Nerd-in-Chief Grilled on SF

John Hodgman grills President Obama, the apparent nerd-in-chief, about his SF knowledge at the Radio & Television Correspondents Dinner.






If you can't see the embedded video, click the link for Part 1 and Part 2.

(I thought the Dune questions were easy, but about Conan I know nothing)

Tags:science fiction, Barak Obama, John+Hodgman

Astronomy Science Fiction: Now with Biology!

When the subject of science in science fiction comes up, it seems like many people immediately think of physics and astronomy and, of course, astrophysics. That's not particularly surprising - from its early beginnings SF has featured exploration of other planets, stars and the vast spaces between them.

The short story anthology Diamonds in the Sky is an excellent continuation of that tradition. Edited by science fiction writer and astronomer Mike Brotherton, and funded in part by the National Science Foundation, each story in the anthology features a particular aspect of astronomy and includes an afterword about the science. And, being biased towards my own science background, it's nifty that several of the stories have some biology in them too.

So here are links to those stories, with a wee bit about their relevance to bioscience.

The Moon is a Harsh Pig by Gerald M. Weinberg
Astronomy topics: Phases of the Moon, Misconceptions about Astronomy
Biology topic: Effect of the moon on behavior.
Additional reading: Pull of the Moon: Tales of the Moon's effects on animal behaviour are not just moonshine"

Jaiden's Weaver by Mary Robinette Kowal
Astronomy topic: Planetary Rings
Biology topic: life on a ringed planet

Squish by Daniel M. Hoyt
Astronomy topic: The Solar System
Biology topic: Uploading consciousness into new bodies.
Additional reading: my old post on Charlie Stross's short story "Lobsters" (which also has a bit of astronomy)

Approaching Perimelasma by Geoffrey A. Landis
Astronomy topic: Black Holes
Biology topic: Effect of black holes on the body
Additional information: Neil DeGrasse Tyson on "Death by Black Hole" (YouTube)

To read all the stories, download the Diamonds in the Sky anthology.

Image from Alexander Jamieson: 'A Celestial Atlas Comprising a Systematic Display of the Heavens in a Series of Thirty Maps' (via BibliOdyssey)
Tags:science fiction, biology, astronomy

Gregory Benford on our Dynamist Biological Century

I was browsing through some of the reprinted (if that's the right word) articles and fiction on the Fantasy & Science Fiction web site, and came across an interesting article by SF author/astrophysicist Gregory Benford about SF and science futurism. It was originally published in the October/November 1999 issue of F&SF in anticipation of the dawning of the 21st century, and so looks at science futurism of both the past and the present.

One of the interesting concepts the contrast between "stasist" ideology of the past and "dynamist" future. The terminology was originally invented by Virginia Postrel in her 1998 book The Future and Its Enemies. As she has explained, the concept applies primarily to politics; particularly where it intersects with science, art, and innovation :

On one side of the new political landscape you have what I call "stasists." They view the future as a dangerous abyss. To avoid the abyss, some stasists want a return to some imagined, more stable past. These stasists would include such people as Pat Buchanan and Jeremy Rifkin, or the anti-technology activist Kirkpatrick Sale, who goes around smashing computers to illustrate his speeches. Other stasists want to build a safe "bridge" to the future. They want to control the future. You get a lot of that among politicians. In either case, stasists first decide the one best future for everyone and then they work to impose it.

On the other side of the new political landscape are what I call "dynamists." They see the future as an exciting process of experimentation and learning. That process has many different outcomes, for different people. There isn't "one best way." Dynamists celebrate such open-ended processes as scientific inquiry, market competition, artistic innovation, or technological invention. So they include people like Freeman Dyson, writing about science; or Tom Peters, looking at business innovation; or Stewart Brand, writing about How Buildings Learn; or the whole Wired crowd. Henry Petroski's book The Evolution of Useful Things has some great examples and ideas about the dynamics of invention. Dynamists tend to be less overtly political than stasists, because they aren't trying to grab government power to impose their ideas. But their vision—especially of the economy as a process—increasingly affects our politics.

Benford points out that rapidly advancing biotechnology and increasing computer power will be the driving force behind a dynamist 21st century.

