Yesterdays Observer carried an article by Lucy McDonald about the Material Beliefs event at the Dana Centre.

Cafe Scientifique events provide an environment where science can be discussed informally over drinks. There’s comment here from Duncan Dallas, who talks about the success of the format, which was set up in Leeds in 1998:

For me the whole point of science cafes isn’t to promote science or make more kids become scientists, but it is about being able to discuss topics which are revolutionary.

The article contrasts the popularity of the science cafes with the drop in uptake of physics at A-level, “from 43,416 in 1991 to 28,119 in 2005″. There’s cause for concern here, but where initiatives like the Science Learning Centres respond to issues in uptake of science in schools, and the provision of science learning for young people, science cafes are for those who left school some time ago, and address their continuing relationship with science through the broader role it plays in their society. Quotes in the article from the evening attendees reflect this:

It’s all really relaxed and you don’t feel intimidated about challenging speakers beliefs or scientific research. Science is becoming more part of out lives, and I want to hear about it from the experts.

There’s no dull theorising so it was rally accessible, it’s better than staying in and watching television every night.

My Space, My City, My World was a three day conference for year 10 students in south east London, based at the Steven Lawrence Centre in Deptford. Material Beliefs was invited by Ignite! to run two of the workshops, other project partners included Aspire, London Engineering Projectand the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. Here’s something about the event from the Ignite page:

The conference aims to build young people’s confidence in making their voices heard in the places where decisions are made about design, engineering, economics and the future.

My Space, My City, My World will explore individual students’ personal ‘footprint’, their views about the urban landscape, and the way the world is going. Workshops will be led by young, keen and green entrepreneurs, designers, scientists and engineers – and debates will explore how one person can make a difference.

On tuesday, Tony Cass and I lead a workshop an DNA profiling, which responded to technology from the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and DNA Electronics. Elio Caccavale and Mark Hammond lead a workshop on thursday based around the Animat project at the University of Reading. The aim was to encourage the students to design their own products and services around these emerging technologies.

above: a design for a cyborg

above: service design for DNA profiling

Design and its potential in the research environment can be mis-interpreted.

In many labs designers brush shoulders with computer scientists, programmers, electronics engineers, biotechnologists, and other experts from a whole plethora of disciplines. Their research is often very focused and therefore easy to define; design research as a discipline is not and that is perhaps where the confusion stems from. Design without a pre-fix can have a whole multitude of meanings (Graphic, product, vehicle, fashion, textile, interaction); add to this differing roles and aims of research using design as a medium and we begin to understand why it can be confusing.

To complicate matters further we have the activity of so-called ‘celebrity designers’ to contend with. In the ‘Hello’ magazine age, home makeover shows and domestic furniture commercials have put a public face to the professional designer as one who firstly entertains, often through flamboyant behaviour and methods. Their roles and methods are significantly different to the designer in the material belief context. This anomaly needs to be addressed if we are to be taken seriously.

So what are the roles of the designer and how could scientists benefit from collaboration?

Philosophers of technology such as Martin Heidegger and Marshall McLuhan have written at length about technology and culture but their work remains inaccessible to the majority of the population. The language usually employed in these academic circles can be too daunting, too specialised or simply too boring for the average reader.

Design on the other hand, with its familiar physical and tempting language is an appropriate and accessible medium to explore the issues surrounding the development and application of existing and emerging technologies on culture and society and to expose the debate to a wide public audience.

In this situation the designer can act as a bridge between the technologists and the public. By utilising traditional design skills the [design] researcher can imagine a world in which emerging technologies exist. Products and peripheral services can then be developed which enable the viewers to place themselves in this fictitious world and understand, embrace or challenge the underlying technology. These critical proposals needn’t be judgemental of any particular technology, they simply ask for a more complete debate on how it is applied, who is applying it and how we could be affected by its mediation of our lives.

Successful design research comes about from good balance and application of 3 things:

• The application and usage of technology should be relatively feasible, i.e. the concept cannot easily be dismissed as science fiction. This is where the collaborative element makes sense.
• The design concept, product or service needs to be desirable both in form and function.
• Communication is of fundamental importance. This is why the written word usually reaches such a limited audience; a page of complex text does not encourage the average person to read on. A sophisticated critical design proposal can utilise props, newspaper articles and other means to entice and coax the audience into the discussion. Video, for example has the ability to operate on the borders between fiction and reality allowing the audience to enter a parallel world that provides an aperture on possibility.

Successful collaborative design projects can operate as cultural litmus paper, gauging public perception, imagining potential issues and generating awareness before radical new technologies arrive in the public domain changing irrevocably the fabric of our lives.

