science & technology

An alchemy of symbolic power has elevated economics beyond its reach (archive)

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

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.

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’?

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.

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.