the first half
of the twentieth century. Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962) in Le nouvel esprit scientifique
(1934; The new scientific spirit) places the new scientific spirit under the preponderant
influence of the mathematical and technical operations, and utilizes the expression
science technique to designate contemporary science. However the term techno (-)
science itself was not coined until the 1970’s.
The History of Techno (-) science

The first important occurrence of the term appears in the title of an article titled
“Ethique et techno-science” by Gilbert Hottois, first published in 1978 (included
in Hottois 1996). This first usage expresses a critical reaction against the
theoretical and discursive conception of contemporary science, and against
philosophy blind to the importance of technology. It associates technoscience
with the ethical question, “What are we to make of human beings?” posed from
an evolutionist perspective open to technical intervention.

Through the 1980s two French philosophers, Jean Francois Lyotard and Bruno
Latour, contributed to the diffusion of the term in France and North America.
For Lyotard technoscience realizes the modern project of rendering the human
being, as argued from the work of Rene Descartes (1596-1650), a master and
possessor of nature. This project has become technocratic and should denounce
because of its political association with capitalism. As a promoter of the
postmodern, Lyotard thus facilitates diffusion of the term within postmodern
discussions.

In Science in Action (1987), Latour utilizes the plural technosciences in order to

underline his empirical and sociological approach. The technosciences refer to
those sciences created by human beings in real-world socioeconomic-political
contexts, by conflicts and alliances among humans and also among humans and
non-humans (institutions, machines, and animals among others.). Latour insists
on networks and hybrid mixtures. He denounces the myth of a pure science,
distinct from technologies susceptible to good and bad usages. In reality it is less
technology that Latour internalizes in the idea of science than societu (and
therefore politics), of which technologies are part in the same ways as other
aritfacts. He rejects any philosophical idea, whether ancient or modern, of a
science that is supra – or extra – social and apolitical. The worldwide successes
of the technosciences are a matter of political organization and will, and do not
derive from some universal recognition of a rational and objectively true
knowledge that progressively imposes itself. Latour has contributed to the
success of the term technoscience in social-contructivist discussion since the
1990s.

The work of Donna Haraway illustrates well the diffusion of technoscience

crossed with the postmodern and social-constructivist discussions in North
America. Technoscience becomes the word-symbol of the contemporary tangle
of processes and interactions. The basic ingredients are the sciences,
technologies, and societies. These allow the inclusion of everything: from purely
symbolic practices to the physical processes of nature in worldwide networks,
productions, and exchanges.
 In France, in continental Europe, and in the countries of Latin America, the use
of the term technoscience has often remained closer to its original meaning that
involves more ontological (as with German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-
1976)), epistemological, and ethical questioning than social and political
criticism. Indeed, in a perspective that complements the one provided here, in
La revolucion tecnoscientifica (2003; The technoscience revolution), Spanish
philosopher Javier Echeverria provides an extensive analysis of technoscience as
both concept and phenomenon. A political usage is not, however, rare,
especially in France where there is a tendency to attribute to technoscience a
host of contemporary ills such as technicism and technocracy, multinational
capitalism, economic neo-liberalism, pollution, the depletion of natural
resources, the climate change, globalization, planetary injustice, the
disappearance of human values, and more, all related to U.S. imperialism. The
common archetype of technoscience is Big Science, originally exemplified by the
Manhattan Project, which closely associated science, technology, and the
politics of power. In this interpretation, technoscience is presented from the
point of view of domination, mastery, and control, and not from that of
exploration, research, and creativity. It is technocratic and totalitarian, not
technopoietique and emancipating.

The Questions of Technoscience

What distinguishes contemporary science as technoscience is that, unlike the

philosophical enterprise of science identified as fundamentally linguistic and
theoretical activity, it is physically manipulative, interventionist, and creative.
Determining the function of a gene whether in order to create a medicine or to
participate in the sequencing of the human genome leads to technoscientific
knowledge-power-doing. In a technoscientific civilization, distinctions between
theory and practice, fundamental and applied, become blurred. Philosophers
are invited to define human death or birth, taking into account the
consequences of these definitions in the practical-ethic plans, that is to say, in
regard to what will or will not be permitted (for example, the harvesting of
organs of embryonic experimentation).

Another example is familiar to bioethicists. Since the 1980s there has existed a
line of transgenic mice (Onco mice) used as a model for research on the genesis
of certain cancers. Here is an object at once natural and artificial, theoretical
and practical, abstract and concrete, living and yet patented like an invention.
Their existence and use in research further involves many different cognitive
and practical, abstract and concrete, living and yet patented like an invention.
Their existence and use in research further involves many different cognitive
and practical scientific questions and interest: therapeutic, economic, ethical,
and juridical. It is even a political issue, because transgenic mice are at the
 center of conflict between the European Union and United States over the
patentability of living organisms.

The most radical questions raised by technosciences concern their application of

the natural (as a living organisms formed by the evolutionary process) and
manipulated (as a contingent creation of human culture.) Such questions
acquire their greatest importance when one takes into account the past and
future (unknowable) immensity of biological, geological, and cosmological
temporality, in asking, for example: What will become of the human being in a
million years? From this perspective the investigation of human beings appears
open not only to symbolic invention (definitions, images, interpretations,
values), but also to tecnophysical invention (experimentation, mutations,
prosthetics, cyborgs). A related examination places the technosciences
themselves within the scope of an evolution that is more and more affected by
conscious human intervention. Both approaches raise questions and
responsibilities that are not foreign to ethics and politics but that invite us at the
same time to consider with a critical eye all specific ethics and politics because
the issues exceed all conceivable societal projects.

