A Word on Words; 2823; Richard Oliver

remember beyond dancing in the once again welcome to word on words i guess an old friend professor richard oliver from vanderbilt university you've been here before you're a teacher you're an author an idea to talk about becoming biotech gauge last time you hear rick you told me something that i didn't know annual payouts those book that the information age is packed go on an this book takes up where the other less left off and you know tell us where into something called a biotech age or what you know with half the population only able to access our and maybe higher than that now but there still is substantial number of people in the society who are not online who are computer illiterate to tell in the information age is behind when they have and haven't even discovered those electronic

databases will shake them on all that land you make a wonderful taste talk about that before we get an avenue you know i have been open about a day during twelve in my last book as you know it was exploring the thing that the that the information age was really a very mature technology that was the finding her our culture and you know you raise an interesting point there really have to be on line to say that were impacted by this phenomena and the answer's no i remember back in the early days of television i didn't want my children when they were young to watch tv and so my kids went to school and other heard other kids talking about tv programs and so i talk with the teachers at the time and in one teacher said something very instructive to me and that is you may not want to have your children watch tv but you can't turn tv off in society and there are going to be impacted by the tv culture and so what we have today is that even if not every single person is online everybody is impacted by the end by the you know the internet and what the

internet can do and cannot do but we're very close to having everybody online the new computers that are coming out are going to be some five hundred dollars there to be a not have a whole lot of software they'll have to be very expensive and with some of the political will aimed at making sure everybody in his country's connected essentially everybody will be connected and so i think we really are at a point where the technology is what i call mature you can and then the other thing is quite interesting is this is happening around the world we've we tend to think about it from a us perspective but as i travel around the world i find that people don't necessarily have to be online to be connected in fact if you go into mexico or brazil or some places in asia you went to china you'll find that most of the chinese very actively have access to tv with satellites it's it's so it's illegal to get western tv and china two hundred fifty million chinese get western

tv are everybody there's got a cellphone and most people are somehow connected to the internet or can get access at work or through other people who are connected so it affected all have to have a computer with a connection to be in a connected world to the end of the information age is behind this little animal material world is just did right well if one in blazers on biomaterial ok will let's get crushed in prison after reading your book you know as ali basically what i'm talking about in the book a bio i called biomaterials in the end that's a combination of the of the word bye attack which is really related to organic material n a whole new area of new materials that are in organic and i counted just pushed the two together because i get tired of typing biotech and new materials and what's happening is that the whole physical world as we know it is under enormous amount of change whether we see it or not everything in our

physical world that's organic is going to change and everything in our inorganic world would metals etc is now open to change because there's a whole bunch of people out there who are sub atomic physicist who go below the atomic level in our restructuring matter i've got a couple of examples here if you show your if you aren't sure this is a pain developed by a company that's in the paint business and most paints a used in the world are or use for protective coatings on the houses cars buildings in the light and what the scientists have and the idea of this protective coating is to you know protect it from the elements from the environment well i said what if we change the shape of the end of the of the paint molecule and doing this in a sort of the shape of the president so we don't have a proper use of the present are and they used a reflector absorb light so that actually change the molecular structure of this pain i sold at the reflex or absorbs light was that important well for instance of this was a car and it

was the summertime it would reflect light it heat away from the car in the wintertime that would absorb the light and heat your car now think about that you know it was just my car that's not a very big deal but think about all the cars all the homes in the world who also now the paint is actively relating to the environment keeping your house warmer or cooler as a need that might be at the time and think about the savings in energy consumption for for that so this whole year viewers overseer but what happens here is this is in this pain is commercially available today is being used on vehicles and what will happen over time is all paints will be constructed that way and it changes it changes colors as the light changes yes it depends on how much light isn't it what we see is though is that the color change what's actually happening is its ability to absorb energy light or our heat if you will or reflective and what it it when i met with the scientists i said that's very well and good but you know

