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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 30, 2009 13:51:17 GMT -5
This thread contains Doomwatch related articles. If you have any you would like to contribute please email me and I will post them here.
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 30, 2009 13:53:30 GMT -5
Fungi that feed on oxidized polythene
The “Doomwatch” bug that digests plastics to a syrupy mess as you watch is still pure science fiction, but there certainly are ways in which plastics can be made more vulnerable to microbial or fungal attack—so that plastics refuse and litter will decay on the rubbish heap or in the hedgerow. Some recent work by two researchers, John Mills and Dr Howard Eggins, at the Biodeterioration Information Centre of the University of Aston, shows that some common fungi will thrive on polythene that has been oxidized beforehand. Mills and Eggins used thermophylic fungi, of the type found in towns’ refuse, soil from pasture land and rotting straw chaff, for their experiments. Samples of ICI Alkathene were oxidized by boiling them in nitric acid for 24 hours to give carboxylic acids of mean molecular weight around 250. Thermophylic fungi extracted from the three sources were then inoculated into a nutrient medium containing the waxy acids and left to grow at temperatures of 40˚C to 5C˚C—the sort of temperatures reached in rotting refuse heaps. Some of the fungi, particularly Malbranchea pulchella and Cephalosporium utilized the carbon from the polythene oxidation products to grow, and a slightly alkaline medium was found to promote this growth. These experiments do not immediately point the way to treating waste plastics so that they will disappear in waste heaps—the concentrated nitric acid treatment could hardly be considered economic or desirable. But a pretreatment of plastics refuse to make it vulnerable to biological attack could be a practical way of ensuring that we do not lay down a stratum of waste plastics (International Biodeterioration Bulletin. Vol.6, p.13).
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 30, 2009 13:57:25 GMT -5
Two letters from the issue... (thanks to Tony Darbyshire and retyped by Scott Burditt)
Safety from sewage
Sir,—Dr Kit Pedler was unfortunate in his choice of an illustration of the sort of work which his private Doomwatch might undertake (“Doomwatch Incarnate” 18 March. p 622). His knowledge of the background is restricted and his statement incorrect. The MRC report of 1959 on sewage disposal was prepared under the distinguished chairmanship of Dr Brendan Moore and its members included scientists better qualified than Dr Pedler in this branch of medicine, The report included extensive evidence for the conclusions to which it came. It did not say that: “…there was no health hazard in bathing in crude sewage” Not even a reasonable layman who had taken the trouble to read the report could attribute such a statement to it. In any ease Dr Pedler is out of date. Some months ago the report of the Jeger Working Party on Sewage Disposal, of which we were members, was issued by the government (Taken for Granted, HMSO). Though this report largely upheld the opinions of the 1959 committee, it re-examined the evidence and recommended a series of safeguards for the disposal of sewage to the sea. It does not, apparently trouble Dr Pedler that inland towns dump very large quantities of sludge in coastal waters, nor does he seem to realise that the effluent from a sewage works, which would be put in the sea anyhow, may still contain large numbers of pathogenic micro-organisms. For safety’s sake, this should be expensively piped out to sea for a distance determined by local conditions. If the supply of money were illimitable for public purposes, any fool could improve safety standards. What is needed is a cost/benefit analysis. To equip every seaside town with full treatment works would cost many, many millions of pounds. There is not a scintilla of evidence that such expenditure, as against properly sited outfalls of crude sewage, would save a single human life. The same money spent on hospitals or roads would save many hundreds, or probably thousands. Heaven preserve us from self-appointed guardians who cash in on a wave of popular emotion to misdirect the use of scarce public resources. Henry Brinton Donald Payne
Old Mill House Selsey, Sussex
Scientists with a soul