References and Supplementary Materials

Online Supplementary Reading Materials

1. Science and Technology in Education – Current Challenges and Possible Solutions;

http://www.iuma.ulpgc.es/users/nunez/sjobergreportsciencetech.pdf; November 7,
2017
2. Technoscience; http://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-
transcripts -and-maps/technoscience; November 7, 2017
3. Cultural Influence in Science: Causes and Effects;
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/science/cp2.htm; November 7, 2017
4. Science and Society; https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/scienceandsociety_01;
November 7, 2017
5. Social Impact/Activism; https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/careers/college-to-
career/chemistry-careers/social-impact.html; November 7, 2017
6. Impact of Science and Technology on Society and Economy;
http://www.worldacademy.org/trieste-forum/march-2013; November 7, 2017
 "Emerging Technologies of 2017"

TOP 10 EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES of2017

 What if drinking water could be drawn from desert air easily, without requiring
enormous amounts of electricity from a grid?
 What if a doctor could do a biopsy for a suspected cancer without a blade of any sort?
 What if we didn’t have to wait too long for the result?
 Technologies that make these visions a reality are expected to become increasingly
commonplace in the next few years. This special report, compiled and produced in
a collaboration between Scientific American and the World Economic Forum’s Expert
Network, highlights 10 such emerging technologies.
 To choose the entrants in this year’s emerging technologies report, we convened a
steering group of world-renowned technology experts.
 The committee made recommendations and elicited suggestions from members of the
Forum’s Expert Network and Global Future Councils, Scientific American’ s board of
advisers and others who are tuned in to burgeoning research and development in
academia, business and government. Then the group whittled down the choices by
focusing on technologies that were not yet widespread but were attracting increased
funding or showing other signs of being ready to move to the next level.
 The technologies also had to offer significant benefits to societies and economies and to
have the power to alter established ways of doing things.
—Mariette DiChristina and Bernard S. Meyerson

IN BRIEF

 When it comes to preventing and treating disease, better biopsy techniques, genomic vaccines
and a massive global project to map every human cell are a boon to public health and
personalized medicine.
 Sustainably providing the resource needs of a growing population is becoming more possible
thanks to advances in solar-powered water harvesting and artificial photosynthesis that
produces renewable fuel. Real-time feedback is making precision farming an efficient way to
feed more people.
 Green tech is becoming more accessible to the masses. Entire blocks of homes can be
transformed into zero-emissions communities. New approaches in hydrogen-fuel cells could
mean cheaper gasoline-free cars.
 Improvements in visual AI and quantum computing are leading to a future when machines
interpret data and solve complex problems better than humans.
1. WATER MADE BY THE SUN TECHNOLOGIES THAT PULL MOISTURE FROM THE AIR ARE NOW
SOLAR-POWERED
 By Donna J. Nelson and Je rey
Carbeck
 Billions of people lack access to clean water for all or part of the year or must travel far to collect
it. Extracting water directly from the air would be an immeasurable boon for them. But existing
technologies generally require a high-moisture climate and a lot of electricity, which is expensive
and often unavailable. This problem is now becoming more tractable, thanks to robust systems
in development that rely on readily available energy from the sun. They are scalable and work
even in arid regions—where a third of the world’s population lives, often in poverty.
 Collaborators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California,
Berkeley, have tested an approach that requires no electricity at all. The team intends for its
technology to overcome a notable problem with most materials capable of absorbing water
from the atmosphere (such as the zeolites in humidifiers): aside from needing high humidity,
they give up the trapped water only when heated substantially, which takes energy.
 The researchers designed their system around a class of porous crystals called metal-organic
frameworks (MOFs), developed years ago by chemist Omar M. Yaghi, now in the U.C. Berkeley
group. By choosing specific combinations of metals and organics, scientists can select the
chemical properties of each MOF and thereby customize its uses.
 Beyond their versatility, MOFs’ great promise lies with their phenomenally large pores: the
surface area inside is almost 10 times that of porous zeolites. For context, one gram of an MOF
crystal the size of a sugar cube has an internal surface area approximately equal to the area of a
football field.
 In April, Yaghi’s group, along with that of M.I.T. mechanical engineer Evelyn Wang, reported on
a prototype device incorporating MOF-801, or zirconium fumarate, which has a high affinity for
water. It pulls moisture from the air into its large pores and readily feeds the water into a
collector in response to low-grade heat from natural sunlight.
 The device can harvest 2.8 liters of water daily per every kilogram of MOF even at relative
humidity levels as low as 20 percent, similar to those of deserts. (According to Yaghi, a person
needs at least a soda can’s worth, or 355 milliliters, of drinking water a day.)
 Plus, it requires no additional input of energy. The investigators see more room for
improvement. Further experimentation with MOF composition should make the technology less
expensive (zirconium currently costs $150 per kilogram), increase the amount of water collected
per unit of material and allow researchers to tailor MOFs to different microclimates.
 Taking a different tack, a start-up called Zero Mass Water in Scottsdale, Ariz., has begun selling a
solar-based system that does not have to be hooked up to an electric grid or an existing water
system.
 . A solar panel provides energy that both drives air through a proprietary water-absorbing
material and powers condensation of the extracted moisture into fluid. A small lithium-ion
battery operates the device when the sun is not shining.
 A unit with one solar panel, the company says, can produce two to five liters of liquid a day,
which is stored in a 30-liter reservoir that adds calcium and magnesium for health and taste.
  Cody Friesen, founder of Zero Mass Water and a materials scientist at Arizona State University
developed the system with the aim of having it work sustainably and easily anywhere in the
world. An installed system with one solar panel sells in the U.S. for about $3,700.
 That price tag includes a required 10 percent donation toward reducing costs for installations in
parts of the globe lacking water infrastructure. The same unit that reduces the need for bottled
water in the U.S., Friesen notes, can also provide clean water to a school that lacks it so that
children “are able to get educated and not get sick.”
 Over the past year, he says, systems have been placed in the southwestern U.S. and several
other countries—among them, Mexico, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates— and the
company has recently shipped panels to Lebanon, with funding from the U.S. Agency for
International Development, to provide water to Syrian refugees. When most people think about
solar, Friesen adds, “they think about electricity. In the future, people will think about water
abundance.”