normally i liked her during the weekend a nice you know sir sedate colored car bomb over the weekend i'd like you to be a button so i can make it essentially were to get there another example is the us in this little material here this mustard colored material is a pie so electric material this is not a man this is not a mature found in nature it was a convention of scientists who said look things like mechanical energy turbulence for an aircraft this is not good people enjoy the turbulence and it's got to be some way better to do with turbulence so they're thinking of using this in airplanes and what happens is it converts mechanical energy into electrical energy and so what's going to happen is it takes the bumps and turbulence and creates an energy source for the airplane and this is being used actually this is a sample being used to nick from a kid's baseball bat if you remember when your kid the first time you're connected about with of all i had a hard time doing that but

the first you get a mechanical shark from the ball and they're connecting whether putting this in kids baseball bats to teach them how to get the ball without getting that shocked because people begin to hold up from the charter recognize that sharknado i get it now the problem will what sammy sosa has won but allowing our wily ways but hello you're on john rocker about all that's right that's right but there is this and skis to do to take the lead mechanical energy of the pounding of the skis are using in baseball bats sector but those are trivial compared to something like the mechanical energy that could be converted from aircraft but as does one other example for good reason which is a biological one at my alma mater at cornell biotech scientists are studying the substance that spiders use to make spider webs and it turns out that a spider web is the stronger substance known to many it's the strongest five are known to man out

one single strand of arbor spider world can stop a seven forty seven taken the problem with that is that of course it's sticky spider makes a sticky so it can attract am like i always assumed that was stuck in the whole surface not so what happens is a spider wheezes web and then goes back in deposits at periodic intervals on the web a little bit of glue and the reason they have those big legs spiders do is cause they can walk between they know or the glows and they walk between the globe they get stuck by it to fly doesn't realize he comes in gets stuck what they've done is they've genetically altered the spider suit he doesn't put the glue down and they're harvesting this material that has a higher tensile strength and steel and the first application they used for drivers with a sail cloth so here they have a cloth that has a higher tensile strength and steel will rip into big wind and it's produced by spiders who as the scientists only work seven days a

week twenty four hours a day that we have to feed him a few wise and they've got this incredibly cheap naturally made material from nature and that's happening all over in all kinds of things we don't understand that they get how far reaching but the impact of a buyout biomaterials can be you say that healthcare the us agriculture and loved and to locals everything that everything's can mining yes the wood industry all that will be environmental rehabilitation this or and when you get through all of that it touches the life of me also every other prisoners no one that's unaffected by the us and then you say just thirty four thirty five thirty six shooter very savvy about three occasions oh phenomenal

example homework on technology is bob our true of sciences creation of life on the lam or the ability to program out of human genes and steve's to contract various diseases know who's genetically derive their pews for the prevention cure most cancers are disease a dissenter repair damaged by brain cells of our courts the ability to clone control aging and obesity animals that grow replacement on and fix other humans inexpensive transgenic vegetables of these vaccines capable not doing world war against disease on and on and on as a fan i have pages torn and i'm invested in ewing is the possibility of fusion power will tell you always been flirting with this dna testing popularized by the simpson

and wednesday kisses at which is dramatically improved criminal investigations literally every aspect of our lives maybe change you say will be changed by i don't work at that now as being conducted in scientific laboratories on talk a little bit about why we're behind the curve in understanding just how important this i think in some ways we've been the stuff has been coming out a senate sponsor washing over us and yet i found as some almost because of all the scientific discoveries in the last twenty three four years people have almost become sort of blood say about it for instance last us attorney berger the people announce the smart rats what was the smart roswell a smart bus was simply it was an agreement now smarter being a bigger brain cells all of our

art our body and everything organic is simply nasa cells that reproduce as they like a poignant because the first read that sentence you know i immediately assume you're talking about the information age much prof alley for this year which only makes the point right that we are into and another point and that is we're about going to another wave changes in the way we communicate the way we talk about there's a whole vocabulary with that the biology the united states years ago as is way beyond the year i talked to a young woman the other day was in sixth grade i said to her woody she said i'm studying biology and i said would you doing and she said well we're sequencing some dna six great you know and i'm alison to say well hold on you know what it what is it number two years ago understand what that meant but they back them iris yeah okay that laos is a good

