Palomar Observatory Visit: August 2018

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Visited the Palomar Observatory - a lot like a Greek/Roman temple dedicated to science! Had an odd thought as we walked in but did think was nice to walk on CALTECH premises - a bit like holy ground. Then we saw the rattlesnake warnings!Great views on the trip into the mountains and amazing to see the telescope and it's mounting filling the dome - through a glass barrier but still inspiring.palomar temple to big science

Reykjavik​ 2018: Thor Contemplating Age

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Short stop-over while traveling to the USA. The new concert hall looks amazing! The favorites from our previous visit were still evocative, especially the Jonsson sculpture garden.Detail from "Thor Contemplating Age".Thor contemplating age IFor more on Jonsson's fascinating body of work see http://www.lej.is/en/

Towards or Beyond Frankenstein?

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 "This is the first self-replicating species on this planet whose parent is a computer," said Craig Ventner in 2010. He was already famous for his role in the Human Genome Project and seemed even prouder to announce the world’s first synthetic bacterium. It marked another milestone in our ability to control nature.After the announcement, the rate of progress in Synthetic Biology, which focusses on the engineering of biological systems has accelerated. Easy access to synthetic DNA and knowledge transfer to users beyond the scientists based in traditional biology laboratories have driven the growth of an industry estimated to be worth upwards of $10bn in 2019 and growing at a rate of around 30% per year. Although the majority of applications focus on better ways to produce particular drugs or other chemical products, the more ambitious teams are looking at the design and construction of artificial lifeforms.The public debate about artificial life started to move beyond images of Frankenstein and lightning bolts when Jurassic Park described used genetic discoveries of the early 1980s as part of the plot.  While cheerful cartoons explained the basics of genetic engineering, dissenting voices were proven right.Ten years before Ventner’s press conference Michael Crichton, the writer of Jurassic Park had taken to the stage at a prestigious science event and attacked critics  for misunderstanding the role scientists played in his books. Part of his plea to the audience and scientists elsewhere was to take their role in guiding society more seriously. His final lines were: “This is a great field with great talents and great power. It's time to assume your power and shoulder your responsibility to get your message to the waiting world. It's nobody's job but yours. “In a year where we have seen the start of a project to “de-extinct” the mammoth, when we have the full genetic description of our ancestor species available to help decide when Homo Sapiens colonised the world from our home in Africa, when we  control our evolutionary path through human gene-editing:  who can doubt the level of responsibility that needs to be taken?Amongst these challenges, sci-fi has provided a perfect test-bed to explore the complexity of the ethical and practical issues raised by synthetic biology and its applications. The ethical, safety and commercial arguments around these technologies are a significant issue for us all and have been explored in recent films.Gattaca was one of the first to deal with the complex social issues generated by the power of synthetic biology. The technology necessary for the social eugenics portrayed in the film was seen as futuristic when it was made in the mid-90s, before the success of the human genome project, and only ten years after the first IVF treatments. Of the genetic technologies used as a plot line in a film released in 1997, some are already available and widely used today. As Vincent Freeman, one of the characters in the film, says: “We now have discrimination down to a science.”The film has developed a cult following since release but was a commercial failure. With hindsight could it be the social questions it raised were simply too challenging? The key question of Gattaca: when does genetics determine our human characteristics is one society will continue to struggle with as the power to select and adapt the DNA within human embryos continues to grow.Perhaps the best-timed film of all was Splice, released within weeks of Ventner making his announcement in 2010. The fictional researchers cross an ethical boundary to create a new lifeform, which then escapes from their control with disastrous consequences.  The film highlights the ethics of creating and destroying life, the human failings of the scientists, and the growing role of commercial drivers for research - alongside the risk of the new organism escaping. The director described the film as "... very much about our genetic future and the way science is catching up with much of the fiction out there."Films dealing directly with the issues raised by synthetic biology have declined in the last few years. Perhaps the technologies have advanced to the point where questions about their application have become too difficult a topic for a film to be funded by risk-averse investors? We can only hope a new generation of sci-fi writers will continue to challenge us -  before society possibly sleepwalks into an unwelcome future. We are well beyond seeing scientists as Frankenstein but are still dealing with the hopes and fears that led to his creation.   

Summer I

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The  lavender patch was busy today! The F1.8 wide aperture has a depth of field that is of the order of the length of the bee's body. I like the impressionistic feel of the heavily cropped image ... sort of makes up for the grain.Busy Bee IEven at F4 getting all of the petals sharp is tricky.Roses IMust admit though ... this fixed 85mm Canon lens is my favourite at the moment. 