CONTRIBUTORS EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES STEERING GROUP

 Mariette DiChristina, Steering Group chair is editor in chief of Scientific American and director
of Editorial and Publishing, Magazines, for the Nature Research Group of Springer Nature.
 Bernard S. Meyerson, Steering Group vice chair is chief innovation officer at IBM. He is a
member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a recipient of numerous awards for
work spanning physics, engineering and business.
 Nayef Al-Rodhan, a philosopher, neuroscientist and geostrategist, is an honorary fellow of St.
Antony’s College at the University of Oxford and a senior fellow and head of the Geopolitics and
Global Futures Program at the Geneva Center for Security Policy in Switzerland.
 Elizabeth H. Blackburn, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is president of
the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif. She has received the Lasker, Gruber and
Gairdner prizes and is co-author of The Telomere Effect.
 Jeffrey Carbeck, who has built several companies, leads the advanced materials and
manufacturing practice at Deloitte Consulting. He serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global
Future Council on Advanced Materials.
 Vinton G. Cerf,* vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google, is widely recognized as
a“Father of the Internet.” He sits on the U.S. National Science Board and is avisiting scientist at
nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
 Javier Garcia Martinez is a professor of inorganic chemistry and director of the Molecular
Nanotechnology Lab at the University of Alicante in Spain. He is a co-founder of Rive Technology
and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
 Daniel M. Kammen* is a professor of energy at the University of California, Berkeley, in the
Energy and Resources Group, the Goldman School of Public Policy and the department of
nuclear engineering. He is founding director of U.C. Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate
Energy Laboratory.
 Christof Koch* is a neuroscientist best known for exploring the brain basis of consciousness in
humans and animals. He is chief scientific officer and president of the Allen Institute for Brain
 Science in Seattle and was a professor of biology and engineering for 27 years at the California
Institute of Technology.
 Sang Yup Lee is Distinguished Professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the Korea
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and dean of KAIST Institutes. He holds 610
patents and is a co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on
Biotechnology.
 Geoffrey Ling, a retired U.S. Army colonel, is a professor of neurology at the Uniformed Services
University of the Health Sciences and at Johns Hopkins University. He has held leadership roles
at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and in the White House Office of Science
and Technology Policy.
 Apurv Mishra is chief technology officer at doc.ai, an artificial-intelligence company focused on
health care. Previously he was COO of Datawallet, founder of Glavio and vice president of
Hypios. He has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Emerging
Technologies.
 Donna J. Nelson is a professor of chemistry at the University of Oklahoma and in 2016 was
president of the American Chemical Society. She was a scientific adviser for the cable television
show Breaking Bad.
 David Peters, an automation expert, is chair, CEO and founder of Universal Robotics, an AI
software company selling sensor-based reactive machine-control systems. He was a Hollywood
movie producer for 17years.

GUEST AUTHORS

 Blake Bextine is program manager at the Biological Technologies Office of the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency. He was a professor of biology and assistant vice president
for research and technology transfer at the University of Texas at Tyler.
 Dario Gil is vice president of science and solutions at IBM Research. He is responsible for IBM’s
science agenda in physical, mathematical and life sciences, as well as cognitive and blockchain
research.