Ros, Nick and Pantelis met at the Institute of Biomedical engineering to discuss type 1 diabetes. Pantelis is developing an artificial pancreas - a silicon chip which has the potential to replace the function of pancreatic beta cells. This technology could provide a replacement for the type of insulin pump used by Ros, who spoke about her careful management of diabetes through an “open loop” system, which depends on her monitoring the pump. As a doctor in the NHS, Nick spoke about how closing the loop on the management of diabetes could change patients’ relationship with their doctors. All three offered a different perspective on diabetes, and shared their experiences of managing it. Steve filmed the discussion, and Tobie asked some questions. A short film called Mind the Loop will be available soon.

I spoke to Tim Constandinou about the Bionic Sensor he helped develop with a group of bionics researchers at the IBE. The chip is being used to test a range of technologies which might develop into different applications, including an artificial eye and pancreas.

See a full write up of this process here.

above: Tim demonstrating Cadence - an application that allows chips to be designed and tested, before being manufactured

It was a pleasure speaking at the Dana Centre for the Techno Bodies; Hybrid Life event. Despite feeling comfortable with the technology I use in biomedical research and in clinical practice, it’s always challenging and interesting discussing bionics with people who work in different areas. In both of the sessions Tobie and I facilitated, the first question was exactly the same but the discussions diverged enormously from there, taking in telecoms technology, diabetes management, the iPhone, health economics and the utility of the bionic man. My only regrets are that we didn’t have longer to explore the issues in more detail and that I didn’t get to take part in the other discussions.

I hope all that attended enjoyed themselves and I’d be very happy to continue any discussions in the forum or offline.

Looking forward to future events,

Nick Oliver, Physician, Institute Biomedical Engineering, Imperial College

Someone was resourceful enough to hack the diary section, Elio saw it first and Markus helped restore things. If you were the one who owned the blog, props to you, and can you nobly educate me about how to close the hole? Here’s more about being owned, or pwn if you prefer.

I’ve been reading “SCIENCE AND THE NATION” which was written shortly after WWII by the Association of Scientific Workers (and an archive of material here). The book sets out a series of recommendations to allow Britain “to use all of it’s resources to take full part in international affairs, to repair the ravages of war, and to put industry on a peace-time footing”. There is a short chapter on Science as a Part of Culture, which describes a separation between science and the arts, and an under valued role of science within culture:

This is not to suggest that an interest in science is a superior attribute to an interest in the arts, but that a society’s heritage and contemporary progress in science is as integral a part of of that society’s culture as is its music and literature, and should be absorbed normally as part of general education. (page 208)

I like the idea of absorbing science, and reminded me of a chapter in a more recent book by Mike Michael, called Technoscience and everyday life. Rather than a sense of separation between communities (the “cultural intelligentsia” get an especially hard time!) and the broad principles of science, Michael’s describes how technology and science are bound to our everyday lives through the comportment of our bodies, through the use of mundane objects like Velcro fastenings or buckets and mops, as well through more exotic alterations:

Between these extremes of deep mundanity and the further shores of posthuman speculation lie bodies that are embroiled with the more or less everyday technologies of domestic and working life (cars, computer, chairs) and the more or less cutting edge techoscientific innovations, most obviously biomedicine (health communication campaigns through to stem cell therapy, genetic diagnostics, organ replacements). (page 43)

Here’s a way of considering our involvement with science and technology not through making changes to educational syllabuses or government policy, but by brushing our teeth.

Elio and Tobie met with Tony Cass to discuss his role as Deputy Director and a Research Director in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London.

Having originally trained as a chemist, Cass is also a Professor of Chemical Biology at Imperial, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. We focused on his work within the institute, which is based in a new facility.

Click here to see the interview…

Jimmy and Tobie recently visited theBristol Robotics Laboratory, based at a new facility in Bristol Business Park. The lab focusses on bio-engineering and intelligent autonomous systems, and aims “to understand the science, engineering and social role of robotics and embedded intelligence” (more on the BRL home page).

Chris Melhuish is the director at BRL, which has over 50 members of staff and students. With this in mind, rather than focus on a single researcher, a number of staff and students were kind enough to talk about their roles at the BRL. Thanks to Peter Walters, Peter Jaeckel, Paul Bremner, Christopher Bytheway, Craig Chorley and Ioannis Ieropoulos for providing accounts of their work. Thanks also to Claire Rocks andEmily Dawson fromUWE’sScience Communication Unit, who helped set up the visit, and provided an account of public engagement with engineering research. More about the Walking With Robots network here, which is the focus of this discussion.

Much more here…