Sir,—After a long period of what some suspected were near-desperate atheistic and materialistic-humanist undertones in New Scientist, not to mention the myopic naiveties of Dr Donald Gould’s pages, it is refreshing to read in New Scientist, of 18 March, of people like Professor Donald Mackay (“Where communication is all”, p 609) and Dr C.M. H. PedIer. Well done, David Cohen, for appreciating the depth and value of Mackays Christian convictions, and mentioning Mackay’s beliefs in the complementary relationship between “science” and “religion”. Many scientists and engineers, like myself, are sick of hearing and reading the fatuous idea that “science” and “religion” must by definition be opposed ways of thinking and therefore incompatible, almost as though “science” was a new modern religion itself. I know of many scientists and engineers who are also awakened spiritually, not necessarily Christians even, and their lives and work are the richer for it: their sterile materialistic colleagues compare poorly. Referring to Kit Pedler, no doubt some would class him as too way-out to be taken seriously, but nevertheless Graham Chedd’s portrayal suggests a man of considerable intellect and character, a scientist who is alive as a person, who can see far beyond the end of his microscope and further can care about what he sees. I believe Pedler has put his finger on one of the main causes of the current distaste for science when he talks of its misapplication. Even if his Doomwatch proposal never succeeds in overcoming prejudice and apathy in establishing itself, Pedler will do a great service to science and technology, and to mankind, if he only manages to break open the barriers to allow, as Chedd says, “emotion and ordinary human feelings of aesthetics to enter the scientific arena”. Pedler certainly won’t lack volunteers.
H. C. Burford 28 Hibbert Close Rugby, Warwicks
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 30, 2009 13:59:17 GMT -5
This article was supplied by Tony Darbyshire and retyped for this site by Scott Burditt
Doomwatch
BBC-TV’s new scientific soap-opera. Doomwatch. has been fortunate in its first selection of topics to warn us about. The episode about leaking nerve-gas at the bottom of the sea stirred up uneasy memories of the unexplained deaths of those sea—birds; the report about a new generation of intelligent, poison-resistant rats in Wales does not help us to forget the story of the rats which discovered the law of the lever; and rebellious university students do not have to be convinced that future governments may depend for their existence on computerized dossiers on private and political lives. But the prognostications are not all melodramatic; the program on the sinister plan to boost cigarette sales was also a salutary reminder of common dangers associated with the misuse of psychology and the casual use of certain drugs. The series, of course, has been devised by Kit Pedler (with the advice of one Dr C. M. H. Pedler), which guarantees a considerable degree of scientific authenticity. Why, then is the series so incredible? The reason is certainly not that it is mere science fiction; the best fictional material can create as deep and as genuine a chill as any fact-filled documentary. But to accept fiction of any sort one has to begin to believe in the humanity of its characters, and the scientists in Doom watch have as much humanity as you would find in a month of Sunday supplements. They inhabit a two—dimensional world (the other dimension, more often than not, being sex) in which it is impossible to imagine personal relationships that are not constantly charged with high emotional voltage or a domesticity that has no insistent melodramatic overtones. If we ever caught Quist boiling an egg, it would probably blow up in his face. The intentions of the series are admirable. Alistair Cooke (also predicting doom and gloom) pointed out recently that casting directors know exactly what scientists look like—and that they are usually wrong. Doomwatch studiously avoids the stereotype of omniscience and austerity which is the delight of devotees of old movies, yet replaces it with another stereotype which is certainly trendier but just as incredible. This is all the more regrettable because of the great opportunity to break down a few barriers between science and the lay public. In its programme on Sir Bernard Spilsbury, Horizon—doubtless preaching to a converted few—explored the danger that the public may accept uncritically the findings of a scientist which it respects or even slightly fears. The danger with Doomwatch is that the serious scientific content may be assessed on the same critical level as its cardboard characters and dismissed as enjoyable nonsense. The ironic remedy is that the series can best do service to science by improving its dramatic qualities.
