From the category archives:

Structure of knowledge

Video of my Oxford nanotechnology lecture

December 7, 2011

I recently gave the Inaugural Lecture for the Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology at the Oxford Martin School, and the lecture video is now available.*
The talk describes the application of physical law and exploratory engineering to studies of the future potential of nanotechnology.
Summary here: News & Research Highlights.

* With thanks to Stuart Armstrong, [...]

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I’ve moved to Oxford

October 22, 2011

Rosa and I now work at Oxford’s Martin School in the new Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology. (My Oxford Martin School bio here; Rosa’s here.) We plan to be at Oxford while I finish work on my new book, Radical Abundance, to be published by PublicAffairs.
On November 10th I will deliver the inaugural [...]

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My next book: Radical Abundance, 2013

July 21, 2011

I’m now working on a new book, Radical Abundance, scheduled for publication in 2013 by PublicAffairs. The book has a wide scope in both its content and intended audience, addressing scientists, a general reading audience, and thought leaders in the policy arena.
Radical Abundance will integrate and extend several themes that I’ve touched on in Metamodern, [...]

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Science and engineering at NIH

May 10, 2011

In response to (yet another) proposal to reorganize and redirect the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Russ Altman writes in Nature that
…it is crucial to separate the engine of discovery from the engine of application. Discovery is stochastic and opportunistic; application is the stuff of engineers. That is why attempts to over-engineer discovery fail and [...]

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The Quantum Information Science
and Technology Roadmap
(for example…)

April 24, 2011

Roadmaps are crucial in developing new technology platforms — in other words, for the coordinated development of complete sets of compatible technologies that, taken together, support system-level technologies at a new level. Whether formal or informal, roadmaps address a fundamental problem of risk and mutual expectations in technology development: the problem of giving all necessary [...]

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Good and popular

January 20, 2011

  I’ll get back to posting more regularly, but meanwhile, here are a few of the most popular posts to date:

How to Learn About Everything
…the title above isn’t “how to learn everything”, but “how to learn about everything”. The distinction I have in mind is between knowing the inside of a topic in deep detail [...]

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Nano drug carrier (!!!)

December 8, 2010

This news just in:
A ‘buckyball’ — a spherical molecule made up of 60 carbon atoms — has been turned into a vial just big enough to hold a single water molecule….
The authors say that uses for the vial could include acting as a carrier for drugs in the body.
(News item)
As The Onion might ask, What [...]

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A meta-meta-analysis from the CDC

November 30, 2010

As a meta-oriented post, Metamodern is pleased to report a meta-meta-analysis.
In this month’s issue of the CDC-sponsored journal Preventing Chronic Disease, we find, published as a “Systematic Review”:
Quality of Systematic Reviews of Observational Nontherapeutic Studies
…Of the 145 systematic reviews we found, fewer than half met each quality criterion; 49% reported study flow, 27% assessed [...]

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For the next Nobel Prize in Medicine,
I nominate…

November 3, 2010

During a three-month test across eight hospitals, several continents, and almost 4,000 patients, a new technology reduced serious surgical complications by 36% and deaths by almost 50% — in raw numbers, over 150 cases of severe harm and nearly 30 patient deaths.
This performance was demonstrated in the spring of 2008 with the prototype [...]

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Why “Science Policy”
is a mistake from the start

October 29, 2010

Science and engineering drive the great technological revolutions of our time, and it might be helpful to have some idea of what they are — for example, to recognize that they are fundamentally different. Colin Macilwain offers a guide for the perplexed:
Science is mainly concerned with unearthing knowledge. Engineering seeks to deliver working solutions to [...]

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Chemists deserve more credit (2):
   The 150th anniversary
    of the first international science conference

September 10, 2010

In this week’s Chemical & Engineering News, the American Chemical Society marks the 150th anniversary of the world’s first scientific conference — yes, a chemistry conference — held Sept. 3, 1860, in Karlsruhe, Germany.

August Kekulé Atomic scientist,conference organizer

Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz The guy who gets the credit

August Kekulé suggested idea of holding a conference, [...]

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Metacognition, then and now
(a crisp example)

September 2, 2010

As a follow-on to recent posts here and here, I’d like to offer a crisp example of the standards of cognitive reflection that were taught in the once-upon-a-time United States: a sample from Studies in Civics (1897), a high school textbook.
TO STUDENTS.
You will notice in chapter one that at the close of nearly every paragraph [...]

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