Clearly the TwenCen has been the century of physics, just as the nineteenth was that of mechanics and chemistry. Grand physical measures still beckon. We could build a sea-level canal across Central America, explore Mars in person, use asteroidal resources to uplift the bulk of humanity. Siberia could be a fresh frontier, better run by American metaphors than the failed, top-down Russian ones. . (In fact, the U.S. is the only power that knows how to build and run a frontier. Siberia would be a natural for us.) Our world will continue to be shaped by new physics-based technologies.

But that won't be where the main action lies.

Biological analogies will probably shape much political thinking to come. Though the converging powers of computers and biology will give us much mastery, how such forces play out in an intensely cyber-quick world will be unknowable, arising from emergent properties, not stasist plans.

[. . . snip . . .]

I've argued before that the 21st century will be the Biological Century. We will gain control of our own reproduction, cloning and altering our children. Genetic modification is surely a dynamist agenda, for the many mingled effects of changed genes defy detailed prediction. Although the converging powers of computers and biology will give us much mastery, how such forces play out in an intensely cyber-quick world are unknowable, arising from emergent properties, not detailed plans.

Or as he put it more simply:

Sf sides with futures run not by Wellsian savant technocrats but by the masses, innovating from below and running their own lives, thank you very much.

Now, ten years later, biotech "innovations from the masses" are slow in coming, but groups like DIYbio and other amateur biohackers may make it a reality in the near future. The 21st century is still young, and advances tend to come in fits and starts.

For example: the essay is interspersed with science news snippets from the future. Most are of the purely science fictional variety ("Startup Biotech Firm Rolls Out Living Bath Mat"), but a decade after the essay's publication it's clear that science fact sometimes outpaces fiction. One science story snippet describes a consortium of labs that are rushing to complete the Honeybee Genome Project in 2020. The reality? The first draft of the honey bee genome sequence was actually released in 2003.

In another decade we will have decoded the sequences from a whole zoo's worth of different critters.

Who knows what the biohackers will have come up with by then?

Read "A Scientist's Notebook" by Gregory Benford

Image (top): "Test Tube Baby" by moyix on Flickr
Image (bottom): Bee photo by me
Tags:science fiction, biology

Who owns your DNA?

"There is no question we have a problem," Dr. Bellarmino said, not looking at his notes. He had memorized his testimony so he could deliver it while facing the television cameras, for greater impact. "Gene patents by industry post a significant problem for future research. on the other hand, gene patentintg by academic researchers causes far less concern, since the work is freely shard."

Of course this was nonsense. Dr. Bellarmino did not mention that the distinction between academic and industry workers had long since been blurred. Twenty percent of academic researchers were paid by industry. Ten percent of academics did drug development. More than 10 percent had a product already on the market. More than 40 percent had applied for patents in the course of their careers.

Nor did Bellarmino mention that he, too, pursued gene patents aggressively.

~ Next by Michael Crichton (2006)

Michael Crichton isn't shy about infusing his novels with his personal opinions about science and scientists. His 2006 novel Next, for example, takes aim at the practice of patenting of DNA sequences or gene patents. As Crichton pointed out in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, such gene patents aren't just an annoyance. They can end up preventing patients form getting the genetic tests they need and squelching biomedical research. As he put it:

Gene patents slow the pace of medical advance on deadly diseases. And they raise costs exorbitantly: a test for breast cancer that could be done for $1,000 now costs $3,000. Why? Because the holder of the gene patent can charge whatever he wants, and does. Couldn’t somebody make a cheaper test? Sure, but the patent holder blocks any competitor’s test. He owns the gene. Nobody else can test for it. In fact, you can’t even donate your own breast cancer gene to another scientist without permission. The gene may exist in your body, but it’s now private property.

Crichton mentions proposed legislation that would prohibit the patenting of "human genetic material". That bill, the "Genomic Research and Accessibility Act", apparently never made it out of committee. However, a couple of weeks ago, the ACLU, professional groups representing more than 150,000 scientists and several breast cancer survivors filed suit against Myriad Genetics over their breast cancer gene patents. Their monopoly over mutated versions of the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 has become a significant hardship for anyone who wants to find out whether they have inherited these DNA sequences that can lead to breast and ovarian cancer.

