It will be interesting to see exactly which customs the Vatican is going to allow from the past rich five centuries of Anglican worship, life and thought.
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science & technologyScience is a social enterprise, influenced by the wider culture and values of its time. We explore the tension between natural and human sciences, and science’s impact on society.
Was the recent accident at the Sayano-Sushensky power station a disaster waiting to happen?
What conditions allow user-generated content to create quality? Listen to Carl Djerassi's talk with Tony Curzon Price
What conditions allow user-generated content to create quality? Listen to Carl Djerassi's talk with Tony Curzon Price
Aubrey de Grey believes that a 60-year-old alive today may become the first 1,000-year-old human. And he is serious. Paul Miller & James Wilsdon profile a scorned but calmly defiant pioneer of the science of biogerontology.
In September 2003, the spacecraft Galileo disintegrated in Jupiter’s dense atmosphere, after fourteen years of measuring the planet’s satellites. A success? Yes, but also a cautionary tale of how the media misrepresents scientific work and achievement.
The Iraq Survey Group has just published its interim report on the Saddam regime’s weapons programmes and capabilities. Ron Manley, a chemical weapons expert who oversaw the United Nations inspection operations in Iraq in the early 1990s, assesses it.
The promise of micro-technology as a tool of social progress is balanced by fear of its use to reduce freedom and widen global divisions. The benign if flawed vision of E.F. Schumacher still holds lessons for how a better social application of science can serve the interests of the world’s poor and the planet’s sustainability.
The principle of genetic testing of entire populations carries the great risk of putting the integrity of the individual in the service of commercial interests. The ensuing struggle for control of information cannot be resolved on the national level alone. Within the European Union, the tension between the internal market in services and harmonisation of national legislation reveals the urgent need for a European policy on genetic information.
Could GeneWatch UK be exactly the kind of ‘genetic union’ Mike Fortun advocated as a vehicle for ‘genomic solidarity’? Here, its deputy director focuses on the controversial Biobank UK, and questions its aims, cost, science and commerce. She makes the case for a democratic debate which alerts the public to the moral and political issues it raises, and helps find a way of reconciling scientific progress with citizens’ rights.
In both the United States and Britain, there is passionate contest over the legitimacy and honesty of government attempts to justify war with Iraq – especially claims of the existence of active Iraqi chemical weapons programmes. In an interview of profound insight, the man responsible for chemical weapons destruction operations in Iraq from 1991-94 talks to Anthony Barnett and Caspar Henderson of openDemocracy about the true extent of Iraq’s capacity to produce, store and deliver weapons of mass destruction.
How can the experiences of Iceland and Estonia in establishing national Genes Banks contribute to a global understanding of genes and ownership? An American life sciences historian recommends adopting the model of labour unions as a way to inform donors and public about all the variables of research and consent. Could Britain, with its strong union history and recent creation of the UK Biobank, be a pioneer of such ‘genomic solidarity’?
The Head of Information of the Estonian Genome Project Foundation replies to Tiina Tasmuth’s critique and argues that those with ‘dissenting views’ are few while the majority of Estonians support the country’s Gene Bank project.
The rapid spread and social impact of the Sars virus make it a global political story as well as a medical one. But it is mediated differently across the world. openDemocracy’s world media monitor maps the coverage – from startling openness in the Vietnamese press, to the independence factor in Taiwan – amid worldwide uncertainties about security, business and travel.
Part 1 of The new information ecosystem: cultures of anarchy and closure
The GM potato, far from being the answer to India’s food security as has recently been argued, would displace the richest source of traditional protein in the sub-continent’s diet. Rather, it would intensify the problems already being suffered by the country’s small producers as a result of trade liberalisation policies.
The Estonian Genome Project Foundation tried to build on the experience of Iceland’s innovative, contested genetic research project (analysed by Skúli Sigurdsson in openDemocracy). Did the small Baltic state learn from Iceland’s mistakes? A research fellow and close observer of the Estonian initiative tells the fascinating, melancholy story – which challenges the corporate interests involved to respond.
The World Health Organisation has been criticised for excessive caution over outbreaks of Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in Canada and elsewhere. But, argues Robert Walgate in an investigation of the key players, their action is entirely justified. The great remaining concern is not for countries with adequate health systems, but for what would happen if the virus runs loose in the poorest developing countries.
Marie Curie and her husband Pierre are back to set an example for European identity. Sarah Dry pictures them in her new biography “Curie” and discusses their lives and work with fellow historian of science, Pierre Radvanyi.
International efforts to limit the proliferation of dangerous weapons have focused recently on questions of verification. But there may be a deeper problem in the way that the spread of destructive power across the world is fuelled by the subjection of science and technology to political ambition.
Malaria kills a million infants every year. The Tropical Disease Research Programme shows that ‘home-based’ management of malaria can save hundreds of thousands of lives at low cost. It suggests a global health care paradigm, where people without medical training play a far greater role in their own primary health care.
Achilles Skordas recently argued in openDemocracy that legalising nuclear weapons could help ensure they are never used. Now, a former Naval Commander makes the opposite case: not only must the use of nuclear weapons remain illegal, but the dangerous current crisis offers an opportunity to push for their complete abolition.
What is the best means of defence against attack by nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons? A former member of the US military offers a practical, purposeful guide for his fellow-citizens. The ingredients of survival: calmness, common sense - and canned food.
Five years ago, the company deCODE made the first bid to set up a comprehensive, medical records database, in Iceland. A leading activist explores the ways in which the equation of medical data with economic promise can lead to the erosion of truth, raising the key issue of presumed versus informed consent and other challenges for any democratic society.
The slogan ‘No to war: No to Saddam!’ leaves the world polarised and incapable of concerted action. What would it take to reconfigure this crippling divide so that a clear choice helps the world move forward? Could the European Union’s foreign policy coordinator, Javier Solana, lead the way?
Recorded use of weapons of mass destruction goes back to the Middle Ages. Whenever the rules of war fell into disregard, the target moved from the enemy’s soldiers to his people. The weapon of choice against a civilian enemy became biological, then chemical and nuclear, as soon as scientific advancement and technological development made them available. This timeline aims to give a broad overview, in time as well as space, of the development of WMDs as a lengthy prelude to recent events in Iraq.
The use of nuclear weapons, the ultimate nightmare of contemporary warfare, has never been properly judged as lawful or not in international law. This ‘gap’ is the starting point for a subtle, provocative and challenging argument: could a right to use nuclear weapons in law be the best defence against their use in practice?
Of all weapons of mass destruction biological weapons are the hardest to detect. Only a miniscule amount of agent is required to have the same deadly large-scale effect as chemical or nuclear weapons. None the less, at this point in time UNMOVIC is looking for them in Iraq. The political and scientific framework of their mission is outlined here.
Climate change: the history of the 21st century starts with scientific understanding of what is really happening. In its light, what choices can and should we make?
A world-renowned Brazilian author offers an original perspective on the Iraqi weapons crisis. Its solution may not lie in Baghdad, or even under the US president’s bed. Rather, take a Security Council mandate to George Bush’s psychoanalyst.
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