2. FUEL FROM AN ARTIFICIAL LEAF TEC HNOLO GY THAT MIMIC S PHOTOS YNTHE SIS CONVERT S C
ARBON DIOXIDE TO FUEL S IN A SUS TAINABLE WAY
 By Javier Garcia Martinez
 The notion of an artificial leaf makes so much sense. Leaves, of course, harness energy from the
sun to turn carbon dioxide into the carbohydrates that power a plant’s cellular activities.
 For decades scientists have been working to devise a process similar to photosynthesis to
generate a fuel that could be stored for later use. This could solve a major challenge of solar and
wind power—providing a way to stow the energy when the sun is not shining and the air is still.
 Many, many investigators have contributed over the years to the development of a form of artifi
cial photosynthesis in which sunlight-activated catalysts split water molecules to yield oxygen
and hydrogen— the latter being a valuable chemical for a wide range of sustainable
technologies.
 A step closer to actual photosynthesis would be to employ this hydrogen in a reduction reaction
that converts CO2 into hydrocarbons. Like a real leaf, this system would use only CO2, water and
sunlight to produce fuels. The achievement could be revolutionary, enabling creation of a closed
system in which carbon dioxide emitted by combustion was transformed back into fuel instead
of adding to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
 Several researchers are pursuing this goal. Recently one group has demonstrated that it is
possible to combine water splitting and CO2 conversion into fuels in one system with high
efficiency.
 In a June 2016 issue of Science, Daniel G. Nocera and Pamela A. Silver, both at Harvard
University, and their colleagues reported on an approach to making liquid fuel (specific ally fusel
alcohols) that far exceeds a natural leaf’s conversion of carbon dioxide to carbohydrates.
 A plant uses just 1 percent of the energy it receives from the sun to make glucose, whereas the
artifi cial system achieved roughly 10 percent effi ciency in converting carbon dioxide to fuel, the
equivalent of pulling 180 grams of carbon dioxide from the air per kilowatt-hour of electricity
generated.
 The investigators paired inorganic, solar watersplitting technology (designed to use only
biocompatible materials and to avoid creating toxic compounds) with microbes specially
engineered to produce fuel, all in a single container. Remarkably, these metabolically
engineered bacteria generated a wide variety of fuels and other chemical products even at low
CO2 concentrations.
 The approach is ready for scaling up to the extent that the catalysts already contain cheap,
readily obtainable metals. But investigators still need to greatly increase fuel production. Nocera
says the team is working on prototyping the technology and is in partnership discussions with
several companies.
 Nocera has an even bigger vision for the basic technology. Beyond producing hydrogen- and
carbonrich fuels in a sustainable way, he has demonstrated that equipping the system with a
different metabolically altered bacterium can produce nitrogenbased fertilizer right in the soil,
an approach that would increase crop yields in areas where con ventional fertilizers are not
readily available.
 The bacterium uses the hydrogen and CO2 to form a biological plastic that serves as a fuel
supply. Once the microbe contains enough plastic, it no longer needs sunshine, so it can be
buried in the soil. After drawing nitrogen from the air, it exploits the energy and hydrogen in the
plastic to make the fertilizer. Radishes grown in soil containing the microbes ended up weighing
150 percent more than control radishes.
 Nocera admits that he initially ran the fertilizer test just to see if the idea would work. He
envisions a time, however, when bacteria will “breathe in hydrogen” produced by water splitting
and ultimately use the hydrogen to produce products ranging from fuels to fertilizers, plastics
and drugs, depending on the specific metabolic alterations designed for the bugs.
3. AI THAT SEES LIK E HUMANS A DEEP-LE ARNING TO OL FOR VISUAL TA SK S IS C HANGING
MEDIC INE , SEC URIT Y AND MORE
 By Apurv Mishra
 For most of the past 30 years computer-vision technologies have struggled to perform well,
even in tasks as mundane as accurately recognizing faces in photographs. Recently, though,
breakthroughs in deep learning—an emerging fi eld of artifi cial intelligence— have fi nally
enabled computers to interpret many kinds of images as successfully as, or better than, people
do.
 Companies are already selling products that exploit the technology, which is likely to take over
or assist in a wide range of jobs that people now perform, from driving trucks to interpreting
scans for diagnosing medical disorders.
 Recent progress in a deep-learning approach known as a convolutional neural network (CNN) is
key to the latest strides. To give a simple example of its prowess, consider images of animals.
Whereas humans can easily distinguish between a cat and a dog, CNNs allow machines to
categorize specific breeds more successfully than people can. It excels because it is better able
to learn, and draw inferences from, subtle, telling patterns in the images.
 CNNs do not need to be programmed to recognize specific features in images—for example, the
shape and size of an animal’s ears. Instead they are taught to spot features such as these on
their own. To train a CNN to separate an English springer spaniel from a Welsh one, for instance,
you start with thousands of images of animals, including examples of both breeds. Like most
deep-learning networks, CNNs are organized in layers. In the lower layers, they learn simple
shapes and edges from the images. In the higher layers, they learn complex and abstract
concepts—in this case, the more detailed aspects of ears, tails, tongues, fur textures, and so on.
Once trained, a CNN can easily decide whether a new image of an animal shows a breed of
interest.
 CNNs were made possible by the tremendous progress in graphics processing units and parallel
processing in the past decade. But the Internet has made a profound difference as well by
feeding CNNs’ insatiable appetite for digitized images.
 Computer-vision systems powered by deep learning are being developed for a range of
applications. The technology is making self-driving cars safer by enhancing the ability to
recognize pedestrians. Insurers are starting to apply these tools to assess damage to cars. In the
security camera industry, CNNs are making it possible to understanding crowd behavior, which
will make public places and airports safer. In agriculture, deep-learning applications can be used
to predict crop yields, monitor water levels and help detect crop diseases before they spread.
 Deep learning for visual tasks is making some of its broadest inroads in medicine, where it can
speed experts’ interpretation of scans and pathology slides and provide critical information in
places that lack professionals trained to read the images—be it for screening, diagnosis,
monitoring of disease progression or response to therapy.
 This year, for instance, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a deep-learning
approach from the start-up Arterys for visualizing blood fl ow in the heart; the purpose is to help
diagnose heart disease. Also this year Sebastian Thrun of Stanford University and his colleagues
described a system in Nature that classified skin cancer as well as human dermatologists did.
 The researchers noted that such a program installed on smartphones, which are ubiquitous
around the world, could provide “low-cost universal access to vital diagnostic care.” Systems are
also being developed to assess diabetic retinopathy (a cause of blindness), stroke, bone
fractures, Alzheimer’s disease and other maladies.
4. PRECISION FARMING SENSOR S , IM AGING AND RE AL-TIME DATA ANALY TIC S IMPROVE FAR M
OU TPU T S AND REDUC E WA S TE
 By Geo rey Ling and Blake Bextine
 As the world’s population grows, farmers will need to produce more and more food. Yet arable
acreage cannot keep pace, and the looming food security threat could easily devolve into
regional or even global instability. To adapt, large farms are increasingly exploiting precision
farming to increase yields, reduce waste, and mitigate the economic and security risks that
inevitably accompany agricultural uncertainty.
 Traditional farming relies on managing entire fields— making decisions related to planting,
harvesting, irrigating, and applying pesticides and fertilizer—based on regional conditions and
historical data. Precision farming, in contrast, combines sensors, robots, GPS, mapping tools and
data-analytics software to customize the care that plants receive, all without increasing labor.
Stationary or robot-mounted sensors and camera-equipped drones wirelessly send images and
data on individual plants—information, say, about stem size, leaf shape and the moisture of the
soil around a plant—to a computer, which looks for signs of health and stress. Farmers receive
the feedback in real time and then deliver water, pesticide or fertilizer in calibrated doses to
only the areas that need it.
 The technology can also help farmers decide when to plant and harvest crops. As a result,
precision farming can improve time management, reduce water and chemical use, and produce
healthier crops and higher yields—all of which benefit farmers’ bottom lines and conserve
resources while reducing chemical runoff.
 Many start-ups are developing new software, sensors, aerial-based data and other tools for
precision farming, as are large companies such as Monsanto, John Deere, Dow and DuPont. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
all support precision farming, and many colleges now offer course work on the topic.
 In a related development, seed producers are applying technology to improve plant
“phenotyping.” By following individual plants over time and analyzing which ones flourish in diff
erent conditions, companies can correlate the plants’ response to their environ ments with their
genomics. That information, in turn, allows the companies to produce seed varieties that will
thrive in specifi c soil and weather conditions. Advanced phenotyping may also help generate
crops with enhanced nutrition.
 Growers are not universally embracing precision agriculture for various reasons. The up-front