[Myriad] charges $3,000 per test, which often isn’t covered by insurance. No one else can offer the test, and researchers can’t develop new or cheaper ones (or new therapies for that matter) unless they get permission from Myriad and pay a steep licensing fee. So women have no choice about who performs their tests, and they can’t seek those second opinions. That is no small thing. Tests aren’t 100 percent accurate, and results sometimes come back inconclusive. Women with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations have a 40 to 85 percent chance of developing breast cancer, so a positive result helps them decide whether to have their breasts and ovaries removed to prevent future cancer. But with its lawsuit, the ACLU isn’t just fighting Myriad’s patent—it hopes to end the practice of gene patenting entirely on the grounds that it’s illegal, unconstitutional, and interfering with science.

As Rebecca Skloot discusses in her article about the suit, the ACLU is claiming that gene patents violate the patent law that say no products of nature can be patented*. They are also claiming that such patents inhibit individuals' First Amendment rights "to know about their own genetic makeup, doctors’ rights to provide their patients with crucial medical information, and scientists’ rights to study the human genome and develop new treatments and genetic tests." If the ACLU prevails, it could have significant implications for the biotech industry.

Not surprisingly, science fiction has been grappling (toying?) with the issue of patents for many years. You can even get a patent-related SF fix for free:

• Listen to a reading of Nancy Kress's "Patent Infringement" at Escape Pod, in which a patient confronts a biotech company that has used his tissue to develop a patented sequence for gene therapy.
  
• Read "The Professional Approach" by "Leonard Lockard" - the pen name of Charles Leonard Harness (who was both a patent attorney and SF writer) and Theodore Lockhard Thomas. You can also listen to the story at LibriVox. This is organic chemistry fiction with some hardcore patent prosecution.
  

And remember to be careful who you share your tissue with!

Tags:science fiction, gene patents

Can You Identify This Story involving a Cat-human Chimera?

I got a query from a reader about identifying a story:

Here are the elements I remember about the story (some of which may be wrong). It was about a human (woman I think) who brought home a cat that had been used in biomedical research. The cat was a cat- human chimera, with some human mental capabilities. I think she obtained the cat when it was retired from research. I don't remember what if anything "happened" in the story - I just remember the intense and haunting psychological relationship she developed with the cat. I think the story won an award (I think I read it in a Best SFF of 19xx collection).

She also says she read it a few years ago on the web.

It doesn't ring any bells for me. Can any of you readers help?

Tags:science fiction, biology

The X-Change Files

As I posted about last fall, The Science & Entertainment Exchange (TS&EE) is a National Academy of Sciences-sponsored program that aims to connect scientists and engineers with film and television industry types. Now they've added a blog to their site - the X-Change Files - that discusses science and Hollywood fiction. What makes it unique is that the contributors provide a pretty good mix of science and entertainment industry perspectives: Jennifer Ouellette is director of TS&EE and a long-time science writer, Lawrence Krauss and Sidney Perkowitz are physicists as well as popular science writers, Matt Partney is a writer for CSI: Miami, and Jerry Zucker is a producer (along with his wife Janet), director (Ghost), and writer (notably part of the team that wrote Airplane! *). The blog is still getting off the ground, but it looks like it should be interesting. As Jerry Zucker wrote:

The really great thing about these scientists is that because their brains are exactly two-and-a-half times the size of the average person’s in the movie business (although in fairness, that also includes talent agents), they are actually more creative and therefore much better at coming up with science-related ideas for movies than our so-called “creative community.” I don’t mean to offend anyone but as much as I loved Slumdog Millionaire, it’s no Viagra. Often, science gets tacked on like wallpaper in a story, but when it’s really integrated into the narrative it can take things in surprising new directions. And thanks to the Exchange and the National Academy of Sciences, research just became much more fun.

It will be interesting to see what will come of it.

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* A confession: Airplane! has always held a special place in my heart, mostly because it so accurately portrayed my own occasional drinking problem.
Tags:The Science and Entertainment Exchange