Accelerating S&T advances make far more things possible than most people are willing to believe; hence opportunities to apply scientific breakthroughs to improve the human condition are continually missed. Just as lines of code were written to create software, genetic code is being written to create new life forms. Artificial organs may be constructed in a manner similar to 3-D prototyping; surgical robots are now MRI-compatible; and the cellular and genetic abnormalities responsible for medical problems are being identified and treatments designed. Ten-gigabyte hard drives for cell phones are coming soon. Genetically modified viruses can coat themselves with electrically conducting metals to form nano-wires that self-assemble into battery components. Millions volunteer their computer’s excess capacity to help find cures for cancer. The future synergies among nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science will change the prospects for civilization. We need a global information system to track advances so that politicians and the public can understand potential consequences of new S&T. The risks from acceleration and globalization of S&T are enormous (see CD Chapter 3.5 for global 2025 S&T scenarios) and give rise to future ethical issues. For example, do we have the right to clone ourselves, to create thousands of new life forms, and to claim scientific sovereignty in basic research? (See CD Chapter 4, Science and Technology Management Issues.)
In 2006, according to Lux, $12.4 billion was invested in nanotech R&D, over $50 billion of nano-enabled products were sold, international patent filings grew 31%, and the private sectors in the U.S. and Japan outspent government in R&D. However, nanotech environmental health impact studies are proliferating that will lead to standards that will change unregulated production. A science roadmap is being produced for new atomically precise nanoscale building blocks, components, and devices. Nanobots the size of blood cells may one day enter the body to diagnose and provide therapies and internal VR imagery. For the longer range, quantum phenomena and entanglement are being probed. Quantum physicists are experimenting with teleporting individual photons and demonstrating a method that may ultimately teleport two near-identical copies of the original. Astronomers are probing the possibilities of dark energy, a cosmological force in opposition to gravity.
Challenge 14 will be addressed seriously when the funding of R&D for societal
needs reaches parity with funding for other purposes and when an international
science and technology organization is established that routinely connects world
S&T knowledge for use in R&D priority setting and legislation. Such
a system could make political and media decisionmakers more S&T-savvy by
bringing together the world’s knowledge in a more user-friendly fashion
to illustrate risks, opportunities, and a range of speculation on items on a
cumulative basis. It could facilitate transparent international scientific assessments
of controversial areas such as bionanotech and, wherever they are found feasible
and desirable, make it clear how these would improve the human condition. Currently
the InterAcademy Panel, a worldwide network of 90 science academies, is increasing
access to S&T information and cooperation around the world; all should support
basic R&D of new theoretical principles to provide the growing pool of knowledge
from which applied science draws its insights to improve the human condition.
North America: MIT offers free online
S&T courses. The U.S. now imports more high-technology products than it
exports, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Clean energy tech innovations
are accelerating—there were more than 4,000 U.S. related patents in 2006.
The U.S. Patent Office plans to place patent applications online for public
comment. Falling numbers of students in S&T, religious fundamentalist politics,
and the imposition of other political points of view are threats to the continued
excellence of U.S. science. Prizes can speed the distribution of technology
that benefits humanity, such as the Tech Awards from the Tech Museum in San
Jose, California, or Richard Branson’s prize to remove a billion tons
of carbon dioxide a year, as can tech sports like MIT’s robot competitions.
in OECD and Cooperating Non-member Countries

Source: OECD Factbook 2007 - Economic, Environmental and Social Statistics