Science & Technology
Science & Technology
Fair Observer's analysis of key issues, discoveries and ethical dilemmas in science and inventions, breakthroughs and commercial applications of technology.
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American Healthcare / Britain / British Healthcare / Bruce Newsome / Care Quality Commission / Healthcare / Labour Party / National Health Service / NHS / North America / Europe / Focus Article / ScienceIs the British healthcare service a model for the United States? This is the last of a two part series. Read part one here. Here is the most consequential truth: Even though British healthcare is largely public, it is effectively unaccountable. You might naturally assume that the Ministry of Health is accountable for public healthcare – not so. The Labour government (1997-2010) had set up an incestuous system of “quasi-non-governmental organizations” (QUANGOs) that effectively hid epidemic malpractice and allowed government deniability. QUANGOs are largely self-regulating bodies, even though almost all their funding comes from the taxpayer. Enforcing Accountability The...
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female gender / Fetus / India / Pregnancy / Pregnant Women / prenatal / Sex-Determination / Ultrasound / Focus Article / Central & South Asia / ScienceThousands of mothers in India are coerced into aborting their female child. The widespread misuse of prenatal ultrasound has led to a genocide against the female gender. In India, due to fetal sexing, a female fetus is selectively aborted every 12 seconds. As long as multinational corporations continue to sell cheap ultrasound machines to developing countries, and while the law permits abortion and society maintains a preference for sons over daughters, the illegal practice of fetal sex determination will continue. Indisputably, ultrasound technology is an invaluable tool for medical diagnosis and cannot be banned. However, a more nuanced solution exists: creating safer ultrasound machines...
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American Healthcare / Britain / British Healthcare / Bruce Newsome / Care Quality Commission / Healthcare / Labour Party / National Health Service / NHS / North America / Europe / Focus Article / ScienceIs the British healthcare service a model for the United States? This is the first of a two part series. In the debate about American healthcare, no national case is cited more often than Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), which supposedly provides free, effective, nationwide healthcare. According to the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012, Britons “love the NHS.” In reality, British public healthcare is not entirely free, nationally uniform, nonprofit, publicly-regulated, effective, or loved. The lesson here is not that public healthcare is inherently wrong, just that whatever form of healthcare a state chooses, it must decide upon better regulation than...
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360° Analysis / China / Education in India / Education system / Indian Education / Kathan Shukla / Science / Scientific Research / United States / University / Economics / Central & South Asia / ScienceEconomists agree that a country with a knowledge-based economy will take global leadership in the future. However, will India participate in the global competition and be a serious contender? The Indian economy, amid a global slowdown, is likely to grow by about 6% in 2013-14. However, if India wants to become a developed nation, it has to pursue scientific research. Take the iPod for example, a product developed by Apple, an American company, but manufactured in China. The manufacturer in China receives about $4 out of the sales price of $299. The other $295 goes to component suppliers and product developers in the United States. The country that holds patent-rights and develops...
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Antony Evans / crowd-funding / Deeba Fahami / Fundraising / Glowing Plants Project / Kickstarter / North America / Stanford / synthetic biology / Vibrio Fischeri / Focus Article / Science / EnvironmentBy Deeba FahamiIn a world of austerity and shrinking research budgets, the crowd-funding method at the core of the Glowing Plant Project offers a radically different approach to scientific research funding. The first synthetic biology project that has launched on Kickstarter, the Glowing Plant Project, brings a whole new approach to scientific research. This project, which has raised over $365k in under four weeks, aims to create a real glowing plant using synthetic biology. The project is testing the new frontier of science in which science is conducted outside the walls of a big institution. About the Project Antony Evans, the project manager says: "The goal of the project is to educate the public...
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Economic Development / Ethiopia / India / Indonesia / Lee-Roy Chetty / Mobile Technology / Nigeria / Social Development / Wireless Technology / Focus Article / Global Change / Africa / Central & South Asia / ScienceMobile technology offers extensive help on various forms of social and economic development. Technological innovation and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) represent a way for developing world nations to foster economic development, improve levels of education and training, as well as address gender issues within society. Entrepreneurship is crucial for economic development around the world. In countries such as Nigeria, Egypt and Indonesia, micro-entrepreneurs generate 38% of the gross domestic product. Analysis from the World Bank in 2011 indicates that small businesses create a disproportionate share of new jobs. They generate new ideas, new business models, and new...
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360° Analysis / Ari Katz / Counter-Piracy measures / Global Piracy / Maritime Technology / Naval Collaborative Approach / North America / Europe / International Security / Africa / Central & South Asia / Science / Asia PacificBy Ari KatzSynergizing resources and technology from private and public stakeholders, can produce more effective and cost efficient counter-maritime piracy measures. In light of sequestration, analysts project that countering maritime piracy will take a back seat to the Asia rebalancing and other more existential US foreign policy issues. Unfortunately, this rationing of focus has the potential to undermine and reverse a recent downward trend in maritime piracy incidents, particularly along the Somali coast. However, with piracy still costing the world economy $7 to $12 billion a year, fiscal challenges should ideally spur innovative efficiency, rather than obstructive neglect. Further, even with...
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North America / Politics / Economics / Europe / 360° Context / International Security / Business / Middle East & North Africa / Global Change / Latin America / Africa / Culture / Central & South Asia / Science / Asia Pacific / EnvironmentFair Observer's Top 15 articles of 2012. Click here to view the "Fair Observer: The Year in Pictures" photo feature. As we wind down the old year and ring in the new, it is time for some reflections. Like any year, 2012 was packed with events, some of which will go down as historic while others will fade away with time. For Fair Observer, it is a time to thank everyone in our team, our contributors and our readers for taking us another step forward. The past year has confirmed that our community is our greatest source of strength. For years, the world has assumed that rigorous analysis of global issues is possible only if there is a huge...
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By Felix HaasWhat is this mysterious particle that the mainstream media calls "the God particle" and that governments spend billions trying to find? Scientists working in particle physics were under real pressure to deliver something new, when the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva started measuring its first low energy collisions in March 2010. They were particularly eager to find the last particle predicted by the Standard Model which so far had escaped detection: The Higgs boson. First proposed in 1964 by Englert, Brout, Higgs, Guralnik, Hagen and Kibble, about three years later Salam and Weinberg incorporated the new particle into a theory, which came to make up the electroweak part...