Blogs

Two bloggers tackle the possibility of meeting the world’s energy needs by harnessing the power of photosynthesis. In a succinct and pithy piece, Ayusman Sen focuses in on one of the problems with using biological mechanisms to provide energy: the short shelf life of cells. His digression is as thought-provoking as his main argument:

Would we be happy with machines that break down in a matter of days or just a few months? Of course, nature gets around this problem by continuously making more of the same – are we willing to replace the solar panels on our roof every couple of months? (By the way, I find it absolutely amazing that the constituents of our brain cells are being constantly broken down and replaced and yet we do not lose our long-term memory. Part of the steak that we ate yesterday is now responsible for our childhood memories. But I digress!).

Richard Grant, meanwhile, looks at an in-press paper that hints at ways to use artificial photosynthesis to generate energy, curb CO2 levels AND provide abundant food. But Richard has his own ideas:

It reminds me of an idea I had for making biodiesel from any suitable green plant. You see, the problem with biodiesel is you’re still cutting down rainforest to grow it. So, I reasoned, why not convert off-shore oil platforms into rapeseed or palm plantations, thus freeing up valuable land in developed countries, saving the rainforest and simultaneously converting everyone to biodiesel (just don’t get me started about ethanol fuels in cars. Brr).

Forums

The beauty of Nature Network forums is that you can create them for anything, including lab groups, subject areas, science culture and events. Several recent forums have tapped into that latter category. The Tomorrow’s Giants forum was set up to support the conference of the same name taking place on 1 July 2010. The event, part of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary celebrations, looks to the future of UK science. In the forum, you can leave your opinions on data management, training and mentoring and the balance between teaching and research.

Some forums live on well beyond the event they originally related to. For good examples, see the Web 2.0 and citation forums, both created by the British Library a couple of years ago to support seminars.

And finally…

This week saw the launch of a new forum on a topic that has been the subject of much debate on Network in recent months (see, for example, Cobi Smith’s and Richard Grant’s and Brian Derby’s recent blog posts). The Science and the Media – Securing the Future forum ties into a recent report on the future of science reporting. If you have strong opinions on the way research is portrayed in the press, and how it might be improved, please consider adding your views to the discussions.