Rear view
Issue 147 - 11 July 2023 (5-min read)
Every now and then, I come across articles on topics we have already covered in the last three years of writing this newsletter. Since we cover trends that are ongoing or are likely to happen, it is always interesting to see how the actual events unfold. Did work from home actually empty office buildings? Did the Great Resignation deprive companies of their workforce? Which foods are now being grown inside labs besides meat?
This week, The Global Tiller takes a look in its own rearview mirror. We look back at our past issues and compile resources that help you understand how much progress those trends have made. Is the reality closer to our hopes or our fears, or are we still waiting for the full story to unfold? Let’s dig in.
In Man’s Best Friend Forever, we looked at pet cloning and the rising trend of people cloning their furry friends. We dug into the science behind this practice and raised some ethical questions for our future. One of the countries that came up as the frontrunner in the race for cloning was South Korea whose scientist Hwang Woo-suk gained notoriety for claiming to clone human embryos. More than a year after we covered this issue, Netflix has released a documentary, King of Clones, that not only tells us how the science behind his cloning practice was dubious but, sometimes, completely fabricated. This national hero may have fallen in disgrace in his home country but he has found employment in Abu Dhabi where he’s spearheading innovative animal cloning farms and "breeding" contestants for camel beauty pageants.
The space for dissent is becoming increasingly small and, in No Country For Dissidents, we looked at how state powers are clamping down on dissent, both in physical and in virtual spaces. In yet another example of this overreach, Hong Kong has gone as far as to announce bounties for exiled activists. But for dissidents in general, there is some respite. The Human Rights Foundation puts together the Oslo Freedom Forum, a global gathering of human rights and pro-democracy activists, who come to Norway not to change the world but to have a well-deserved blowout, for a change.
When we wrote Spotting UFOs, it was strange to us how unexplained aerial phenomenon were on the news all of a sudden and we discovered that our tinfoil-hat-wearing friends weren’t so crazy after all. But since we wrote that issue, the UFO story has come even further with the latest bombshell news revealing that the US has retrieved craft of non-human origin. If you hold doubts about the timings and motives of such news leaks, you may enjoy Ezra Klein’s podcast on 'What the Heck Is Going on With These U.F.O. Stories?’. He approaches the story with skepticism and looks into what is actually being claimed, which claims have evidence, and which don’t, and how does this story fit into the broader context of UFO revelations over the past few years?
In Robbed of Heritage, we looked at stolen art but mostly that was done hundreds of years ago and through systemic means. But the museums that house the stolen treasures of cultures from across the world are themselves equally vulnerable to theft. Stéphane Breitwieser is one such art thief who managed to slip more than 300 works of art out of museums and cathedrals all across Europe, amassing a secret collection worth as much as $2 billion. When you read his story and his motivation to steal art, it doesn’t sound too far off from those museums.
The biotechnology around fertility has seen rapid developments in recent years and we covered as much in Womb Alone when we looked at how science can now allow babies to grow completely outside the human body. In yet another development in this area, Japanese scientists have managed to convert skin cells from mice into egg cells, allowing fertilisation to happen without any need for an egg cell. This process is the first proof of in-vitro gametogenesis, or IVG—the production of gametes outside the body, beginning with non-reproductive cells — in mammals. This breakthrough takes in-vitro fertilisation to the next step, making the entire process less expensive, less uncomfortable and less risky.
If technology is changing the way we breed, it is surely changing the way we eat. In Mock Meat, we looked at artificial meat and how it impacts the future of food. Turns out, that future is coming by faster than we expected. With lab-grown meat making its way to restaurants, scientists are now experimenting with other foods. Synthetic-biology accelerators in Silicon Valley are making chocolate from cocoa grown in labs; they are using microbes in large fermenters to make milk and Singapore is recycling its sewage water to make beer. Who knows, maybe by the next review of our newsletter, our entire dinner would be made from lab-grown ingredients?
It has been an interesting exercise to look back at what we’ve covered and see how trends and technologies have moved along since then. We'll continue to do this in the future and if you come across any resources that add to our collective understanding of what’s going on, please don’t hesitate to write back.
Until next time, take care and stay safe!
Hira & Philippe
The Global Tiller team