Responsible Nanotechnology

Universal Declaration, or not?

Today, December 10, marks the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Spearheaded by former U.S. first lady and U.N. delegate Eleanor Roosevelt, the UDHR guaranteed the political and civic rights of all people, including the right to freedom from torture, slavery, poverty, homelessness and other forms of oppression.

It's been 60 years, and we are still far from living up to this worthy "universal" declaration, even -- especially? -- in the U.S. Will we ever get there?

Perhaps it's an idealistic fantasy to expect global acceptance and application of these principles. But in 1948, they were adopted by a unanimous vote in the U.N. So, why should we not hold all nations, including our own, up to these basic standards?

Mike Treder

Drexler's "Metamodern"

Eric Drexler has a new blog -- Metamodern: The Trajectory of Technology -- that has just gone live to the general public.

Here is what he tells us to expect:

My main focus will be on research progress, largely in nanoscience and technology, and often with a special perspective: how current research is applicable to the development of advanced nanosystems. I’ve found that a system-building perspective can highlight research opportunities that might otherwise be missed. I’ll sometimes suggest specific research objectives that seem practical, valuable, and ready for work.

However, Metamodern isn’t intended to be “a blog about nanotechnology”; its scope includes broader issues involving technologies with world-changing potential. For example, looking well downstream in technology development, I will sketch the requirements for large-scale systems able to restore the atmosphere to its pre-industrial composition. Closer to hand, social software and the computational infrastructure of our society are high on the list.

Check it out!

Mike Treder

New York Holiday Tradition

Naming a President

Thought for the day:

• In 1860, would voters in the United States have elected a President with an Irish last name? Almost certainly not.


• In 1900, would voters in the United States have elected a President with an Italian last name? Almost certainly not.


• In 1940, would voters in the United States have elected a President with a Jewish last name? Almost certainly not.


• In 1980, would voters in the United States have elected a President with an African last name? Almost certainly not.


• In 2008, would voters in the United States elect a President with an Arabic last name? Almost certainly not.

Does this represent progress, or an embarrassing backwardness?

Mike Treder

Banning Chinese Products

From the news today:

At least 12 countries -- from Indonesia to Colombia -- have banned Chinese dairy products amid fears over a widening tainted milk scandal that has killed four Chinese babies and sickened thousands of others. Worries that compromised ingredients may have contaminated other foods like yogurts, cookies and candies have led several more countries, from Canada to Australia, to step up testing of Chinese imports.

From CRN's nanotechnology scenario project:

As soon as it was clear that the Rot was showing up in cargo, collapse was unavoidable. All nations called a quarantine on goods shipped from China. China, suddenly losing its export dollars, called in trillions of dollars in debt from the USA. The US dollar crashed. The credit rating of the United States went through the floor. The US lost nearly one fifth of its imports through the drying up of Chinese goods. Another 40% of US imports came from Mexico and Canada, both of whom were hit by the pandemic, just not as hard as the US.

An interesting, if troubling, correlation...

Funding for Independent Researchers

We received in the mail a flyer [PDF] from the European Research Council about new grants they are offering that total almost half a billion US dollars. This looks like an excellent opportunity for qualified researchers from any country who have an innovative idea and need funding to explore or develop it.

Grants are available for "early career independent researchers" working in "any field of science, engineering, and scholarship." Proposals can be submitted in three broad areas:

• Physical Sciences and Engineering (by 29 Oct)
• Social Sciences and Humanities (by 19 Nov)
• Life Sciences (by 10 Dec)

Good luck to those who proceed!

Gorillas Gone Wild

Great news this morning on National Public Radio:

Gorilla experts with the Wildlife Conservation Society say they've made a spectacular find in isolated forests of the Republic of Congo: a large group of previously undiscovered western lowland gorillas. The animals are critically endangered.

Researchers say the first wildlife census of the area has revealed that 125,000 western lowland gorillas are now thriving in the country's northern forests, a number that is twice some estimates for the worldwide population.

"We have found the mother lode of western lowland gorillas," said Steven Sanderson, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which led the research. "We had no idea that these great densities, that is numbers per square kilometer [of the gorillas], were possible in central Congo."

The discovery comes even as other gorillas living in central Africa are being pushed toward extinction.

 A family of western lowland gorillas and a sitatunga share a feeding patch.

Why are gorillas so endangered? Here's the beginning of one analysis from Aaron Scott:

Unlike mountain gorillas, which number in the hundreds, the western lowland gorilla population is still large enough and inaccessible enough that conservationists do not know its size with any real accuracy.

