Life after the synthetic cell, Nature

Summary: Nature asked eight synthetic-biology experts about the implications for science and society of the “synthetic cell” made by the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). The institute’s team assembled, modified and implanted a synthesized genome into a DNA-free bacterial shell to make a self-replicating Mycoplasma mycoides.

• Source: Life after the synthetic cell, DOI: 10.1038/465422a, Nature 465, 422″424, 2010/05/26

Inductive Game Theory and the Dynamics of Animal Conflict, PLoS Comput Biol

Excerpt: Persistent conflict is one of the most important contemporary challenges to the integrity of society and to individual quality of life. Yet surprisingly little is understood about conflict. (…) Here we develop a new method, Inductive Game Theory, and apply it to a time series gathered from detailed observation of a primate society. We are able to determine which types of behavior are most likely to generate periods of intense conflict, and we find that fights are not explained by single, aggressive individuals, but by complex interactions among groups of three or higher. Understanding how memory and strategy affect conflict dynamics is a crucial step towards designing better methods for prediction, management and control.

• Source: Inductive Game Theory and the Dynamics of Animal Conflict, Simon DeDeo, David C. Krakauer, Jessica C. Flack, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000782, PLoS Comput Biol 6(5): e1000782, 2010/05/13

Probably the population reached a critical size is a given location…(bh)

Humans: Why They Triumphed, The Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years… “the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once “progress” started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success “tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language” seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly “bang!”culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?

The answer lies in a new idea, borrowed from economics, known as collective intelligence: the notion that what determines the inventiveness and rate of cultural change of a population is the amount of interaction between individuals.

• Source: Humans: Why They Triumphed, Matt Ridley, The Wall Street Journal, 2010/05/22

Spatial Pattern Enhances Ecosystem Functioning in an African Savanna, PLoS Biol

Excerpt: Local interactions between organisms in nature can scale up to produce strikingly regular patterns across entire landscapes. With improvements in satellite imagery, such patterns are increasingly reported in the ecological literature. It remains unclear, however, whether the existence of such patterns actually matters for key ecosystem processes such as productivity. In semi-arid East Africa, below-ground mounds built by Odontotermes termites frequently occur in uniform, “polka-dot” arrangements. We show that, due to the ways in which termites modify the soil, these mounds are hotspots of plant and animal productivity (…)

• Source: Spatial Pattern Enhances Ecosystem Functioning in an African Savanna, Pringle RM, Doak DF, Brody AK, Jocqué R, Palmer TM, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000377, PLoS Biol 8(5): e1000377, 2010/05/25

The difference of being human: Morality, PNAS

Excerpt: I raise the question of whether morality is biologically or culturally determined. The question of whether the moral sense is biologically determined may refer either to the capacity for ethics (i.e., the proclivity to judge human actions as either right or wrong), or to the moral norms accepted by human beings for guiding their actions. I propose that the capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature, whereas moral codes are products of cultural evolution.

• Source: The difference of being human: Morality, Francisco J. Ayala, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0914616107, PNAS vol. 107 no. Supplement 2 9015-9022, 2010/05/11

Let’s see now, my graduate students are certainly fecund. Is this me creating all this extra population?  (bh)

The role of mentorship in protégé performance, Nature

Summary: Mentors influence the future success of their protégés, but to what extent do those protégés emulate their mentors? Here, one aspect of mentor emulation is studied, namely fecundity ” the number of protégés a mentor trains. Analysis of data from the Mathematics Genealogy Project shows that although mentorship fecundity correlates with success, those mentors who maintain a small fecundity go on to train protégés with a larger fecundity. Moreover, the mentor’s career stage influences the eventual fecundity of their protégés.

• Source: The role of mentorship in protégé performance, R. Dean Malmgren, Julio M. Ottino & Luís A. Nunes Amaral, DOI: 10.1038/nature09040, Nature 465, 622�”626, 2010/06/03

Variable valuations and voluntarism under group selection: An evolutionary public goods game, J Theor Biol.

Excerpt: In biological systems, as in human society, competing social groups may depend heavily on a small number of volunteers to advance the group’s prospects. This phenomenon can be understood as the solution to an evolutionary public goods game, in which a beneficent individual or a small number of individuals may place the highest value on group success and contribute the most to achieving it while profiting very little. Here we demonstrate that this type of solution, recently recognized in the social sciences, is evolutionarily stable and [...]

