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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Conflict and political upheaval around the world make it easy to overlook the progress we are making to improve life on our fragile planet. Technological advances, including but certainly not restricted to artificial intelligence, have opened an era of expanding and accelerating research discovery. The urgent task is to harness these for the wider benefit of humanity and the natural world — and to hold gathering anti-science forces at bay.
It has been a year of cosmic wonder, spanning decades of astronomical ventures. The James Webb Space Telescope, launched on Christmas Day three years ago, is revealing a stream of new insights about the universe and its origins. Incredibly, scientists re-established lost contact with the Voyager 1 satellite, which was launched in 1977 and is now in interstellar space.
We are learning more about the human body and the spectacular mechanics of the complex structures that make it up. This year saw the first phase results of the global cell atlas project, to build what was been branded a Google Maps for the body. Another international collaboration unveiled the first map of the brain of a fruit fly, offering the prospect of new insights into neurological diseases.
The year also saw important public health milestones as we approach the fifth anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic. The first ever malaria vaccines were rolled out and late-stage clinical trials began for the first tuberculosis jab for more than a century. New data showed the success of well-funded international efforts to curb the threat of HIV and Aids, particularly in Africa. Weight-loss drugs are already having a remarkable impact on obesity, with investigations under way on whether they could tackle an extraordinary range of other diseases.
Businesses and daily lives could be revolutionised as technical breakthroughs to which researchers have long aspired move closer to our reach. Robots can do more complex tasks than ever before, while efforts to build powerful quantum computers are being constantly improved. These fields need to be properly regulated and the financial benefits fairly allocated, including acknowledgment of the contributions of publicly-funded research institutions.
The exciting scientific developments present threats as well as opportunities. Dozens of leading researchers including two Nobel Prize winners have warned of the potentially catastrophic impact of human-made “mirror bacteria” for life on earth. The prospect may sound like the megalomaniac plot of a James Bond villain, but the development of synthetic biology could make it possible.
Political will is needed to ensure these new capabilities do good in the face of global challenges and inequities. Our responses to dangers such as climate change and pandemics are still grossly inadequate, with action far too often delayed and under-resourced. These are problems for all of us whatever our political differences, with the world’s poorest people usually suffering most.
We must push back against those who, in ignorance or bad faith, seek to undermine life-saving inventions such as vaccines. There is much to question and sometimes criticise in the conduct of science and scientists, as in other fields of human endeavour. But the scientific method honestly applied — including a willingness to change theories in the light of new evidence — remains a powerful tool for progress.
There is plenty to worry about as we reach the quarter-way point of the 21st century. But even apparently indestructible menaces can be overcome. There is hope for all of us in the scientific headway we are making — and it is substantive and demonstrable, rather than just idle dream.
