LESSON 10

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY,
AND SOCIETY
Information Age
LESSON OBJECTIVE:
❏ Define information age; Discuss the
❏ history of information age; and
Understand the factors that need to be
❏ considered in checking website sources.
HOW CAN YOU
DESCRIBE THE
SOCIETY
NOWADAYS
 What is an
information?
 Information
● Knowledge communicated or obtained concerning a
specific fact or circumstance (Webster’s Dictionary)
Facts provided or learned about something or someone
●
 Highly modernized, automated, data-driven, and
technologically advanced – these best describe our
society nowadays, as evidenced by how information
could be transferred or shared quickly.
● The information age is defined as a “period starting in the
last quarter of the 20th century when information
became effortlessly accessible through publications and
through the management of information by computers
and computer networks.”

● The information age is also called the Digital Age and the
New Media Age because it was associated with the
development of computers.
 JAMES R. MESSENGER
He proposed the Theory of Information Age in
1982, “the Information age is a true new age
based upon the interconnection of computers
via telecommunications, with these
information systems operating on both a real-
time and as-needed basis. Furthermore, the
primary factors driving this new age forward
are convenience and user friendliness which, in
turn, will create user dependence.”
As man evolved, information and its dissemination has also evolved in many ways,.
Eventually, we no longer kept them to ourselves; instead, we share them and
manage them in different means. Information got ahead of us. It started to grow at a
rate we were unprepared to handle. Because of the abundance of information, it
was difficult to collect and manage them starting in the 1960s and 1970s.
 RICHARD WURMAN
called information as “Information
Anxiety.” In the 1990s, information
became the currency in the
business world. Information was
the preferred medium of exchange
and the information managers
served as information officers.
 “Truths of the Information Age” Robert Harris detailed
some facts on the Information Age.
[Link] must compete. 7. Anything in great demand will
[Link] is equated with truer. be counterfeited. Ideas are seen
[Link] is a viewpoint. [Link] 8. as controversial. Undead
media sells what the 9. information walks ever on.
culture buys. Media presence creates the stor
10. y. The medium selects the
[Link] early word gets the
message. The whole truth is a
perm.
11. pursuit.
[Link] are what you eat and so
is your brain. 12.
 COMPUTER
A computer is an electronic
device that stores and
processes data (information).
It runs on a program that
contains the exact, step – by -
step directions to solve a
problem (US History Org,
2017)
 THE WORLD WIDE WEB
INTERNET
● Several historians trace the origin of the
internet to Claude F. Shannon, an
American Mathematicians who was
considered as the “Father of Information
Theory”. He worked at Bell Laboratories
and at age 32, he published a paper
proposing that information can be
quantitatively encoded as a sequence of
ones and zeroes.
 THE WORLD WIDE WEB
INTERNET
● The internet is a worldwide system
interconnected networks that Facilitate
of data transmission among innumerable computers.

● It was developed during the 1970s by the Department of

Defense In case of an attack, military advisers suggested the
advantage of being able to operate on one computer from
another terminal.

● In the early days, the Internet was used mainly by scientists

to communicate with other scientists. The Internet remained
under government control until 1984. (Rouse, 2014).
 THE WORLD WIDE WEB
INTERNET
● One early problem faced by internet users was speed. Phone lines
could only transmit information at a limited rate. The development of
fiber optic cables allowed for billions of bits of information to be
received every minute. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, directors of a
● Stanford research project, built a research engine that listed results to
reflect page popularity when they determined that the most popular
results to frequently be the most usable. Google is now the world’s
most popular search engine, accepting more than 200 million queries
daily.
 THE WORLD WIDE WEB
INTERNET
● Back then, new forms of
communication were also introduced.
Electronic mail, or email, was a suitable
way to send a message to fellow
workers, business partners, or friends.
Message could be sent and received at
the convenience of the individual.
 THE WORLD WIDE WEB
INTERNET
● A letter that took several days to arrive could be read in minutes. Internet service
providers like America Online and CompuServe set up electronic chat rooms. These
were open areas of cyberspace where interested parties could join in a conversation
with perfect strangers. “Surfing the net” became a pastime in and of itself.
● Consequently, companies whose businesses are built on digitized information have
become valuable and powerful in relatively short period of time; the current
Information Age has spawned its own breed of wealthy influential brokers from
Microsoft’s Bill Gates to Apple’s Steve Jobs to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
● Nowadays, crimes in various forms are rampant because of the use of social media.
Cyber bullying is an issue that poses alarm worldwide.
 How do you check
the reliability of web
sources?
 The internet contains a vast collection of highly valuable
information but it may also contain unreliable, biased
information that mislead people.
-Who is the author of the article/site?
- How to find out?
Look for an “About” or “More About the Author” link at the top,
bottom, or sidebar of the web page. If no information about the
author(s) of the page is provided, be suspicious.
One can also visit the university library and seek help from
librarians as they are knowledgeable and in the library has a rich
collection of online library resources that are very useful for academic
and research purposes
-Who published the site?

