brave new worlds

The 23 Feb issue of Nature has several “political” articles, if not the title, which refers to the James Webb space telescope bringing in a wealth of information on exoplanets (through five Nature papers!). Beyond the usual editorial (on the need to help rebuilding Ukraine’s research infrastructure as an introduction to the main article on the way Ukrainian researchers coped with one year of war and destruction) and an opinion piece on the ongoing Nigerian elections and the lack of attention to science and technology), a criticism of (recently released) “disgraced scientist” He Jiankui and his (virtual) invitation at the University of Kent, the impact of the new Twitter on social scientists using its data, an attack on the American Geophysical Union for expelling two members who had held up a banner calling for action during an AGU conference talk, and a lengthy opinion piece on banning AI weapons that starts with a rather unwelcome perspective on the “us versus them” Western attitude about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a conclusion calling for the UN ban of autonomous weapons that is likely to have the same impact as a ban on nuclear weapons…

bombed classroom

Ukraine’s call [Національної академії наук України]

A call for solidarity from the President of the National Academy of Sciences (HAH) of Ukraine as a letter in Nature. To help Ukraine scientists to relocate in European countries, if temporarily, #scienceforukraine is posting available positions. Worldwide. In a tribune, Nature has also opened a debate on whether or not “a comprehensive and worldwide boycott of all Russian research [should be enforced], and scientific journals [should] refuse to consider papers by researchers from Russia”. Reflecting on an earlier call from Ukraine’s scientific community to a similar effect, albeit limited to Russian Federation citizens getting access to EU grants [this is already in effect], academic mobility programs [as well], and to journal editorships. And to run international scientific events [like the ICM and EMS 2022 meetings]. While a complete boycott would add to the other sanctions adopted by some countries towards stopping the war, sanctions that impact the ordinary citizen more than the ruling nomenklatura, I doubt it would have any [short-term] significant effect: The Russian Science Foundation has already dropped its requirement to publish in indexed journals outside Russia. It would also most difficult to implement in practice (although I seem to remember SIAM journals rejecting papers co-signed by Iranian authors at some point…)