What conservationists do know is that ape populations are plummeting, decimated by the combined effects of the Ebola virus, commercial hunting and deforestation. The gorillas' ability to recover remains in question, despite recent research led by the Wildlife Conservation Society.

"Ebola has resulted in dramatic local declines in gorilla populations in Congo and Gabon in the last two decades, with population crashes of more than 95 percent being recorded," said Emma Stokes, a scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

"Given the long life spans and slow reproductive cycles of great apes, recent estimates suggest it may take up to 120 years to recover from population crashes of this magnitude," Stokes said.

Read more at the bottom of this page.

CRN works at researching the context in which molecular manufacturing may be developed, drivers that might hasten or slow its emergence, and factors that could make the technology either safer or more dangerous. As we do so, we try to keep one eye open for "wild cards" that might take us by surprise.

Will worries about animal extinction play such a role? Probably not, but the world keeps changing and we need to stay abreast of the latest ideas and discoveries in many areas.

Mike Treder

Damn, Damn, Damn.

Call me a bleeding heart, if you will, or a tree hugger, or whatever -- but this news just makes me terribly sad:

The Caribbean monk seal, also known as the West Indian seal, will be remembered only by drawings. On Friday, the U.S. declared it extinct.

After five years of futile efforts to find or confirm sightings of any Caribbean monk seals — even just one — the U.S. government on Friday announced that the species is officially extinct and the only seal to vanish due to human causes.

"Humans left the Caribbean monk seal population unsustainable after overhunting them," Kyle Baker, a biologist for the National Marine Fisheries Service, said in a statement. "Unfortunately, this led to their demise and labels the species as the only seal to go extinct from human causes."

A Caribbean monk seal — the only subtropical seal native to the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico — had not been seen for more than 50 years. The last confirmed sighting was in 1952 at Seranilla Bank, between Jamaica and the Yucatan Peninsula.

The United States listed the species as endangered in 1967. The fisheries service will now have the species removed from the list.

Sigh...

Mike Treder

Quote for the Ages

From an anonymous commenter on another blog:

Tomorrow I will go to the African American cemetery outside of Chicago where my great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, neighbors, and my mother and father are buried. And I will tell them that they were right -- that if we studied hard, worked hard, kept the faith, fought for justice, prayed, that this day would come. 

And it has.

Burmese Cyclone Relief Efforts

Here's an important story from today's New York Times:

KUN WAN, Myanmar — They paddle for hours on the stormy river, or carry their sick parents on their backs through the mud and rain, traveling for miles to reach the one source of help they can rely on: Buddhist monks.

At a makeshift clinic in this village near Bogale, an Irrawaddy Delta town 75 miles southwest of Yangon, hundreds of villagers left destitute by Cyclone Nargis arrive each day seeking the assistance they have not received from the government or international aid workers. . .

The May 3 cyclone left more than 134,000 dead or missing and 2.4 million survivors grappling with hunger and homelessness. This week, some of them who had taken shelter at monasteries or gathered on roadsides were being displaced again, this time by the junta, which wants them to stop being an embarrassment to the government and return to their villages “for reconstruction.” On Friday, United Nations officials said that refugees were also being evicted from government-run camps.

The survivors have little left of their homes and find themselves almost as exposed to the elements as their mud-coated water buffaloes. Meanwhile, outside aid is slow to arrive, with foreign aid agencies gaining only incremental access to the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta and the government impounding cars of some private Burmese donors. . .

With tears welling in her eyes, Thi Dar, 45, pressed her hands together in respect before the first monk she saw at the clinic here and told her story. The eight other members of her family were killed in the cyclone. She no longer had anyone to talk with and felt suicidal. The other day, word reached her village that a monk had opened a clinic six miles upriver. So on Thursday, she got up early and caught the first boat.

“In my entire life, I have never seen a hospital,” she said. “So I came to the monk. I don’t know where the government office is. I can’t buy anything in the market because I lost everything to the cyclone.”

Nay Lin, 36, a volunteer doctor at the clinic, one of the six emergency clinic shelters Sitagu Sayadaw has opened in the delta, said: “Our patients suffer from infected wounds, abdominal pains and vomiting. They also need counseling for mental trauma, anxiety and depression.”

While the government has been criticized for obstructing the relief effort, the Buddhist monastery, the traditional center of moral authority in most villages here, proved to be the one institution people could rely on for help.

You can make a real difference for victims of the cyclone by visiting Avaaz.org and donating to the monks' relief effort.