• Source: Variable valuations and voluntarism under group selection: An evolutionary public goods game, Crowley PH, Hwan Baik K, DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2010.05.005, Journal of Theoretical Biology 265(3): 238-244, May 2010

Networks: An Introduction, Oxford University Press

Summary:

The scientific study of networks, including computer networks, social networks, and biological networks, has received an enormous amount of interest in the last few years. The study of networks is broadly interdisciplinary and important developments have occurred in many fields, including mathematics, physics, computer and information sciences, biology, and the social sciences. This book brings together for the first time the most important breakthroughs in each of these fields and presents them in a coherent fashion, highlighting the strong interconnections between work in different areas.

• Source: Networks: An Introduction, Mark Newman, Oxford University Press, 2010/06/01

We recently announced our collaboration with The Economist’s Ideas Economy event series to launch the Economist-InnoCentive Challenge on 21st Century Cyber-Schools. InnoCentive is very excited about this partnership.  The Economist is  trying to solve some of the big problems plaguing mankind – which is exactly what we’re doing.  We do it through our global network of Solvers and they are doing it through their Ideas Economy Event series and the reach they have with their subscribers.  Both audiences contain some of the world’s most intelligent, highly engaged thinkers who are motivated to make a difference.  Given both audiences, along with our expertise in the process of Challenge based innovation, it makes perfect sense for us to join forces.

We asked InnoCentive CEO Dwayne Spradlin to provide his thoughts on this Challenge, and explain some of the benefits that we expect to see from this partnership:

Hi Dwayne – thanks for talking to us about the InnoCentive-Economist Partnership and the Cyber-Schools Challenge.

Absolutely – glad to have the opportunity.

What was inspiration for this particular Challenge?

The idea for this actual Challenge and for future Challenges will be driven by the theme of each of the Ideas Economy events.  These are all themes that we feel strongly about addressing.  The first key conference theme is Human Potential.  At the event, participants will discuss and debate how to boost human productivity by harnessing the potential of individuals and societies.  The Challenge addresses this via expanding education to people who are currently not able to access it. The Challenge winner will touch upon global education best practices, free market solutions to education, the testing dilemma, and how online learning will transform our schools.

In addition, we believe that this  is a Challenge that just about every attendee of the upcoming Economist Conference has both a stake in solving and something to offer. We have all been students at one time or another – so we all can relate to the Challenge from our own perspective.

How will solutions be used?

The way I see it is that there are two intrinsic motivations for engaging in open innovation – to find/create solutions which can be leveraged internally by a Seeker organization (an idea which is embraced by many of our Seekers) or in order to spur on conversations and innovative development (practiced by many Not for Profits, including, NASA, X-Prize, etc). I believe that this Challenge falls into the latter of the two categories. It is principally directed at helping to initiate a global conversation on this important opportunity and topic – how do we address the education of the world’s next billion inhabitants?

The award, which includes recognizing at least one valued contributor or Solver, will also help to lend much needed publicity to thought-leaders in this area and highlight some potential people who will lead the path forward on this topic.

How is Challenge doing?

The Challenge is doing very well.  We have over 700 project rooms in a short amount of time – which underscores the real interest level of the Challenge.  The Economist’s community of readers has also engaged tremendously on this Challenge which shows that our approach isn’t only well suited for developing cutting edge technologies or scientific pursuits, but rather it can also be used to stimulate innovative discussions on very important non-technical topics such as this.

Are you specifically targeting educators for their ideas or a broader audience?

Our research shows, and we really believe that in order for the conversation to be most effective, we need to reach out to as broad an audience as possible – including but not limited to educators. Therefore, we have left the Challenge quite broad and it seems that Solvers are participating in the Challenge in ways that they feel most comfortable. Technologists are attacking the technology hurdles. People with technical backgrounds are focusing on STEM education, etc. I think that this is a wonderful display of the diversity of our network.  That said, we’ve been lucky to have had significant interest and engagement from educators through blogs and industry publications as well.

Can you mention any specific promising solutions now?

