But to enact and enforce rules on this miniscule scale, regulators first need to come up with a definition of nanomaterials that is both legally precise and scientifically sound. And, as nano expert Andrew Maynard put it in Nature in 2011, “a sensible definition has proved hard, if not impossible, to arrive at.”

Consider two recent attempts. Exhibit A is the definition of nanotechnology adopted by the European Union. After much deliberation and struggle, in 2011 the European Commission, which aimed to adopt a “science-based” definition, came up with the following:

A natural, incidental, or manufactured material containing particles, in an unbound state or as an aggregate or as an agglomerate and where, for 50 percent or more of the particles in the number size distribution, one or more external dimensions is in the size range 1 nm [nanometer] – 100 nm. In specific cases and where warranted by concerns for the environment, health, safety or competitiveness the number size distribution threshold of 50 percent may be replaced by a threshold between 1 and 50 percent.

Exhibit B is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed definition of nanomaterials. The regulatory body is scheduled to finalize rules this fall requiring companies that produce or handle nanomaterials to report certain information about such substances to the agency:

[A] chemical substance that is solid at 25 °C and atmospheric pressure that is manufactured or processed in a form where the primary particles, aggregates, or agglomerates are in the size range of 1–100 nm and exhibit unique and novel characteristics or properties because of their size. A reportable chemical substance does not include a chemical substance that only has trace amounts of primary particles, aggregates, or agglomerates in the size range of 1–100 nm, such that the chemical substance does not exhibit the unique and novel characteristics or properties because of particle size.

See the differences? The EPA definition only includes manufactured nanomaterials, but the EU definition includes manufactured, natural, and incidental ones. On the other hand, the EPA defines materials by size (1-100 nm) and requires that they exhibit some novel property (like catalytic activity, chemical reactivity, or electric conductivity), while the EU just looks at size. And it goes on with differences in composition requirements, aggregate thresholds, and other characteristics.

These are just two of more than two dozen regulatory definitions of nanotechnology, all differing in important ways—size limits, dimensions (do we regulate in 1D, 2D, or 3D?), properties, etc. These differences can have major practical significance—for example, some commercially important materials (e.g., graphite sheets) may be nano-sized in one or two dimensions but not three. The conflicting definitions create confusion and inefficiencies for consumers, companies, and researchers when some substances are defined as nanomaterials under certain programs or nations but not others.

But there’s an even bigger problem than the jumble of terms: None of the definitions are actually workable. Nanotechnology encompasses a very broad range of materials, products, and applications that involve unique properties at small sizes. There is no magical size cut-off that applies across all of the various types of nanomaterials. For example, many nanomaterials exhibit unique nano properties only at sizes below 30 nm, while other materials exhibit unique properties in particles above 100 nm. Thus, it makes no scientific sense to say that a particle of a given type is nanotechnology if it is 95 nm in diameter but not if it is 105 nm.

Similarly, there is no magic composition cut-off that easily establishes that a product should be considered “nano.” Is it when more than half of the material is in the specified size range? 100 percent of material? 10 percent? 1 percent? “Trace amounts”? And if we set such an arbitrary limit, won’t it cause enormous confusion and compliance problems when the make-up of materials differs based on slight production variations, natural environmental fluctuations, or companies who manipulate products to be just under the set threshold? And how will we even test this? Measuring the percentage of particles in a product that are between 1-100 nm in size is a very expensive and complex undertaking, and currently technically infeasible for many materials.

Beyond that, many materials that happen to fall in the size and composition range laid out by these regulatory definitions don’t exhibit characteristic properties of nanomaterials that raise red flags of potential hazard. For example, gold nanoparticles less than 3 nm exhibit strong catalytic activity for certain reactions, whereas larger gold particles are inert. Only the former are likely to be potentially dangerous. Because of this, most scientists recommend that regulatory definitions include requirements related to both size and potential significance. Otherwise, they risk being ridiculously over-inclusive. Take, for example, the definition put forward by the EPA. Although it does include a caveat about regulated nanomaterials needing “novel characteristics,” it doesn’t actually lay out criteria of what constitutes “novel.” Does a different color at the nanoscale count? What about increased electrical conductivity? With these kinds of ambiguities, the reporting requirements the EPA is pushing become impossible to enforce.

So what are policymakers to do when they can’t even properly define what they’re trying to regulate? Some experts advocate developing even more detailed criteria that encompass concerns, but there remains the question of whether the standards will be administratively feasible to test. Others suggest defining and regulating only specific nanostructures—such as commercially important and well-characterized nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes and quantum dots—rather than trying to devise a catchall definition. But then regulators risk falling behind in a fast-paced industry in which new forms and structures of nanomaterials are constantly being developed, sticking to substances that have been around longer at the danger of missing the new ones we need to be most concerned about.