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 30, 2009 14:02:51 GMT -5
This article was supplied by Tony Darbyshire and retyped for this site by Scott Burditt
Doomwatcher Incarnate
Next Monday sees the last programme in the present Doomwatch series on BBC 1. Kit Pedler, the brain behind the series, is actively seeking to establish a real Doomwatch—a group of scientists with no allegiances but to the public good. Last week he talked about his ideas with Graham Chedd.
BBC TV’s Doomwatch series—depicting the exploits of an unlikely band of scientific heroes protecting the nation from the worst excesses of science and technology—was devised by Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler. The two of them met three or four years ago through the good offices of a certain Dr Who, whose weekly cliffhangers—also on the box—were at the time engineered by the former and scripted by the latter, a self confessed greenhorn writer of space opera.
The Doomwatch production team also draws upon the scientific advice of Dr C. M. H. Pedler, already well known in ophthalmic circles for his beautiful electron microscope studies of the retina, and becoming increasingly notorious among scientists and technologists generally for his outspoken attacks upon the precepts underlying their disciplines. Both Pedlers—TV scriptwriter and scientist—are, of course, the same man. And that man is determined, within the next couple of years or so, to establish a real Doomwatch.
Once upon a time, and not so very long ago, Pedler was a harmless enough sort of fellow; a bit of an egotist, perhaps, but quite acceptable to the scientific establishment. He had come into research from a slightly unconventional direction, having been trained as a medic and actually functioning as one for a year as a house physician and three weeks as a GP before deciding it had all been a bit of a mistake. His reason for leaving the healing profession would gladden the heart of any scientist: he didn’t like, as a doctor, having to make decisions on inadequate data. So he became an experimental pathologist, working for his PhD at the Institute of Ophthalmology in London on a retinal disease of the new-born. This got him interested in the retina itself, and about 10 years ago he began his investigations of its fine structure with the electron microscope. The work has gone very nicely; he has for some years headed his own anatomy department at the Institute; and he now has some intriguing new ideas about building functioning models of the retina in an attempt to sort out how the structures he has seen under the microscope, and particularly the nerve pathways, actually work together to enable us to see.
But then some very odd cracks began to appear in this correct facade. For a start, he began to write—with great enjoyment—rather mediocre science fiction. He invented, for the information of Dr Who fans, the dreaded Cybermen, robot-like creatures with boxes on their chests that foamed horribly when eventually (and inevitably) they met their just desserts. In itself, this aberration would have been forgivable; there are, after all, several precedents—and eminent ones (scientifically) at that But Pedler then did something very peculiar: he turned in his Home Office licence allowing him to perform experiments with animals, on the grounds that he found such experiments—even when the animals are not overtly harmed in an way—emotionally distasteful. Now of course according to canon law, emotion is not meant to enter into science, so his action to many of his fellows is totally inexplicable, particularly as it is likely to hamstring the progress of his research. From the establishment’s point of view, however, worse was yet to come. For one day, according Pedler, I looked outside my laboratory door, and didn’t like what I saw.” There was, in fact, quite a lot that he didn’t like; but fundamentally he objected to what he felt was the way science and technology had got away from serving the human race, and instead was serving the advancement of individual careers (in the case of science) and company profits (in the case of technology). So what to do? Temperamentally, Pedler is unsuited to the normal channels for getting things done —parliament for instance—and by this time in any case he had met Gerry Davis and learned of the possibilities of television. To Pedler, the temptation of being able to reach out directly to a vast audience and express his own doubts and fears about science and technology through fictionalised drama proved irresistible Doomwatch was conceived; and, after the usual birth pangs, was brought forth upon the TV screen.
