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Navigating the Gray Zones 

The most serious challenges confronting the world do not respect national boundaries, making international scientific collaboration essential for dealing with them. Tommy Shih notes that “researchers have collaborated internationally to sequence and monitor SARS-CoV-2, develop and deliver vaccines, preserve habitat, mitigate climate change, and more.”
 
But scientists engaged in such collaboration can find themselves in a gray zone, Shih writes. Differences in national laws, ethical codes, or research standards can produce ethically and legally murky situations. International clinical trials, for instance, can become problematic in countries with less rigorous oversight. 
 
Shih argues that “national and global science funders are best positioned to launch a dialogue that can harmonize research norms and build trust.” As more countries invest in research and development and scientists embark on collaborative projects, science funders can make it easier for researchers to identify and navigate the gray zones.

Read more about how science funders can support a global dialogue to develop research standards and how to enforce them.

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Forum: “That funders of all types … will pour billions of dollars into science, but far fewer dollars into sustained efforts to make science results useful,” writes Melissa Flagg, “is a fundamental flaw in our system.”
WHAT WE’RE READING
ECOTOPIA and DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?
I recently read two very different books, both set in San Francisco (where I live) in a postwar near future. Ernest Callenbach’s 1975 novel, Ecotopia, describes a West Coast several years after hard-fought independence from the rest of the United States. The new country is organized to be sustainable and equitable. Homes are built via high-tech extrusion of renewable wood. Tree harvesting is performed by communal societies that incorporate spiritual practices into replanting. Compare that with Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? from 1968 (the inspiration for Blade Runner), where people feel alienated and unhappy. Global nuclear war has filled the skies with radioactive dust that blocks out the stars and snuffs out nearly all wildlife. The protagonist Rick Deckard, who longs to own a live animal and gain a sense of connection, hunts androids that have escaped from off-Earth colonies. The premises of these novels are mirror images of each other. In Callenbach’s utopia, technology is used to create a society where everyone can contribute and belong. In Dick’s dystopia, technology is used to create thinking beings that cannot belong in society. In both, societies shape the tools they make—and the tools return the favor.
—Monya Baker, Senior Editor
AAAS ANNUAL MEETING
We have a booth (#409) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s annual meeting in Washington, DC, this weekend (March 2–5). Stop by for special programming, great swag giveaways, and AAAS-exclusive subscription discounts—or just say hello, relax on our comfy couches, and recharge your phone.
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Third International summit on human genome editing, March 6–8, 2023
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Header photo by Kyle Glenn.
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Issues in Science and Technology is a publication of Arizona State University and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Copyright © 2023 National Academy of Sciences, All rights reserved.


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