example people people didn't seem to react to what what what every person every living thing is a nasa cells constantly replicating when we get older what what what the reason our body changes are our mental capacities change is because the cell's ability to replicate slows down because of what they call tellers at the end of a particular cell and what they did with the smart most was they fixed the timers so that he didn't change and so they just use the sort of than the nickname smart most but what they did was they really change the aging process for the smells so where the other mice in his group got like we do older and fatter and wrangler and and more wrinkled and on this most aid but he kept all his physical and mental so it is a lot of law and faculties a long time they called the swarm us what they're able to do is impact the aging process images allow it this is not a region that we are our guests today he says other than the

coming about that age the business of biomaterials arm and he tells us and rights in the persuasive an elegant both eloquent terms it tells is that i love about to change again even before we realize were out information they wrote about her date that dramatically for transform society as we know it but we are not without controversy here norway i mean and ali was cloned only you talk about you know dolly parton we're really honored yes there was war in yemen and the cloned sheep far but darling i'm sure is not the slightest idea of the real impact that cloning is going to have on the saudi anonymous really understand i think none of us who were in outside the biotech

through informant outside the laboratory outside investigation none has really come to grips with what cloning candy poets a huge impact and let me if i can use an example one of the things i suggested that one of the in a chapter of one of the books was a robotics scientist at columbia university and he said to me you know that everybody says the most important person in the most powerful person of columbia vs the president in any turning he said all he decides is on the budgets he said the ruins the really powerful guy colombia is the person who decides who get is at the hospital who decides to its replacement heart and i start to think about that it's ok and this guy decides budgets the present university this the guy that does the replacement parks decides who lives and who dies that's much more powerful why does that happen because right now there's a shortage of parts ok we can't get enough replacement human heart so what cloning technologies can help us too in you saw this now is just a couple of weeks ago is we will grow a heart and a pig now what people don't want to hear this but the genetic makeup of a pig is almost

identical to the genetic makeup of the human and they can now grow replacement parts in the pig that will solve the supply problem they still have the problem of the body rejecting of a foreign heart what eventually will happen with cloning technology is that the doctor will determine new you're going at some point in the new heart he'll ask you to come into the office he'll take a few scrapings of cells from you and then they'll say the scientists will stimulate those cells to grow a new heart for you when you know you're part of the controversy involves science will buy and i really hate to make this analogy but it does seem to me years looking at what the news media has reported on out we're about to get back into a period of a conflict but twain the scientific community and the religious community no question for around with james frightens people bum ba ba moral dimension and that the race is

only earned the ire many people who do not want to tamper with this idea that you can predict not just predict whether a child be a male or a female but decidedly male female decide whether be twins or triplets you can decide that today and you can decide many things beyond that that are frightening to the society at large and typically the religious community no no where do we do have a society you draw lines yummy i've seen us go through this whole conflict only information and what you can see what you can't see my privacy and thats exactly right and end of that and then there is the question of the aisle well yemen that is

dangerous wellness wonderland of opportunity doesn't also all threats and dangers that scare parents to their gear preachers to their arm and now where are the information age not all of that fright and were about to be led into another wonderland that is also fraught with a great danger in great fear talk a little bit about how you can handle it well one of the things you deal with it effectively on the back of the book one of the things i'm very concerned about is that we start in the global dialogue about what this technology can do because the history of the technology the technology itself is neither good or bad it's just there it's how people use the technology i mean there's nothing inherently right or wrong but internet technologist glad you said how you use it can use suitcases who has access to it and doesn't and what i want to row purposes in writing the book was because i wanted to force a dialogue and i think it has to happen on a global basis it's not something the us

