High-risk research can’t be kept secret forever

May 3, 2012 by Joerg Heber 1 Comment

Should scientific journals publish high-risk scientific research that could in the wrong hands be disastrous for us all? Although it might be sensible to keep certain results secret for a while, I argue that eventually it does not make sense to withhold results in the long-term.

What is this all about? Yesterday saw the publication in Nature of the controversial mutant bird flu paper. Bird flu (H5N1) is highly lethal, more than 50% of those known to be infected have died from it, although such figures need to be treated with caution. There might be plenty of more benign cases that went undetected so this is more of an upper limit. Still, this is scary. The good news – so far at least – is that H5N1 in the wild doesn’t spread easily between humans and unlike other forms of flu does require physical contact.

Researchers in the US/Japan and separately in the Netherlands have now studied whether H5N1 can mutate to become highly contagious, which would be a real nightmare scenario: a lethal virus that transmits easily. And as these two papers show, using ferrets this requires only a few genetic mutations. What at least the US/Japanese group has done (the other paper has not been published yet, see below), is to use genetic variants from the highly contagious swine flu virus (H1N1) to modify the H5N1 virus accordingly. These genetic modifications, however, have not been successful on their own. It is interesting what happened then: after only two further rounds of infections of ferrets the virus mutated by itself to become highly contagious! Ed Yong has more details of this on his blog. But I like to emphasize that the contagious H5N1 variant as published now appears much less lethal than the original virus.

The publication of both papers has been withheld for months out of fear such knowledge could be used by terrorists  or other mad individuals to create a deadly pandemic. Given also a reversal of opinion from a US biosecurity board,  the US/Japan paper has now appeared in Nature, and the Dutch paper is expected to appear in Science shortly. Eventually, the decision was in favour of publication, because knowledge of the mutations and their effect on the biology of the virus are so crucial to combat this disease and to possibly develop vaccines. It is not terrorists we need to be afraid of, such mutations can easily happen in nature any moment. In an interview with the BBC, Nature‘s Editor-in-Chief Philip Campbell further rationalises the decision to publish.

Other than not publishing such research at all, two further options were debated: redacting the papers, or to make them available to selected trustworthy scientists only. In an editorial, Nature has now declined such possibilities out of principle and announced this important publishing policy: Read more…

Publishing, Science Policy
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The economics of science

April 9, 2012 by Joerg Heber 0 Comments

Why is it that we do science? The answer most scientists may provide to this question is that their curiosity that drove them towards a career in science. The urge to learn and to discover. For most, this curiosity and passion for science is so strong that they take into account long hours and salaries that are lower than those in other professions. But such passion does of course not mean that there cannot be a quantitative study of the way science works, and of those doing science. Indeed, this is what Paula Stephan from Georgia State University undertakes in her book, How Economics Shapes Science. We can understand a lot by applying economic theory to understand the way we do science. This is not only important to reach a better way of doing science, but it might also lead to a better appreciation of the benefits that come from doing science. How well public funds are spent, and how important science is for all of us. The returns on investment, to use an economic term.

One of the first question the book addresses is of course to understand why are people doing research? What drives them in addition to the obvious curiosity? What’s the economic currency that makes a career in science lucrative? Money of course, let’s face it, is one reason. Some scientists really do get rich from all the startups and patent revenues  – and Stephan provides good examples. But of course, that’s just one aspect. A stronger driver perhaps are fame and recognition. Making an important discovery can create a historic legacy that is unrivalled in comparison to other professions. We know the names of famous scientists even after centuries but not nearly as well those of successful business men.

The points that Stephan make here are all interesting and plausible. Indeed, my impression is that economics already knows a lot about the people doing science. The salaries of scientists, the economic costs of doing a PhD (basically, in most cases you lose out financially). International migration patterns. The increasing number of people studying science, and consequently the fact that fewer and fewer of the scientists we train have a long-term perspective in academia. Academia no longer educates mainly for itself, but for others. There is a lot of data on that and the people working in science, and this book gives a great summary. Read more…

Books, Science Policy

Decisions, decisions

March 4, 2012 by Joerg Heber 0 Comments

Neuroscience is certainly not among the usual topics for this blog, but I just read Jonah Lehrer‘s book How We Decide, and want to briefly highlight it here. Although do take my comments with caution, I am no expert in this field, so this should not be seen as a qualified review.