That’s probably premature at this point. But we can say that there is clearly a lot of diversity among our participating Solvers. The have unpacked this problem in ways that I would never before have imagined – in that they are picking up on very nuanced issues around this problem area and helping us all gain even deeper insights into the profound cultural, social, technological and logistical Challenges that underlie deploying cyber-schooling in the 21st century.

Thanks – we’re looking forward to hearing more about this when the Challenge closes!

You’re welcome.

In an effort to improve your InnoCentive experience and get you the answers you need, we have made some upates to our Message Center.

You’ll be able to see the difference when you open your next project room – specifically, a logical division of sent vs. received messages.

To see the new Message Center, click on the Messages Tab or the Messages button on the right side of your project room. You will then be able to view messages for this Challenge from your Inbox or Sent tab. We think you’ll find this interface much easier to use.

As always, we value your feedback – please let us know if there is anything else we can do to enhance your InnoCentive Solving experience!

We recently announced that we would be partnering with Nature Publishing Group (NPG) to offer InnoCentive Challenges to NPG readers and clients.  Today we announced a significant milestone in this partnership, the creation of the nature.com Open Innovation pavilion.  I asked Dan Penny, Head of Business Development for NPG to talk to us about the significance of this relationship.

Hi Dan – thanks for being with us today. We’re very excited about partnering with Nature Publishing Group (NPG).  Can you tell us a bit of the history of NPG?

Nature has a long and illustrious history – it was launched in 1869, just ten years after Darwin’s Origin of Species was published – and indeed the first Nature article was written by a strong advocate of Darwin’s theories, Thomas Huxley. It’s great to work somewhere that has that historical context, and although the world has changed a lot in 140 years, we try to make sure that Nature still maintains its important role in drawing attention to the research that shows us how the world works.
Nature Publishing Group – we know it as NPG – now publishes over 70 journals and also offers online databases and services to our scientist community, including daily news and features from Nature News and our careers service NatureJobs. We’re very excited that just this year, Scientific American became the heart of NPG’s newly-formed consumer media division, meeting the needs of the general public.

Can you tell us why NPG was interested in a partnership with InnoCentive?

NPG is recognised as a company which believes very strongly in being innovative in its own right. I used to work for a consultancy which frequently made mention of NPG’s innovative character, but you have to work here to really see how much innovation is going on. It goes back a long way though – NPG’s original, 140-year-old mission statement talks about providing scientists with the opportunity of discussing “the various Scientific questions which arise from time to time”, and so we’ve developed several innovative services to help our readers do that – including Nature Network, our online networking platform for scientists and Connotea, a file sharing resource which won an award for publishing innovation. So I guess our interest in InnoCentive starts with its potential to nurture innovation.

What do you think is the benefit of the partnership to both the Nature user community and the InnoCentive Solver base?

The NPG partnership with InnoCentive will give our user community the opportunity to exercise their knowledge and expertise in solving problems which are out there, but which have stayed private until now. All scientists would like to see practical uses for their research – InnoCentive provides a greater opportunity for that to happen. We see provision of Challenge information to our readers in the same way as our jobs board – providing our readers with opportunities to develop themselves and, who knows, maybe their careers. The existing InnoCentive Solver base should benefit too – I think NPG’s increased involvement with open innovation will encourage others to accept it as a valid way to do research. We all know that traditional culture can be deeply embedded at large corporations – but hopefully Nature’s activities here will make some companies take notice.

What types of Challenges would you like to see posted in the Nature pavilion and how will they be different from Challenges currently available to Solvers?

I wouldn’t expect the types of Challenges that are available on the nature.com Pavilion to be very different from what is currently available more widely across InnoCentive. Nature Publishing Group serves scientists right across the spectrum of life, physical and chemical sciences, as well as medical research, so the variety of challenges on InnoCentive should only increase. I’m eager to see what kinds of Challenges start to appear – my guess is that we may start to see more requests for partnerships, as the current economic climate bites and makes partnering a good way to develop business. I’d also like to see plenty of not-for-profit Challenges, because I’d hope that the strength of Nature’s reputation would attract plenty of attention to important causes such as neglected diseases and climate change.

What message would you like to give to current InnoCentive Solvers about working on Challenges in the Nature pavilion?

