The New Longitude Prize, what gets your vote?

[8Ace]

Max_Torque said:

So, the new Longitude 10M Prize is now open to public votes, which of the topics gets your vote?

The Longitude Prize


For me:

Low carbon Air transport: NO (just stop pointlessly flying round the world to sit on a beach)

Water for everyone: NO (We have the technical solution to this already, just not the political will)

Future Antibiotics: NO (the pharmaceutical companies already have enough cash to develop these if they wanted to)

Paralysis Cure: MAYBE - lots of interesting technology, both medical and social could help with this one

Dementia: MAYBE - this is going to become an increasing problem as medical science allows us to live longer

Food: YES - The one subject that is likely to affect both the most people and the poorest people, as competition for food and energy colide in the next 20 years!


What are the rest of you voting for??

Interesting one this. My view as follows:


Low Carbon Air Transport: No. This is hardly the most pressing issue affecting the world today..

Food: No. We have the technology via GM to make a massive difference already, but Swampy won't let us.

Water: No. Issue here seems to be transport. Not so much technology to get clean water (as this already exists) but the logistics of plumbing in a national grid style thing for water across Africa. Technically possible but bdly expensive.

Dementia: Possibly. Dementia affects millions of people and is set to be a much bigger issue to come. Unlike cancer, there is no way to stop it.

Paralysis: Possibly. As for Dementia, getting a handle on how nerve cells grow and connect, and having the ability to control this to ensure the right connections are mae and restored will have a transformational impact on many.

Antibiotics: Possibly. Would advocate against a chemical solution as the bacteria will just do what thay're doing now and evolve resistance until it's useless. However, a solution such as bacteriophage could be hugely effective and much harder for the bugs to evolve against. Getting this right could be amazing and save millions of lives, especially those affected by the water issue and having to drink out of filtyhy polluted wells.

Would have to go for the antibiotics thing as it has the scope to help most people, but only if it's done in a slightly different way.

[Simpo Two]

8Ace said:

However, a solution such as bacteriophage could be hugely effective and much harder for the bugs to evolve against. Getting this right could be amazing and save millions of lives, especially those affected by the water issue and having to drink out of filtyhy polluted wells.

Perhaps - until Swampy cries that he's being injected with viruses and gets it shuts down because it's not safe innit...

Also let's not forget, in this current tsunami of social fluffiness, that every 'million lives saved' is another million souls that have to be fed and watered for 70 years, and who will produce 2-10 million offspring that have to be fed and watered for another 70 years, each of whom will...

Disease and famine is how nature keeps populations under control.

[Asterix]

Just a thought. Providing more food and more water to areas that don't have it as a natural resource and would be unable to sustain humans - is this not going to cause many other serioius issues due to massive population growth?

[NDT]

Morningside said:

What a boring set of things to vote for. Where is the engineering, computing or chemical stuff?

Are you sure you meant that?

[Simpo Two]

I'm sure he did. You can either try to feed the entire human race three times a day - an impossible task - and stagnate, or concentrate on pushing forward the boundaries of science and human knowledge.

[Engineer1]

Simpo Two said:

Disease and famine is how nature keeps populations under control.

And constant disease and famine in an area should be a hint that it isn't somewhere you would want to live.

[Asterix]

Engineer1 said:

Simpo Two said:

Disease and famine is how nature keeps populations under control.

And constant disease and famine in an area should be a hint that it isn't somewhere you would want to live.

I agree - doesn't stop people living in Luton though does it.

[Russian Rocket]

food + water + air flight (IMO a crafty way of getting global warming in there) could all be sorted out with a clean (and big) energy supply

I vote for a ZPM

[MrCheese]

What a depressing list, did some arts graduates put it together? It reads like something from Michael Jackson's "Feed the world". If that makes sense!

[hidetheelephants]

Anti-bloody-biotics?!? Talk about a lack of ambition. £10m prize for big pharma to do the job it should already be doing.

[GnuBee]

The right thing won then - predictably there'll be yawning and accusations of nest lining by big Pharma but of all the things on the list antibiotic resistance is the one most likely to affect every one of us.

10m sounds a lot, btw, but in the context of drug R&D and the pathway to a commercial release it's diddly squat. Not even sure that your traditional Pharmas will be that interested. Probably a pure research/academic organisation will run with the challenge and may even focus on the testing side of things as opposed drug development

[Mr2Mike]

GnuBee said:

10m sounds a lot, btw, but in the context of drug R&D and the pathway to a commercial release it's diddly squat.

In the context of big Pharma profits it's a small drop in the ocean.

[GnuBee]

Mr2Mike said:

In the context of big Pharma profits it's a small drop in the ocean.