Now personally, I have very mixed feelings about Doomwatch. By the usual light entertainment standards, the series is indifferent; the characters are straight comic-cuts, the acting and direction are not exactly inspired, and it descends too readily to the melodramatic. More seriously, the “scientists” it portrays bear not the slightest resemblance to any I have ever known, and it often seems to blur dangerously the line between fact and fiction—between real or at least plausible situations, extended a bit to make a dramatic point, and quite unwarranted extrapolations of present research. Recently, the programmes have not been quite so culpable on this last point, but the first of the present series pointed up the danger graphically, with a scientist growing hen-human hybrid creatures in his lab—a foolish, even mischievous, leap from the research on hybrid cells going on at Oxford. With all that said, the fact remains that Doomwatch has undoubtedly got more about science and its concomitant dangers across to more people (some 12 million watch each programme) than a host of earnest, learned documentaries.
Pedler is immediately willing to concede almost every one of these criticisms, relying upon the last fact to justify the programme. He has the grace to look uncomfortable as one spells out specific exampIes of grossness, but counters with the argument that he isn’t the programme’s producer, and that often he disagrees with the production committee’s decisions. He agrees that the characters don’t behave like real scientists—the John Ride character, for instance, “is a sub-James Bond type who wouldn’t last live minute in a laboratory”-but contends that the programme doesn’t set out to convince scientists, who make up only a tiny proportion of the audience. In any case, the constraints of producing a popular TV series mean that the fictional Doomwatch. “can’t. really bear a strict, rigorous relationship with what is needed in real life.”
For, make no mistake, Pedler wants to see a real Doomwatch, Out of his “science fiction pipe-dream” has emerged the idea of a small, dedicated band of perhaps five or six scientists each with a specific expertise, setting itself up as a sort of freelance watchdog against the mis-use of science and technology. “Science for the People” might be its slogan, for its main task will be to confront and irritate the authorities——whether they be governments, town councils, companies or whatever—with uncomfortable sc ientific data whenever for expediency, convenience or simple blindness they take stupid decisions.
As an example of the sort of outrage he means, Pedler quotes the habit of many coastal towns of discharging raw sewage into the sea. “They know they are doing wrong; we know they are doing wrong. But they protect themselves if you challenge them by referring to a 1959 publication by the Medical Research Council which said that there was no health hazard in raw sewage.” Apart from the aesthetics of the situation, Pedler believes that this advice could now be demonstrated as plain wrong, and that virulent viruses can be recovered from sewage for some time after its discharge. His postulated Doomwatch, he suggests, might take a group of science students, with training in bacteriology, virology, oceanology etc, along to such a town, make measurements and assemble a report which would them be presented to the town council and to the MRC He would aim, in fact, to put a fly in the bland PR ointment used to soothe many of the wounds caused by the mis-application or lack of application of science and technology. And his fly will be the unvarnished scientific facts.
This example also illustrates what PedIer believes to be the two most important immediate aspects of a real Doomwatch’s work. To begin with, there is the emphasis on the environment. In fact, the very first task of Pedler’s postulated band would be to assemble all the available pollution data from its scattered repositories all over the world, and centralise it in a rapid access computer system. A major difference from the fictional Doomwatch (apart from the quality of its science) is that the real version will attempt, on the basis of this centralised data, to predict the unhappy outcomes of apparently splendid ideas, rather than come along and sweep up the mess afterwards.
The use of students to do most of the scientific data gathering in the seaside example also points up the real Doomwatch’s other key role: in education. Hopefully, it would engage in, perhaps, the design of simple biological testing equipment for schools, and the making of films. The leading of field trips for university students would give them valuable experience in applied ecology. But perhaps even more important than any of these specifics is the prodding of people into an awareness of the fact that technology is a two-edged sword: that there is a price to pay for every “advance”. People must be given an idea of this price—they should be aware of what goes on behind the scenes in the production of a battery chicken, for instance—and be allowed to consider if they are prepared to pay it.
At this point, Pedler’s ideas for his scientific watchdog merge with his own philosophy toward science and technology. What really maddens him as far as the latter is concerned is the useless, rapacious technology that plunders the Earth of its natural resources for no foreseeable benefit to mankind - except for the lining of someone’s pocket. This is epitomised for him by the fruit machine. “Recently I did an analysis of such a machine in a pub. It contained rare metals, complicated integrated circuits, chromium, copper— even ruthenium. And what does it do? Oranges and bloody lemons.”