equipment costs—especially the expense of scaling the technology to large row-crop production
systems—pose a barrier. Lack of broadband can be an obstacle in some places, although the
USDA is trying to ameliorate that problem.
 Seasoned producers who are less computerliterate may be wary of the technology. And large
systems will be beyond the reach of many small farming operations in developing nations. But
less expensive, simpler systems could potentially be applied. Salah Sukkarieh of the University of
 Sydney, for instance, has demonstrated a streamlined, low-cost monitoring system in Indonesia
that relies on solar power and cell phones.
 For others, though, cost savings down the road may offset the fi nancial concerns. And however
reticent some veteran farmers may be to adopt new technology, the next generations of tech-
savvy farmers are likely to warm to the approach.
5. M APPING E VERY CELL A GLOBAL PROJEC T AIM S TO UNDER S TAND HOW ALL HUM AN C ELL T
YPE S FUNC TION
 By Sang Yup Lee
 To truly, deeply understand how the human body works—and how diseases arise—you would
need an extraordinary amount of information. You would have to know the identity of every cell
type in every tissue; exactly which genes, proteins and other molecules are active in each type;
what processes control that activity; where the cells are located exactly; how the cells normally
interact with one another; and what happens to the body’s functioning when genetic or other
aspects of a cell undergo change, among other details.
 Building such a rich, complex knowledge base may seem impossible. And yet a broad
international consortium of research groups has taken the first steps toward creating exactly
that. They call it the Human Cell Atlas.
 The consortium had its inaugural planning meeting in October 2016 and continues to organize.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is onboard as well. In June 2017 it announced that it was
providing financial and engineering support to build an open data-coordination platform to
organize the findings, so they will be readily sharable by researchers in the project and beyond.
 The atlas, which will combine information from existing and future research projects, has been
made feasible by a host of technological achievements. Those include advances in tools for
isolating individual cells, for profiling the proteins in a single cell at any given time (proteins are
the major workhorses in the body), and for quickly and inexpensively sequencing DNA and RNA.
It will integrate research exploring all the “omes”: the genome (the full set of genes), the
transcriptome (the RNA made from the genes), the proteome (the proteins), the metabolome
(small molecules, such as sugars, fatty acids and amino acids, involved or generated by cellular
processes), and the fluxome (metabolic reactions whose rates can vary under different
conditions).
 Then these findings will be mapped to different subregions of cells. The integrated results
should lead to a tool that will simulate all the types and states of cells in our body and provide
new understandings of disease processes and ways to intervene in them.
 One of the most advanced pieces underlying the cell atlas is the continually updated Human
Protein Atlas. It off ers a glimpse of the kind of comprehensive work that goes into building the
umbrella project, as well as the value it will ultimately bring.
 Participants in the Human Protein Atlas have classified a large majority of the protein-coding
genes in humans using a combination of genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and antibody-
based profi ling, which identifi es location. Since the program’s inception in 2003, approximately
100 person-years of software development have gone into keeping track of and organizing the
data for systems-level analyses. More than 10 million images have been generated and
 annotated by pathologists. The atlas includes a high-resolution map of the locations of more
than 12,000 proteins in 30 subcellular compartments, or organelles, of various cells.
 All the findings are available to the research community without restriction. Users can query the
database to explore the proteins in any major organ or tissue, or they can focus on proteins with
specific properties, such as those that participate in basic cell maintenance or that occur only in
specific tissues. The data can also help model the plethora of dynamic, interacting components
that enable life and can be used to explore ideas for new therapies.
 Completing the Human Cell Atlas will not be easy, but it will be an immeasurably valuable tool
for improving and personalizing health care.
6. LIQUID BIOPSIES ULTRA SENSITIVE BLO OD TE S T S PROMISE TO IMPROVE C ANC ER DIAGNOSIS
AND C ARE
- By Apurv Mishra
 A patient suspected of having cancer usually undergoes imaging and a biopsy. Samples of the
tumor are excised, examined under a microscope and, often, analyzed to pinpoint the genetic
mutations responsible for the malignancy. Together this information helps to determine the
type of cancer, how advanced it is and how best to treat it. Yet sometimes biopsies cannot be
done, such as when a tumor is hard to reach. Obtaining and analyzing the tissue can also be
expensive and slow. And because biopsies are invasive, they may cause infections or other
complications.
 A tool known as a liquid biopsy—which fi nds signs of cancer in a simple blood sample—
promises to solve those problems and more. A few dozen companies are developing their own
technologies. Observers predict that the market for the tests could be worth billions
 DNA (ctDNA), genetic material that routinely finds its way from cancer cells into the
bloodstream. Only recently have advanced technologies made it possible to fi nd, amplify and
sequence the DNA rapidly and inexpensively.
 Right now the tests, which are available from several companies, mostly aid in treatment
decisions for people already diagnosed with a particular form of cancer, such as prostate or
lung. But the liquid tests can provide additional services that tissue biopsies cannot. Repeated
tests could potentially detect disease progression or resistance to treatment long before it
would trigger symptoms or appear on imaging.
 Tissue biopsies examine only selected bits of tumors and can thus miss cells that have turned
more dangerous than their neighbors; in principle, the liquid biopsy can detect the full spectrum
of mutations in a mass, indicating when more aggressive treatment is needed. Crucially, liquid
biopsies may one day provide a fast, easy screening test for detecting a cancer and determining
its type in people who seem perfectly healthy.
 In a sign of the growing enthusiasm for the fi eld, GRAIL, a company spun off from Illumina,
raised $900 million in funding this past March from investors, including Amazon and several
major pharmaceutical companies. GRAIL plans to use the money to further develop the
technology and to run the large clinical trials (involving hundreds of thousands of subjects)
needed to see if screening will be feasible.
 Also in March the California-based company Freenome received $65 million for clinical trials,
expected to be carried out with multiple research partners, to determine whether the testing
improves how cancer patients fare. And this past May Guardant Health announced it had raised
$360 million from investors, on top of earlier funding, with the goal of deploying its liquid-biopsy
test to one million people over the next fi ve years.
 For the tests to enter wide usage, clinical trials must prove that the approach detects cancer
accurately and that by aiding in treatment.
7. HYDROGEN C AR S FOR THE M A S SE S REDUC ING PREC IOUS ME TAL S M AK E S FUEL- C ELL C
ATALYS T S AFFORDABLE
- By Donna J. Nelson
 Battery-powered electric vehicles that give off no carbon dioxide are about to become
mainstream. Today they constitute less than 1 percent of all rolling stock on the road globally,
but multiple innovations in features such as the battery’s cost and lifetime have made prices so
competitive that Tesla has more than 400,000 advance orders for its $35,000 Model 3, which is
slated to hit the road in the middle of 2018.
 Unfortunately, the other great hope for vehicles that exhaust no carbon—those powered by
hydrogen-fed fuel cells—remains too pricey for broad sales. (The manufacturer’s price tag for
the Toyota Mirai is $57,500.) A raft of laboratories and businesses, however, are determined to
cut costs by replacing one of the most expensive components in the fuel cells: the catalyst.
Many commercial versions contain the precious metal platinum, which aside from being pricey,
is too rare to support ubiquitous use in vehicles.
 Investigators are pursuing several lines of attack to shrink the platinum content: using it more
efficiently, replacing some or all of it with palladium (which performs similarly and is somewhat
less expensive), replacing either of those precious metals with inexpensive metals, such as nickel
or copper, and forgoing metals altogether. Commercial catalysts tend to consist of thin layers of
platinum nano-particles deposited on a carbon fi lm; researchers are also testing alternative
substrates.
8. GENOMIC VACCINES VACCINES COMPOSED OF DNA OR RNA COULD ENABLE RAPID
DEVELOPMENT OF PREVENTIVES FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES
- By Geo rey Ling
 Standard vaccines to prevent infectious diseases consist of killed or weakened pathogens or
proteins from those microorganisms. They work by teaching the immune system to recognize
certain bits of protein— called antigens—on the surface of the pathogen as a foe.
 The immune system is then prepared to pounce the next time it encounters those foreign
antigens. (Many modern vaccines deliver only the antigens, leaving out the pathogens.) Vaccines
that treat cancer also rely on proteins, which doctors may deliver to patients to enhance
immune responses. These proteins can include the immune system’s own guided missiles:
antibodies.
 In contrast, a new kind of vaccine, which is poised to make major inroads in medicine, consists
of genes. Genomic vaccines promise to off er many advantages, including faster manufacture
when a virus, such as Zika or Ebola, suddenly becomes more virulent or widespread. They have
been decades in the making, but dozens have now entered clinical trials.
Week 4 – Biopolicy
This module contains the following topic:

