QUIZ!
The quiz was devised by Louanne & her team at ISP Courpière!
30 May 2019
3 August 2018
Frankenscience...
Dr Frankenstein
> (Version française)
> Invasion of the ‘frankenbees’: the danger of building a better bee
> Gene-edited babies: no one has the moral warrant to go it alone
> Invasion of the ‘frankenbees’: the danger of building a better bee
> Gene-edited babies: no one has the moral warrant to go it alone
Questions on the text: “The horror story that haunts science”
- What is “life”?
- What is “the soul”?
- Should scientists try to “restore life where it has been lost”?
- What are “Frankenfood, Frankencells, Frankenlaws, Frankenswine, and Frankendrugs” (list experiments that have drawn the "Franken-" label)?
- How legitimate is “Frankenscience”?
- Why is HEAVEN unethical?
- What is “the governing myth of modern biology”?
- What is “hubris” and what is “scientific hubris”?
- Are you an atheist?
- As a scientist, what do you see your mission as being?
- How afraid are you of what you do not understand?
- Who is today’s “Modern Prometheus” (Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, John Craig Venter, Dr. Evil)?
- Should we “banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death."
- Would you visit “Frankenstein's castle” in Minneapolis?
- Should scientists be held accountable for their scientific experiments? If yes, to whom and why?
- Are there scientific experiments you would refuse to contribute to?
- Which sectors of industry (armament, nuclear, petrochemical, biochemistry, etc.) would you, as a scientist, not work for?
- How useful is GMO research?
- Are scientists ever partial with the truth as regards the results of their experiments (if yes, why)?
- What rights do animals have (does vivisection respect those rights)?
- Do robots deserve rights?
- What are your views on ART?
- Would you like to sit on an IRB or work for the Office for Human Research Protections?
- What made Dr. Frankenstein’s creation a vengeful fiend?
- Is Dr. Frankenstein a monster?
Questions
on the text: "Why We Still Need Monsters"
- Do you enjoy horror (and serial killer) movies?
- Is Trump a monster?
- Are psychopaths “true monsters”?
- Why are people xenophobic?
- Do you feel pity for Frankenstein’s monster?
- Should people who have committed monstrous acts be executed?
3 February 2018
18 December 2017
The Blob! Article by Bibi Auclair
We scientists think we have seen it all, but, under our very noses,
there, lying unseen, is: the Blob!
Scientists the world over are wracking their brains to solve the enigma
of the Blob. It is not a plant, but it has some of the characteristics of a
plant. It is not an animal, though it has some animal characteristics. Is it a mushroom?
No, not entirely that either. It is like nothing else we know and that is why
it is so fascinating... So, what is it then?
The Blob, officially called Physarum polycephalum, is a strange,
creeping, blob-like organism made up of one giant cell. But it is not an alien!
It is an “unidentified crawling object” and part of the Protist family. Its nickname
“comes from the film “The Blob” starring Steve McQueen (who is not the eponymous
hero!).
It has no mouth, nor stomach, nor eyes. It is able to move (1 cm per
hour) to find food, to see, to smell, to digest, to mate. Though it has no
brain, it can learn from experience. When Physarum polycephalum temporarily
fuses with another slime mould they transmit to each other what each “knows”.
The Blob’s natural habitat is forest debris, but scientists can grow it easily
in the laboratory. It is in fact the biggest single-cell organism; it can grow
to 10 m²! It can be divided to create two new living cells, healing in just two minutes.
In fact, it is not possible to kill the Blob. It can resist extreme conditions;
it only needs a little rain to start growing again.
Though it has no brain, The Blob has intelligence. Moreover, the
personality of the Blob changes from continent to continent. Scientists have demonstrated
that, for example, the Australian blob tends to be “altruistic”, whereas the American
one is more selfish… How human!
The Blob challenges scientific categories. Because it is related to
several types of bacteria, research on it may lead to finding cures for a
number of diseases.
Physarum polycephalum
10 June 2017
The ISS: the International Space Station
The ISS
The French astronaut Thomas Pesquet returned recently from his six-month
mission in low Earth orbit aboard the ISS, the International Space Station. Here
is a quick overview of its history, features, and mission.
What is the ISS?
The ISS is
the only international space station. The station moves around the Earth in low
orbit at an altitude of between 360 and 400 kilometers and travels around our
planet in ninety minutes.
Sixteen times
a day, it spends 45 minutes in the dark and the following 45 minutes exposed to
the sun.
The habitable
volume of the station is 388 cubic meters. The station is 109 meters long, 73
meters wide, and weighs 419 tons. It’s the most complex and massive object
assembled in space. It is also the most expensive ever manufactured by man. It
is estimated that it cost $150 billion.
What is the ISS used for?
The ISS is
mainly a large scientific laboratory where hundreds of experiments are carried
out.
The Frenchman
Thomas Pesquet, who is the tenth Frenchman to have spent time in space, carried
out a hundred different experiments during the six months of his stay aboard
the station.
His
experiments were mainly to do with health and medicine.
Who pays for the ISS?
The station
is co-managed by five space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia),
ESA (Europe), JAXA (Japan) and CSA (Canada) and financed by sixteen countries:
the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Brazil and eleven European countries,
including France.
These 16
countries signed an intergovernmental cooperation agreement on 29th January
1998. Most of the costs are met by NASA.
How many people are permanently in the ISS?
The ISS
permanently hosts 6 people.
Each group of
three astronauts spends six months in the station.
How do I travel to the ISS?
Up to 2011, journeys
to the ISS were by the US Space Shuttle, launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida,
or by the Soyuz vessel from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.
Since 2011, the
only way to reach the ISS is with the Russian Soyuz.
Is there a procedure to get the astronauts back in case something goes
wrong?
In case of
problems, two Russian Soyuz vessels are permanently attached to the
International Space Station. One arrives with the astronauts, the other is used
to return to Earth.
Both vessels
can be used to evacuate the station in the event of a major malfunction.
What will become of the station?
The
International Space Station will remain operational until at least 2024; the
various partners have pledged to finance the program until this date.
With the
advent of private partners such as SpaceX, NASA will be able to progressively
reorient its budget to finance ambitious mid-term projects, such as returning to
the Moon or manned missions to Mars.
To replace
the current International Space Station, the agencies are considering the construction
of a station in a cistern orbit, that is, an orbit around Earth-Moon.
Article by Hugo Abelard
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