Photojournalism: Examples, Part I

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As an avid reader of the Sunday Times in the mid to late ‘70s when the rather remarkable Harold Evans was at the helm, I have always found photojournalism, especially in the form of the photo-essay, a powerful form of storytelling. The images of Don McCullin embedded within the ST Magazine (with its distinctive typeface and layout) are ones that I find hard to forget even now in 2017.Recently a number of publications have been re-investing in using the approach to cover complex topics. This post is a collection of links to examples and review articles that I’ve found interesting in the past few months.Time magazine has been investing heavily and one example is http://time.com/finding-home/ -  a haunting look at the issues around Syrian refugee children. Time's Significant press photos from 2016 have been compiled at:  http://time.com/top-100-photos-2016/The issues around who becomes a photo journalist in these "modern times"  is covered inhttp://time.com/4694204/women-war-photographers/XCityPlus is the in-house magazine for the MA students at the City University Journalism School. It is an interesting read in itself but of note now is that they have  provided suggestions for interesting photojournalists to follow: http://www.xcityplus.com/seven-photojournalists-follow-instagram/.Wonderful images here!The work of two photo journalists killed while working on the "front line" is a reminder just how dangerous the real world is.Tim Hetherington, http://www.timhetheringtontrust.org. The biography, "Here I am" is a fascinating read and recommended.Camille Lepage was a French journalist, trained in Southhampton and who was murdered  in the CAR in 2014.
 Some of her portfolio can be found here: http://camille-lepage.photoshelter.com/index

A Diamond Dog ?

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This fellow was watching me from the inside of a window as I walked past "his" cottage in the village of Lacock early in November.Driving  to the village I had caught a few Bowie tracks on the car radio and the presenters  had mentioned Bowie's different coloured eyes and how the Diamond Dogs album marked his shift away from "Glam".So when I saw the differently coloured eyes on the dog I thought ... perhaps this fellow is one of the original Diamond Dogs - now hiding out in the countryside ?chimericcanine1Since the photo was taken and after re-listening and then reading more  about the background of the Diamond Dogs album it is clear I hadn't understood much of Bowie's message in the 70s - despite some of the tracks being some of my favourites.It seems it was a very  Orwellian vision that inspired Bowie in the mid-70s to create the album:  "... a very political album. My protest ... more me than anything I've done previously".Given some of the political trends in 2016 I suspect the album is just as meaningful this year as when it was created!

Lessons from History

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One of challenges about change in organisations is to understand what the past really tells us about what matters about today and in the future. There are many aspects to looking at the history of a problem situation within an organisation but it is clear that one of the common weaknesses is to over-focus on the rational, often  purely financial aspects, of a problem.Experience shows the social dynamics, power relationships,  myths and shared self-images within a corporate are at least as important to organisational change as a pure economic analysis. Perhaps there are some lessons for those of us working mainly in the corporate world can learn from campaigns for social change?The initial source of ideas was work published by Friends of the Earth and the History and Policy network. They brought together historians of past campaigns  and modern day campaigners  to discuss the possible lessons for today's campaigns. The material developed is freely available at https://www.foe.co.uk/blog/campaigning-change-can-we-learn-from-history and provides much food for thought on both the complexities of building support for radical change and the difficulties of  using historical analysis as the source of recommendations for the future.A second source of ideas has been the recent work done by Duncan Green of Oxfam: documented at http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/category/how-change-happens/. The book covers many topics such as the importance of exploiting crises, the role of an overt analysis of the shifts in power which the proposed changes drive and many other topics relevant to work within large corporate structures.Beyond the book and blog the material is also covered in a number of lectures available on the web which are well worth  a watch as an overview e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdoClHjjALQ.Both sources have an emphasis on how power dynamics and actors interplay to generate social and political change - which suggests we may need to reinforce the diagnostic tools used to analyse problem situations within an organisation to include the political "soft" aspects which are often overlooked and yet are critical  to successful changes.It is not just in social change that analysis of power relationships have been seen as a critical part of the reality that change agents must address. The lessons from Checkland's work on Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) were clear as he aimed to combine  social and technical system analysis ideas to solving complex problems within organisations. In SSM there is a "Rich Picture" as a summary of the system being changed but it must be complemented by the vitally important analyses of power relationships and the social norms, values and roles within an organisation to enable a problem situation to be properly addressed. The history and evolution of the social and political structures is seen as an important part of situation analysis within SSM. A word of caution: SSM is often poorly represented on the web and in the management literature and I would recommend the "Learning for Action" book by Checkland and Poulter as a good summary.History is often a dangerous source of lessons  - managed and manipulated by the powerful for their own purposes. But it does seem there are many useful themes and ideas readily available we can adopt to make organisational change more effective.