1. Biopolicy

Biopolicy

The text below is from the presentation of Dr. Agni Vlavianos-Arvanitis, President
and Founder of the Biopolitics International Organization, entitled: Biopolicy – A
Vision for the Millenium:

“Poverty, hunger, disease, environmental degradation, a declining resource

base, the loss of species and habitats, climate change, inadequate water
supplies, desertification – all these are global problems. They do not respect
national boundaries and they are all related. Addressing them will require an
unprecedented level of international cooperation. If we are to solve the
problems of our world, nations must redirect their efforts away from conflict
toward environmental restoration and the eradication of poverty, hunger and
disease. This is the goal and vision of biopolicy.

Over the past 50 years, humans have affected global ecosystems more rapidly
and extensively than in any other comparable period in human history. Humans
are an integral part of the world’s ecosystems, constantly changing them and
often damaging the ability of the ecosystems to provide the services necessary
for human well-being. The deterioration of the global environment is threatening
the very continuation of life on our planet, adding urgency to the need for
coherent long-term international strategy and cooperation. The increased
mobility of goods, services, labor, technology and capital throughout the world,
facilitated by technological advancements in communications and transportation
that has been called globalizations, profoundly demonstrates the urgency for
rigorous inquiry into the opportunities and challenges ahead. Increasingly, with
information and communication technologies empowering individuals
everywhere, humanity’s future rests with new models of thought, action,
communication and participation. A new millennium vision in the models of
thought, action, communication and participation. A new millennium vision in
policy, which we call biopolicy, is needed to guarantee the continuity of bios on
our planet and lead society to harmonious future.
In 2000, all 189 member states of the United Nations adopted the Millenium
Declaration, an international acknowledgement of the massive problems facing
humanity which sets goals for achieving specific targets by certain dates. The
Millennium Development goals include the reduction by one half of the
proportion of people who suffer from hunger. Other goals call for the
achievement of universal primary education, the promotion of gender equality,
the reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal health, halting the
spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases, ensuring environmental
sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development. The
Millennium Development Goals are an admirable effort to solve the world’s
great problems. Achieving them will require a great commitment by the
developed nations and a fundamental realignment of their priorities.

Biopolicy encompasses all aspects of human endeavor, and is based on a

framework of environmental ethics that is intended to promote a reassessment
of current assumptions and lead to a new global appreciation for the protection
of life on our planet. Biopolicy can become a unifying vision for attaining the
Millenium Development Goals and lead to the future harmonious co-existence of
all forms of life. It provides the necessary incentives for every endeavor to be
oriented toward the better understanding and preservation of the environment
and all forms of life. In the spirit of biopolicy, every individual on the planet is
encouraged to actively engage in the search for new paradigms and join
environmentally committed legislators, scholars, educators and business leaders
in influencing governmental protection of environmental issues around the
world.

Today’s society may be illustrated as an inverted and therefore highly unstable

pyramid in which societal values are heavily influenced by developments in the
realm of technology. It is vital that we correct this imbalance and move to a
stable society, which is characterized by respect for bios and the environment.
B.I.O.’s educational and awareness-raising programs are directed at restoring the
stability of our human and natural environments.
To alleviate regional conflicts and reconcile economic growth with environmental harmony, a
new vision is needed in every aspect of human affairs – industry, energy, transport, agriculture,
and regional development. In order to be successful, however, these policies have to be based
on a framework of environmental ethics. Biopolicy provides there ethical guidelines and urges a
reassessment of current assumptions with a view to a global appreciation of bios. Society needs
to mobilize every one of its elements and strive for a better future. Working to sustain what
already exists is not enough. With new challenges constantly arising and with an increased
awareness of the urgent need to take action against destructive trends, the time is ripe to find
more comprehensive, long-term solutions to protect our planet and guarantee a balanced
society for the future. A new vision, beyond sustainable development, can help place the
situation in perspective, and provide the necessary incentives to move ahead and explore
possibilities leading to more just and safe global management.