Indeed the comment was more around the notion that 10m will not attract the attentions of the big Pharma's as it's not "motivational". Now for a small, academically focused research operation it is and they also the kind of operations that are likely to take a punt at this.

Large Pharmaceuticals are like any other big business, it's all about the money. We do some "out-reach" stuff, some stuff that looks fluffy and friendly in marketing to shareholders or when lobbying but the core is making money.

The angle that's being taken, I believe, is to develop a test that allows a much more selective prescription of antibiotics. By reducing the availability of antibiotics the rate of adaptation should be slowed (doubtful it can be stopped). That's not going to interest the likes of GSK, AZ, Pfizer etc.

Any newly developed antibiotic is likely to spend most of its time on a shelf because you don't want it out "there" so you can mitigate the risk of adaptation. So from a big Pharma PoV you proposing a business case when you spend 100M US$ perhaps to research, develop, trial and approve a drug that you then don't sell - not very attractive when that same spend may spawn another Viagra...

[hidetheelephants]

8Ace said:

Antibiotics: Possibly. Would advocate against a chemical solution as the bacteria will just do what thay're doing now and evolve resistance until it's useless. However, a solution such as bacteriophage could be hugely effective and much harder for the bugs to evolve against. Getting this right could be amazing and save millions of lives, especially those affected by the water issue and having to drink out of filtyhy polluted wells.

Would have to go for the antibiotics thing as it has the scope to help most people, but only if it's done in a slightly different way.

This would seem to be a better objective than the chosen one; obviously big pharma won't be interested as it probably wouldn't be patentable, but tackling the problem of infection from a different direction definitely would benefit from a dollop of cash incentive, and the benefits to the developing world where they cannot afford antibiotics could be big too.

[Gandahar]

I think there should be a prize to stop people wanting to buy a smartwatch just so they can read a text from their mate saying "ok" because they are too lazy to get their phone out of their pocket.

Or am I just a Luddite?

[hidetheelephants]

Gandahar said:

I think there should be a prize to stop people wanting to buy a smartwatch just so they can read a text from their mate saying "ok" because they are too lazy to get their phone out of their pocket.

Or am I just a Luddite?

1980s; calculator watches are useless novelties worn by cocks
2010s; smart watches are useless novelties worn by cocks

No, you're just normally cynical about the kind of people that adopt whatever new technobks that's being touted by paid shills on ttter without applying any critical thinking.

[Gandahar]

hidetheelephants said:

Gandahar said:

I think there should be a prize to stop people wanting to buy a smartwatch just so they can read a text from their mate saying "ok" because they are too lazy to get their phone out of their pocket.

Or am I just a Luddite?

1980s; calculator watches are useless novelties worn by cocks
2010s; smart watches are useless novelties worn by cocks

No, you're just normally cynical about the kind of people that adopt whatever new technobks that's being touted by paid shills on ttter without applying any critical thinking.

Indeed, if I ever bought Google Glass the lens would be rose tinted...

[Simpo Two]

Gandahar said:

I think there should be a prize to stop people wanting to buy a smartwatch just so they can read a text from their mate saying "ok" because they are too lazy to get their phone out of their pocket.

Astonishingly the world worked very well before mobile phones were invented, in fact I'd suggest better. How they've come to be an obsession in everyone's lives from 5+ is quite frightening.

[blasos]

Simpo Two said:

Also let's not forget, in this current tsunami of social fluffiness, that every 'million lives saved' is another million souls that have to be fed and watered for 70 years, and who will produce 2-10 million offspring that have to be fed and watered for another 70 years, each of whom will...

So, it would be better to let them starve to death, is that your suggestion? Who are you to say who gets food and who doesn't? Would you be first in line to give up your own life and those of people known to you? If not, then why suggest the sacrifice of other people's lives? Social fluffiness you call it - I wonder what you'd call it if you weren't dealt such a great slice of luck that you weren't one of those starving millions.

There's plenty of food to feed every person on this planet; the stumbling block is a monetary system which makes the dispersal of such resources "uneconomical" and is the antithesis of the market system. In a greed-based social system the life ground of the society is always doomed to atrophy.

Population control can be achieved a number of ways, not just by your suggestion of starvation. Leaving a greater gap between reproduction, a lengthening of the generations, would be one worthy suggestion.

Simpo Two said:

Disease and famine is how nature keeps populations under control.

I'd hope that's a joke. Another version of "The Invisible Hand" superstitious thought process.

[Simpo Two]

It is entrely true. If you had studied population ecology you would know it, and what you see before you is proof. You're debating like a socialist not a scientist.