Perhaps the most feasible approach is to forget about developing nano-specific regulations altogether, and instead put in place regulatory programs that consistently screen all new materials for safety, whether or not they meet an arbitrary definition of “nanomaterials.” The European REACH program and the recently revised U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act have both made moves in this direction, and may save us from such futile definitions. In the absence of a legally precise definition of nanotechnology, and given that all products include some nano-sized particles, current efforts to enact nano-specific regulations may be misdirected. We might be better off devoting scarce regulatory resources to improving regulatory assessment of all materials, whether they contain a little nano or a lot of nano.

The post Why We Need to Define “Nanomaterial” appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

What I did not do, but really wish that I had, was enter a description of my experience into the U.S. Geological Survey’s crowdsourcing initiative, “Did You Feel It?” The system collects data from people who have felt tremors to determine the extent and intensity of earthquakes in near-real time. The submitted data are used in the USGS ShakeMaps, which help organizations like the Federal Emergency Management Agency prepare for and respond to earthquakes.

USGS’s “Did You Feel It?” initiative is a great example of one kind of citizen science—everyday people using their experiences or interests to participate in scientific projects. These research projects come from a startling variety of scientific disciplines. Bird lovers can participate in the Audobon Society’s annual Christmas bird count. History enthusiasts can scrutinize 19th-century whaling logbooks to better understand climate change. You could also use a virtual microscope to hunt for particles of interstellar dust retrieved by the Stardust spacecraft in 2006. If neuroscience is more your thing, you can help to map the brain by playing EyeWire, an online game designed by a lab at Princeton University.

Citizen contributions to projects like these go back at least as far as Thomas Jefferson’s plan to collect weather data from as many people as possible in order to produce “a reliable theory of weather and climate.” It’s the kind of citizen science that most everyone agrees is worthwhile—helpful to researchers and edifying for the public. In fact, a bipartisan bill making its way through Congress at the moment, the Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2015, encourages collaboration between scientists and the public. The bill appeals to a range of political sensibilities because it encourages public engagement in science and broadens the scope of federally funded research without increasing budgets. (Citizen volunteers cost even less than postdocs, it turns out.)

But citizens can do more for science than just collect data (as important as data collection is). By educating themselves in the research and infusing urgency into the process, citizen scientists can get involved in decisions about what gets researched, how research is conducted, and how results should be used. This pushes the bounds of citizen science in new and contentious ways.

Citizen participation in science-related decision-making can mean advocating for testing, as residents in Flint, Michigan, did when they realized that, despite their state Department of Environmental Quality’s claims, their water was contaminated with lead. It can mean loudly encouraging new research priorities, like AIDS activists did in the 1980s and some cancer patient advocates do today. Or it can mean funding the development of better air-quality samplers for use by communities near petrochemical facilities. Non-experts can also contribute to decisions about consequential (and potentially controversial) technologies, such as gene-editing techniques and artificial intelligence, by voicing their politics, values, and concerns in emerging forms of structured deliberation.

As Darlene Cavalier, a citizen science pioneer who founded the SciStarter database, and researcher Eric Kennedy astutely point out in their new book on citizen science, the public’s involvement in these scientific issues is not intended to replace or refute expertise. (Disclosure: I work for Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy, & Outcomes, and we published Cavalier and Kennedy’s book.) Citizens complement traditional science policymaking by contributing perspectives that researchers and decision makers would not otherwise have access to.

The educational aspect runs both ways. Participation in citizen science in its many forms improves adult scientific literacy, an important task as scientific issues permeate public policy debates on everything from Zika research funding to genetically modified organisms. (This might also educate people on the limits of science and help diminish our habit of appealing to it to arbitrate disagreements over the nonscientific realms of policy, politics, and values.) Greater awareness of issues like lead contamination in municipal water supplies can benefit the research process, too. Under federal rules, for instance, city utilities must get volunteers to collect water samples for testing. In 2014, the Philadelphia water utility sent letters to more than 8,000 of its customers but managed to find only 134 volunteers. Demanding that our water supplies aren’t poisoning us means taking some responsibility for ensuring that it’s tested properly.

It’s also worth remembering that a lot of research in the United States is publicly funded, as Cavalier has emphasized: “American adults fund 50 percent of the basic science [through tax dollars], and we entrust people with issues that impact our lives, but we’re cut out of the conversation.” The federal government will spend nearly $150 billion on research and development this year. Some measure of accountability to the people supplying that funding is necessary and appropriate.

Citizen scientists have different incentives than career scientists, which can affect the kind of research undertaken and how the results are used. Of course, scientists would presumably have chosen different career paths if they did not care a great deal about, for example, environmental quality and how it affects people. But the sample of murky water sitting on a lab bench looks a lot different than the murky water with which you’re making pasta for your kids. Because they’re human, the pressures of publishing, of finding funding, of making tenure, of discovering a marketable drug, or of keeping one’s boss in the environmental agency happy can all exert influence on scientists—and don’t always help align their research with the interests of everyday citizens.