World Referendum

How can we engage everyone in the race to save the environment? Advances in
communication technology provide the unprecedented opportunity for all the people of
the world to become actively involved in the great issues of our time. With the internet,
it is now possible for every citizen from any corner of the globe to cast a vote for saving
the global environment. B.I.O. has proposed such a worldwide referendum on the
urgency of saving bios and the environment. By giving every individual the opportunity
to simultaneously make their voice heard, new pathways for participatory democracy
would be established. With a massive vote in favor of the environment, public opinion
on saving the environment could no longer be ignored.

Bio-education

The purpose and responsibility of bio-education is to uplift the spirit of humanity in

order to reverse the crisis in values that has resulted in serious environmental
deterioration. The advent of globalization has brought major changes in economic,
social and educational priorities and is creating new challenges for humanity. These
developments have, in effect, 3 made the world a single market place. To meet the
challenges of education for the new millennium, a radical shift is needed away from the
intra-disciplinary entrenchment that has prevailed in the past into more creative
patterns of thought for the development of the highest potential of each and for the
benefit of future generations. By providing interdisciplinary models with concern for
bios and the environment at the core of every specialty, bio-education seeks to apply
environmental protection to every human endeavor. The vision may be illustrated
graphically as follows:
To further this vision, B.I.O. launched the International University for the Bio-
Environment (I.U.B.E) in 1990. The I.U.B.E. urges scholars, decision-makers, diplomats,
business and civic leaders to actively contribute to the development of a life-supporting
society. Bearing in mind that universities should be, by definition, universal, the I.U.B.E.
acts as a catalyst to accelerate environmental awareness and impart an environmental
message to opinion formers, students and training professionals around the world.
Rather than focusing on the award degrees, the I.U.B.E. functions as an open and
distance learning initiative – using modern teaching tools such as e-learning – whereby
leading educators and decision-makers infuse existing educational institutions with bios-
enhancing values. B.I.O.’s landmark textbook, BioSyllabus for European Environmental
Education, has become part of the curriculum of numerous university courses in an
expanding list of countries. The book provides basic concepts on a range of
environmentally related topics, such as bio-architecture, bio-economics, bio-health, bio-
history and bio-tourism. The book provides themed references to the highly regarded
and wide ranging resource of other published B.I.O. material, and is freely available to
both educators and educated, in print and electronically – on the internet and on CD-
Rom.

Bio-education to enrich sustainability – B.I.O.’s extensive e-learning programme

B.I.O.’s places a wealth of educational material and resources online with its
broad range of elearning courses promoting pioneering dimensions in bio-
education. The hope is to infuse new thinking in environmental education and
 to enrich the concepts of sustainable development, Currently, participants from
sixty-six countries are enrolled in B.I.O.’s elearning courses:

The following courses are available:

- Bio-Architecture: Environmental models in architecture, energy efficient

buildings, environmentally responsible urban planning
- Bio-Diplomacy: International cooperation in environmental protection, the
environment as a unifying factor for peace.
- Bio-Economics: Environmental management, natural resource economics,
international policy, EU environmental policy, corporate policy.
- Bio-Energy: Renewable energy sources clean energy, models for energy
savings, wind, solar, biomass, energy efficient buildings.
- Bio-Ethics: Environmental protection as an ethical responsibility, codes of
environmental ethics for every profession, the environment in bioethics.
- Bio-Health: Environmental quality and public health, pollution threats to
health, risks and benefits of biotechnology, quality of life.
- Bio-History: Environmental factors in the development of human
civilization, culture, historical sources, ancient texts.
- Bio-Legislation: International and European Union environmental policy and
legislation, international treaties, environmental action.
- Bio-Assessment of Technology: Tools and methods for pollution abatement,
waste management technologies, recycling.
- Waste Management: Tools and methods of waste management and
technologies, including recycling, composting, landfilling, and wastewater
treatment.
- Bio-Tourism: Environmentally friendly tourism industry, suggestions for
cultural tourism, environmental hotel management, water conservation,
recycling.
- Common Agricultural Policy: A simplified text for non-experts who wish to
become acquainted with the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
- Food and Agriculture: Agriculture and the environment, pollution loads,
GMOs, water and soils, chemicals and biotechnology, environmental policy.
- People with a Disability in Modern Society: Improving equity and quality of
life for the disabled, accessibility, information, assistive technology, sports,
Paralympic Games.
-

Bio-economics

It is clear that there is an intimate relationship between the environment and

development. In the past, industries were the greatest polluters. Economic actors are
therefore key players in the drive to tie business to environmental protection.
Preserving the wealth and beauty of the natural world, securing the health of the
earth’s population, providing fair rules of trade, and guaranteeing equal educational
opportunities for every country in the world can be a source of genuine profit, both
monetary and social. The quality of life issue needs to assume top priority, along with
biopolicy and education. Moreover, the concept of “profit” has to be redefined to
encompass elements which constitute a genuine profit for society: culture, internal
wealth, and preservation of natural resources, better health and the protection of
biodiversity, as a measurable part of a nation’s prosperity. The participation of economic
leaders is vital to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals.

The world is experiencing a range of hurdles with regard to seeking a compromise

between the legitimate needs of development and fragile environmental balances. Poor
countries overuse their resource base and thereby, their natural environment. Water
development projects often damage the downstream ecology. The sale of raw materials
in over saturated market leads to falling prices, which in turn reduces net proceeds.
Because of such conditions, appeals to protect the environment are ignored or often
met with derision. The conflict between the industrial countries’ ongoing economic
growth and the developing countries’ undisputed need for growth, on the one hand
and, the negative environmental effects of intensive energy and raw material utilization
on the other cannot be solved within the present framework.