In How We Decide Lehrer writes about the neuroscience of decision making. Whether it is an airline pilot averting disaster, a quarterback throwing passes at the Super Bowl, or simply any of us buying strawberry jam or a new sofa – our brain takes decisions all the time. Commonly we tend to think that the best decisions are the rational ones. Look at all available options, ponder over the pros and cons and then take a decision. Well, not only would this be a painstaking process (the book describes such a case), it furthermore isn’t even a good thing to shut out emotions entirely. Psychopaths that lack any emotional response can do terrible things. And as tests with people tasting strawberry jams have shown, the more rational people are trying to be about it, the worse their choice gets because then they’re trying to include factors other than taste. On the other hand, yielding solely to your emotions can lead to pretty bad choices, too. Coming back home from shopping might be one of those moments to realize the penalty of taking too emotional decisions…

What fascinated me about Lehrer’s book is that it is very good at explaining the underlying science of decision making, how the prefrontal cortex balances emotional and rational thoughts. It illustrates horrible cases where this decision-making capability has gone wrong, but also describes cases of heroic and successful decisions, by fire fighters, airline pilots, poker players and so on. It was interesting to me to read how powerful and often correct underlying emotional feelings are, and consequently how important it is to consider these in the decision-making process. And then there are the moral implications of decisions, and the inconsistency at which we often digest information. How easy it is for us to dismiss objective conflicts with existing beliefs, ignoring obvious facts. Politics is an area where this is widespread. And I suppose that’s why the first impression is so important when meeting someone new, as it shapes our emotional response.

Either way, understanding the scientific aspect of decision making is certainly a much more informative read than most literature on this topic. So if you haven’t heard about the book yet, take a look. The book has been published back in 2009 already – yes, I am that far behind in my reading – but Lehrer has soon another book coming out, Imagine, which is on the way creativity works. In my view, after reading How We Decide the decision-making process of whether to give this latest book of his a try should be an easy one…

Reference:
(Note: in the UK the book is called The Decisive Moment, and that’s the ebook version that I read)

Lehrer, Jonah. How We Decide. Houghton Mifflin Co, 2009. 302 pages. ISBN: 9780618620111

Books

Transistors reach the single atom limit

February 19, 2012 by Joerg Heber 1 Comment

A scanning tunnelling microscope image of a single-atom transistor during fabrication. The pink colours represent the areas where a single phosphorus atom (centre) as well as phosphorus source and drain contacts will be placed. The gate contacts that control the transistor action from the side are not visible here. Credit: Martin Fuechsle

When Gordon Moore made his observation in 1965 that the number of transistors integrated on a single silicon chip is doubling roughly every two years, the only logical end point for such a trend would be a transistor made from a single atom. This point has now been reached. Writing in Nature Nanotechnology, Michelle Simmons from the University of New South Wales in Sydney and colleagues report a single-atom transistor, the world’s smallest, on a silicon chip. The transistor is based on current flowing through a single atom of phosphorus embedded in a silicon wafer. Read more…

Condensed Matter Physics, Nanotechnology, Quantum physics
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Why fancy illustrations are so wrong

February 13, 2012 by Joerg Heber 8 Comments

A MoS2 FET

A beautifully looking graphics, isn't it? But there is a major caveat. As its creators would agree, this image is only a very crude depiction of reality and shouldn't be used for any scientific purpose... (c) LANES, EPFL

Nanotechnology is a wonderful science that has pushed functional devices to sizes not far away from the size of atoms. So small that if you want to image such structures, even a conventional electron microscope wouldn’t get you far. There is no way to directly see what is going on. This is a common problem. Take condensed matter physics – it is impossible to directly visualize the various interactions and events taking place inside a crystal. Or photonics, where complex light fields interact with tiny nanostructures in ways that can be really difficult to visualize, especially in real-time.

So, no wonder that artificial graphics often serve to illustrate a scientific concept or a certain device. And with the prevalence of advanced computer graphics programs such illustrations are becoming more and more fancy. In my opinion, this is a dangerous trend, because such graphics can distort the underlying science they try to depict. Read more…

Condensed Matter Physics, Nanotechnology, Photonics, Science Communication
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From ‘abbreviations’ to ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’

February 12, 2012 by Joerg Heber 0 Comments

Henry Petroski is an engineer who has written extensively about his profession. So it is no surprise that over the past decades he has amassed a broad range of facts on engineering, some of which while certainly interesting may not fit into the usual books. For example, did you know that hard hats were first worn during the construction of the Hoover Dam? Or that for the construction of the latter about 2.5 million cubic metres of concrete were used?

Well, as with so many other facts, Wikipedia would also give you the answer to these questions. But that’s not the point. What Petroski has now done is to collect and curate interesting facts related engineering, and published them in alphabetical order as “An Engineer’s Alphabet“.

There are plenty of gems to discover in the book. Many of them I would never have thought to even look up on the internet without being prompted, and in that respect the book is inspiring. I certainly enjoyed browsing through the text. Written by an American professor, it is more American Dream than Steampunk in character, although to be fair Isambard Brunel does appear in eight different entries. Herbert Hoover thirteen times. Robert Noyce only once, in passing.

The best way to go about reading this book is simply do flip through it and to read here and there. Or, to use the indispensable index at the end. Indeed, if £18.99 or $21.99 should be a bit too much of an expense it might make sense to consider the various ebook options, with the highly useful possibility of searching the book. On the Kindle or the Nook prices are about half of the hardcover ones. It doesn’t seem to be available on iBooks. Either way, if you love engineering and are interested in broadening in particular your historic knowledge of the profession, this book might be for you.

Reference:

Petroski, Henry. An Engineer’s Alphabet. Cambridge University Press, 2011. 268 pages. ISBN: 9781107015067. $21.99 / £18.99

Books, Engineering
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