This gets to an important final point about public involvement in science policy. Citizen participation improves the science. Ominous clouds have been building above many parts of the scientific establishment, aided by a steady updraft of retractions, fraudulent practices, reproducibility problems, conflicts of interest, conflicting results, and simple irrelevance. One of the reasons for this is that scientists are rarely accountable to anything outside their community. A citizenry that demands tangible results—such as effective cancer therapies and safe drinking water—can help to discipline research efforts toward finding solutions to pressing, real-world problems.

When dealing with the quality of our air, water, and food; searching for treatments for diseases we suffer from; or even understanding the enormous social implications of innovations stemming from cutting-edge science and technology, citizens’ voices need to be heard. This will require citizens like me to participate—rather than wandering off for a post-earthquake beer—and for scientists and policymakers to be more accepting of the public’s involvement in using the power of science to improve the world.

The post Crowdsourcing in the Name of Science appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

That reaction is understandable—and wrong. This gift should be saluted, not derided.

If history is a guide, both cutting-edge science and Harvard University may be better long-term investments in “helping the poor” than almost any other philanthropic alternative.

The lifting effect on all humanity of research that successfully addresses intractable societal challenges of disease, nutrition, climate change, and poverty cannot be underestimated. With government and industry research dollars shrinking or plateauing, America’s competitive success in science and technology depends more than ever upon the excellence of our great research universities. And 21st-century science facilities and research do not come cheaply.

Those who decry “the rich get richer” phenomena of big-time philanthropy miss the point. The follow-up to magnificent gifts such as this, after applause, should be to ask who will produce the human capital to make use of the opportunities the gift will facilitate. Where will the future scientists who achieve the breakthroughs at Harvard, Stanford, and other research centers begin their careers as undergraduates?

One answer to that question: Small liberal arts colleges, which already provide a disproportionate share of the “seed corn” of students for graduate and post-graduate science. This includes not just national schools such as Amherst and Swarthmore, but lesser known (and much less well-funded) regional institutions such as Augsburg, Lawrence, and the 155-year-old private school where I was president, North Central College.

These schools have a remarkable record of inspiring careers in science that lead to important breakthroughs at the National Institutes of Health and the top research universities, and to numerous Nobel Prizes. In a recent 20-year span, according to former Princeton President Shirley Tilghman, of the 70 Americans who received their undergraduate education in this country and won Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics, and medicine, 16—more than one in five—attended liberal arts colleges.

Former Howard Hughes Medical Institute President Tom Cech, himself a graduate of tiny Grinnell College and a Nobel Laureate, has noted that despite offering no doctoral programs of their own, “liberal arts colleges as a group produce about twice as many eventual science Ph.D.’s per graduate as do baccalaureate institutions in general.” And while private research universities such as Princeton, Stanford and Chicago are “more selective than any of the liberal arts colleges,” Cech has said, “their efficiency of production of Ph.D.’s, while excellent, lags behind that of the top liberal arts colleges.”

In a memorable speech to college presidents a few years ago, Tilghman, who is a molecular biologist, posed what she referred to as “the $64,000 question”: Why are liberal arts colleges so successful in producing this result?

The answer to her question is to be found in both the character of liberal arts education and the location of these small colleges. Many talented American students like to go to smaller colleges near home. Much to the consternation of academic elitists and economists who cannot understand why all the “smart” students don’t choose to attend the most selective universities as undergraduates, much of American higher education is regional. Many top students remain reluctant to go far away or to big universities—and, historically, it has been these students whom liberal arts colleges have nurtured and inspired and provoked into careers in science. A glance at the biographies of the Nobel Laureates referenced by Tilghman suggests how important proximity to these regional institutions has been to their growth and success.

But there’s a harder and more important question for the United States and the world that needs to be addressed. Will this seed corn of science—produced by small classes, intense mentoring experiences, and hands-on research opportunities at small liberal arts colleges—be there in the years to come?

Even though cutting-edge science facilities and opportunities on liberal arts college campuses are smaller in scale than major universities, they still don’t come cheaply! The more regional the institution, the more likely it is that it lacks the funding base that goes with national prestige and visibility.

There is an immense opportunity here for philanthropists who care as much about the future of American science as John Paulson. Why not establish a data-driven challenge grant program inviting liberal arts colleges struggling with the cost of upgrading their science facilities and programs to re-engage this vital element of their historic mission and societal role?

The great research universities such as Harvard would be the first beneficiaries of the seed corn that results from such a program. And eventually, thanks to the discoveries that would follow, the beneficiaries would include everyone.

The post The Next Great American Scientists Will Not Graduate From Harvard appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.