Pedler would like instead to see technology applied to the problems of urban living. He has in mind, for instance, a house - an “urban spaceship”—designed along the lines of the Apollo command module, with recycling of the energy input and effluent output from the structure. It might also be “wired” with tubes of salt water rather than copper to save on raw materials. He calls this ‘rethinking technology on behalf of people”. But is this what people really want? Mightn’t they be content with the technology—in the shape of shiny new cars-and ‘fridges—that they already have? Pedler views the current obsession with technology as stemming from the fact that our society: “is out of goals; absolutely but out of goals. And technology, in the form of cars and ‘fridges, has become a goal surrogate. How exciting it would be if through education, demonstration, ceaseless activity, we could turn people round to realise that our Earth is going to pieces, and give them the goal of putting it right, to put them back on their mettle and raise us above the level of technological apes.”
So here is one more job for Pedler’s Meddlers. And another would be to propogandise about science as well as technology. Pedler would like to see a shift, a “torsion”, in scientific education, such that students are made much more aware of what science could do for people. They should also not be afraid, Pedler contends, of allowing emotion and ordinary human feelings of aesthetics to enter the scientific arena. If they were already there, for instance, few people would allow themselves to consider the eminently sensible, but “foul and ugly” proposition of a Russian scientist that we should graft onto human vegetables—people who have become deprived of their brain function through some cardiovascular accident—human organs for storage until needed for transplantation. “The public, indeed, have already got it in for the scientist, because they see him as a cold-eyed stockbroker in a white coat; they don’t see him as a human being at all.” What of the practical details of a Doomwatch incarnate: where, for instance would the money come from? In its earliest days Pedler envisages getting support from a university, or perhaps from a few large private donations (he freely hints that money would be forthcoming from this direction). But once it has a success or two under its belt, the organisation would appeal for funds directly from the public; science for the people, paid for by the people. In this way, it would avoid commitments to government or industry, and all political pressures.
If you want to be cynical, it’s easy enough to see Pedler as a sort of Lone Ranger in a lab coat. There’s no doubt that he himself wants to be instrumental in seeing the fulfilment of his television dream, and would chuck up his own research tomorrow to do so. But he is also intensely realistic. He holds meetings of an informal group of scientists and artists at his house at Clapham, where the pros and cons of his proposal are thrashed to exhaustion. He claims to thrive on opposition, and hopes that this article will provoke people into pointing out the weaknesses of his scheme: he wants to get it watertight before he actually launches it out into the world. Of one point he is already firmly convinced: he won’t lack for volunteers to join him on board.
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 13:47:44 GMT -5
New Scientist 27 July 1972 Cover Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 13:48:11 GMT -5
New Scientist 27 July 1972 Article Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 14:05:15 GMT -5
New Scientist 25 February 1971 Cover Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 14:05:47 GMT -5
New Scientist 25 February 1971 Plastic's Article Page 1 Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 14:06:29 GMT -5
New Scientist 25 February 1971 Plastic's Article Page 2 Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 14:35:58 GMT -5
New Scientist 15 Jun 1972 Doomwatch Film News Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 14:41:58 GMT -5
New Scientist 31 Dec 1970 Hybrid Cells Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 14:44:32 GMT -5
New Scientist 5 Jul 1979 Review Kit Pedler The Quest for Gaia Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 14:46:37 GMT -5
New Scientist 21 May 1981 Mind of Matter TV Review Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 14:51:27 GMT -5
New Scientist 12 Jun 1980 Earthlife Attachments:
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Post by DR. QUIST on Sept 3, 2010 15:03:48 GMT -5
New Scientist 30 Oct 1975 The Dynostar Menace Review Attachments:
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