Solvers who answer Challenges posted in the nature.com Open Innovation Pavilion will form a link to the great researchers published in Nature over the past 140 years. Nature’s tradition of highlighting the best scientific knowledge continues, and we expect our commercial partners to understand that nature.com is a very good way of reaching individuals who hold this knowledge. So we’re all looking forward to seeing a diverse set of challenges over the coming months and the innovative approaches that solve scientific problems.

Thanks Dan – we’re looking forward to seeing lots of new Challenges in the new Pavilion!

Dwayne Spradlin, InnoCentive President and Chief Executive Officer, and Alpheus Bingham, Ph.D, InnoCentive Founder and Board of Directors member, are two of the conference’s featured speakers. Others include Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief, Huffington Post; Filippo Passerini, chief information and global services officer, Procter & Gamble; and Dan Tapscott, Author, “Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation.” Dan Tapscott will deliver the opening keynote speech.

Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, chairman and CEO, The X PRIZE Foundation, joins us to share more about the upcoming conference.

Hi Peter.  Thanks for talking with us today.  Can you tell us, what is the goal for the i2i conference?

The X PRIZE Foundation is a recognized leader in bringing about “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity.” The i2i conference is an extension of our efforts to create such breakthroughs in the business, government and nonprofit worlds. The conference goal is to showcase and drive dialogue around two powerful yet underutilized tools that can create fundamental breakthroughs within an organization’s walls to positively impact their bottom line performance, the economy and the world.

The X PRIZE Foundation, BT and the John Templeton Foundation have seen first-hand how these tools can be used to bring about radical changes for humanity, spur the development and growth of new industries and generate innovative ideas and technologies from individuals across the globe. We want to increase awareness and usage of these tools within the business, government and nonprofit communities to help them improve the pace, cost and quality of innovation. We’ve brought together a dynamic group of innovators who, through a series of breakout sessions, will do exactly that.

Who is the audience for this conference, and what should they expect to learn?

We invite forward-thinking c-suite executives (CEOs, CTOs, CMOs, etc.), foundation, political and academic leaders, and social entrepreneurs to attend i2i. Attendees will gain an opportunity to network with peers and listen to and discuss compelling real-world solutions to some of the biggest problems organizations face in today’s economic downturn. Attendees will walk away from the conference equipped with a better understanding of how to use open collaboration and incentive prize competitions to develop practical methods for creating a culture of open innovation, concrete ways to leverage limited resources, and applications to help them drive innovation while improving bottom line performance.

What actions do you hope attendees will take in the future as a result of attending the conference?

After i2i, we hope to see more organizations looking for innovative and cost effective business solutions through incentive prize competitions. We hope they recognize the value in sourcing new ideas from employees outside of the normal decision-making chain and are better equipped to tap into the creativity of the general public.

What is the connection of the conference with the United Nations?

The United Nations Office for Partnerships and The X PRIZE Foundation share a common vision to solve some of humanity’s greatest challenges. We believe the UN is the best forum to synthesize our parallel visions.

One of the breakout sessions will focus on healthcare. How was this focus selected?

Day one of the i2i conference will focus on introducing open collaboration and incentive prizes. Day two focuses on the practical application of these tools within various industries, of which healthcare is one. The healthcare industry was chosen because of our current focus on launching a prize in this area.

Experts agree that the U.S. healthcare system is in great need of innovative solutions to increase healthcare value and improve the health of our nation’s population. To address this issue, we’re planning to launch later this year a $10+ Million Healthcare X PRIZE with our partners WellPoint, Inc. and the WellPoint Foundation. During our healthcare breakout session, J. Craig Venter, founder and president, J. Craig Venter Institute; Samuel R. Nussbaum, M.D., Executive Vice President, Clinical Health Policy and Chief Medical Officer, WellPoint, Inc.; Yury Rozenman, head of Strategy and Marketing, Healthcare and Life Sciences, BT; will highlight concrete ways the healthcare industry has used open collaboration to spur advancement. The speakers will also explain how the soon-to-launch Healthcare X PRIZE is expected to revolutionize the industry.

Thanks Peter.

To learn more about incentive2innovate or to register to attend, visit www.incentive2innovate.com. You can also find updates on the conference blog (http://i2iblog.xprize.org) and on Twitter (www.twitter.com/i_2_i).