Environmentally sound guidelines may be discussed and arrogated at the negotiating

table, but in real life, these directives too often do not reach national decision-making.
An approach combining the consensus and consent of the people, as well as that of
governments and international institutions, is essential in order to prevent economies
from expanding without due concern for the environmental repercussions of
uncontrolled growth. Corporations and entrepreneurs can work together to tackle these
challenges and tread lightly on the planet in their business endeavors. At same time, a
grassroots mobilization and public participation, on both the local and international
levels, can enhance the establishment of bios-supporting economic strategies and
initiatives worldwide.
Eradicating poverty and fighting hunger

Global agriculture today faces a major challenge: feeding more people using less land,
without further degradation of natural resources and the environment. The Millennium
Development Goals call for cutting by one half, the number of people who suffer from
hunger by 2015. The industrialized model of agriculture cannot meet this challenge, due
to its excessive reliance on chemical inputs and the pattern of environmental
degradation and loss of biodiversity to which it contributes. To meet the challenge of
feeding the world’s hungry, society must focus upon reforming political institutions,
creating appropriate technologies, promoting cultural capital and enabling institutional
frameworks that favor policy for environmental protection. Key to these goals is the
increased use of participatory research methods, proper agrarian policies and local
capacity building.

Consumers, however, must ultimately be the driving force for environmentally viable
economic development. Poverty and food security are social and economic issues, but
are also the root of many environmental problems in developing countries. As world
population expands in these regions, the ability to provide basic necessities is
threatened. In the 21st century, agricultural policy will have to complement
development policies and programs with the aim of increasing food production and
personal incomes without further degrading local environments.

Food security – providing all the people with sufficient food at all times to meet their
daily dietary needs for a healthy and productive life – is an essential precondition for
economic and social development in every country. It depends on the availability of and
access to food, and on proper food use. Achieving food security is more than just an
issue of food production, nutrition, and food aid. Hunger is a severe manifestation of
poverty, and alleviating it depends in the long run on sustainable and broad-based
economic growth and income generation. In most countries, these depend on a
productive, competitive, and environmentally sound agricultural sector. To achieve
these conditions, underdeveloped countries must invest in rural areas to strengthen
agriculture, the food system, and infrastructure, and to restore and conserve critical
natural resources for agricultural production. This requires both public and private
investment, and the political will to implement the necessary changes.

Bio-legislation

The central concept of bio-legislation is to link the protection of bios rights to the
defense of the right of future generations. The interdependence between human rights
and human obligations is vital in this context. Rights correspond to obligations, and, in
addition to the existence of human rights, there exists a series of human obligations
concerning our common responsibility to preserve the environment and improve quality
of life on a global level. The defense of human rights should not be regarded as an issue
unrelated to the protection of other forms of life on our planet. Health hazards arising
from environmental degradation and pollution, desertification, depletion of natural
resources, water scarcity and famine are a threat to human species. To secure our rights
and to prevent disaster we urgently need to accept the responsibility of reversing
negative trends and protecting our natural heritage.

There has been a growing a recognition that environmental justice cannot be achieved
without effective international legislation dedicated to addressing environmental issues.
After well-documented environmental disasters, such legislation is not a mere aspiration
but indeed a necessity. The integration of the environment into all aspects of global
policy and the issue of environmental liability are therefore priorities.

Bio- diplomacy and defense for life

Today, the world faces an unprecedented crisis of environmental degradation. The

continuation of life on our planet is threatened by global climate change, by hunger and
disease, by the destruction of the forests and biodiversity, and other forms of
environmental degradation. Yet the nations of the world are too pre-occupied with
international conflicts and preparations for war to mount an adequate response to the
environmental crisis. Future generations should not be burdened with the results of
today’s negligence. The convergence of the aspirations of sovereign states and civil
society into a spirit of cooperation in long-term environmental policy and action can
overcome the current climate of competition and unending conflict and lead to
universal harmony and peace among the peoples of the world. This is the vision of bio-
diplomacy.

Bio-diplomacy – international cooperation in environmental protection – is a concept

that was pioneered by B.I.O. at a time when civic leaders, international organizations
and the world community as whole had not yet fully realized the urgency of adopting
common environmental policy as whole had not yet fully realized the urgency of
adopting common environmental policy. Bio-diplomacy focuses on the interdependence
of all forms of life, and calls upon diplomats and other people of influence to engage in a
collective endeavor in defense of the environment. Joint efforts to protect the
environment can boost international relations and act as a bridge between global
communities at the national and local levels. At the same time, bio-diplomacy actively
supports efforts to maintain biological and cultural diversity and seeks to improve
human relations and to attain the goal of world peace by replacing current diplomatic
attitudes with a complete international and intercultural perspective.

Defense for life must become a priority in every facet of our lives. The conversion of war
regimes to programs for the preservation of the preservation of the environment would
guarantee a better future. Military aircraft, instead of dropping bombs, could be used to
survey the state of the environment and to drop seeds for trees, restoring devastated
areas and benefiting the entire planet. Naval destroyers could be used to clean to
oceans and shorelines of pollution. Hospital ships could be deployed off the coasts of
Africa and South Asia, treating the sick and hungry. Such steps would be the best
response to poverty and deprivation. The environment, as a common point of
reference, can bring all peoples of the world together, in harmony and coexistence.”

The following theoretical introduction is from the collection of researches called,

”Biopolicy: The Life Sciences and Public Policy,” edited by Somit and Peterson.

“Biopolicy, in simplest terms, is concerned with the relevance of biology and the life
sciences for public policy. This can take a number of forms. One is the relevance of
evidence in the life sciences that can help to inform policy decisions. For example, from
an evolutionary perspective, laws against prostitution are probably doomed to fail, given
the impelling urge of males to engage in sexual (reproductive) behavior (McGuire &
Gruter, 2003). Another implication is that biology can affect the behavior of policy
makers and in that manner, affect policy decisions. Finally, biotechnology can be a focus
 of policy making. The development of medical information technology is a classic
example. (Funke, 2009).”

Which of the following statement would best describe what the article "Playing god" is about?

-The article talks about a wider view of opinions about ethics in science