congress can can ban cloning but that doesn't say anything about what happens in england are happens in anywhere else in the world this is one of those things like we found with the environment and with information technology we need a global discussion about this and i've i've argued that we need to begin to worry about a bio literacy so the people have the vocabulary to speak about and understand what in fact were talking about john in the next five years you will make a genetic decision you will make a decision about the biology of your who has information about your your genes about your kids james about her grandchildren's james it will be possible for you to determine a kid's coming in the school we can do now a genetic screen of them and say will that person should be in sports programs and take accounting and this one should be over here work have the potential to do that and and i'm not an ethicist i can't say what stuff is right or wrong all i mean i'm a historian of technology historian and columnist and i just

wanted to call people's attention to the fact that the technology is available to do it and it's happening faster than anything happened before only just you know one of things i try to say in the book is think back to what we read about in terms of the discovery of electricity and the exploitation of electricity was about a hundred and forty years between the discovery and the ability of people to actually make any productive use of it the difference now is that the end that's because the person that was doing it was a sort of a free agent independent didn't have big corporate resources to do with the stuff that's the genetic scientists today is sitting at a in a lab with huge computer resources ok which the guy that discovered electricity in the guy who discovered certain chemical things didn't have so he can his stand alone computing power is unbelievable and he's got access to the internet was discovered today in the morning can be exploited in the afternoon because we have this huge infrastructure and that the issue here is not that these changes are coming

they're coming there's no question about it and the technology there such a huge effort behind these technologies can happen there is it to me it's incumbent upon us is people to learn what might happen be able to develop a dialogue on a goal bases to see how many use this technology do you have any sense the airlines about a big role model yet any sense where the line should be drawn whether they should be ethical lines there and readable among fighters are willing to build the alliance and fun by congress or state legislatures are all ago or whether they should be and sociological lines that are defined by those who are determined to save this new technology is used to the benefit mankind how do we decide where the line to be drawn in control well i think that's an interesting question and i don't feel capable of giving your total answer but i think all of the above world will

play into and scientists are going to have to say what's possible one of things that scared me most was a scientist and tommy said look don't get excited about creating life in a in a laboratory from a single organic so he said we can theoretically create life from an inorganic adam because of the atomic level there's no difference between the organic world in the inorganic world think about the news that really stopped me cold because now we're not talking about cloning dolly were talking about taking a piece of an organic material in korean life from these these issues are we are well beyond me i think it's going to take all of the above scientists are going to have to define what they can and can do and do a safeway i think the politicians are going to have to weigh and i noticed in the paper the other day they said that congress was going to hold off on genetically modified food because it's too difficult to talk about before an election right after election where you have to have a political dialogue about this genetically modified food and pretty soon some reason have to say from a societal point of

view if i can cure certain things for instance we have sickle cell anemia this this this technology will solve the dilemma ok we have things like cystic fibrosis as a that affects certain part of the population used to think it was one disease they now know there's eight hundred genetic variations that creates cystic fibrosis we're now going to be able to construct a specific drug to deal with your kind of cystic fibrosis not a generic cystic fibrosis but you're kind we have to put out the benefits and weigh them against some of the dangers and certainly the religious community and i've been around talking religious people said they invest their dialogue in this i don't hear anything from you wear can tell us give us a moral compass on this you know you're really on to read your books shape of things to come a now becoming about decade it's clear that you said it on the marshall

college and not afraid to press the angulo right but i know that there are you know a knowable coming to guests yes a total change of pace i have i been killing people as a these were such weighty subjects i mean in an angry i said but one time i finish this my head hurt because the teachers as we've been discussing her weighty issues and i felt that the idea the yes or the impact of what i was writing about men and what it might mean and i decided to do something totally different and i decided to write a book about your national we have an impact in how we put that team together and so i have a book coming out in september called hockey tonk the amazing story of the nashville predators and i'd be like and i'm talking about a lot less at the opposite of well for sure will be back in september before we leave this subject don't just for a brief second about marshall mcluhan in his journal idea and he doesn't want to be a global village and we are and we are everything if you go back and look at what mcclellan said virtually everything has come

true i think the best thing people can do is go back and re read with cloned because he really had it figured out well it's been great to have you back again after the shape of things to come we now the coming about that age it's been great to have you once more to talk about bow materials ricardo thank you very much for being with us