-What is the main purpose of the site? Why did the

author write it and why did the publisher post it?

-Who is the intended audience?

-What is the quality of information on the website?

 What are the
issues concerning
the information
age?
Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age

PAPA
by Richard O. Mason
PRIVACY
●What information about one's self or one's
associations must a person reveal to others, under
what conditions and with what safeguards?

●What things can people keep to themselves and not

be forced to reveal to others?
ACCURACY
●Who is responsible for the authenticity, fidelity and
accuracy of information? Similarly, who is to be held
accountable for errors in information and how is the
injured party to be made whole?
PROPERTY
●Who owns information? ●What are the just and fair
prices for its exchange? ●Who owns the channels,
especially the airways,
through which information is transmitted? How
● should access to this scarce resource be
allocated?
ACCESSIBILITY
●What information does a person or an organization
have a right or a privilege to obtain, under what
conditions and with what safeguards?
 LESSON 11

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY,
AND SOCIETY
Biodiversity and Healthy Society
LESSON OBJECTIVES:
❏ determine the interrelatedness of society, environment,
and health; create a diagram that would show the
❏ relatedness of species in forming up a diverse and
healthy society without compromising one another; and
identify everyday tasks and evaluate whether they
❏ contribute to the wellness and health of biodiversity and
society or not.
BIODIVERSITY
 BIODIVERSITY
the variety of life in the world or
in a particular habitat or
ecosystem.
 BIODIVERSITY
The number of species of plants,
animals, and microorganisms, the
enormous diversity of genes in
these species, the different
ecosystems on the planet, such as
deserts, rainforests and coral
reefs are all part of a biologically
diverse Earth.
BIODIVERSITY
it encompasses all kinds of
life forms, from the single
celled organisms to the
largest multi celled
organisms.
 BIODIVERSIT Y
the variability among living
organisms from all sources,
including terrestrial, marine, and
other aquatic ecosystems and the
ecological complexes of which
they are part; this includes
diversity within species, between
species, and of ecosystems.
 BIODIVERSIT Y
the source of the essential goods
and ecological services that
constitute the source of life for all
and it has direct consumptive
value in food, agriculture,
medicine, and in industry.”
 Why is
biodiversity
important?
Biodiversity boosts ecosystem
productivity where each specie, no matter how
small, all have an important role to play. For
example,
●A larger number of plant species means a greater
variety of crops.
●Greater species diversity ensures natural
sustainability for all life forms.
●Healthy ecosystems can better withstand and
recover from a variety of disasters.
 BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM
● Biodiversity plays a
major role in this
natural dynamics.
● Sustainability
the of ecosystem better
ensures rate against any
survival natural disaster.
BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM
People will always depend on biodiversity on the
wholeness of our being and everyday lives.
Remember this!

If we fail to keep the process of taking care of

the ecosystem, it is US who are actually
putting our lives at risk.
 Changes in Biodiversity
A change in biodiversity could have erratic effects not only in
wildlife or marine life but also in human beings.
 Threats to Biodiversity
Habitat loss and destruction - inhabitation of human
beings and use of land for economic gains.
 Threats to Biodiversity
Alterations in ecosystem composition - sudden
changes could begin to change entire ecosystem.
 Threats to Biodiversity
Over exploitation - over-hunting, overfishing, or
over-collecting of species can quickly lead to its
decline.
 Threats to Biodiversity
Pollution and contamination - biological systems
respond slowly to changes in their surrounding
environment.
 Threats to Biodiversity
Global climate change - both climate change cause
biodiversity loss.
What are the
consequences
of biodiversity
loss?
 Nutritional Impact of Biodiversity

● A society or a population must have access to a a

sufficient variety of nutritious food it is

as determinant of their health as human beings.

● Nutritional composition between foods and among
varieties/cultivars/breeds of the same food can differ
dramatically.
 Health, Biology, and Biodiversity

● Basic needs of living organisms such as air, water,

food, and habitat are provided by its environment.

● Lack of basic necessities is a significant cause of

human mortality.
 Environment-Related Illnesses
● Relationships between human by forcing people health and
the environment raise many ethical, social, and legal
dilemmas by forcing people to choose among competing
values.

● A significant percentage of global climate change is due to

the human production of greenhouse gases.

● Vulnerable subpopulation is a group with an increased

susceptibility to the adverse effects of an environmental
risk factor.
 Decrease in
biodiversity is
EMINENT
Worldwide.
EXTINCTION
● Ordovician Mass Extinction
● Devonian Mass Extinction
● Permian Mass Extinction
● Triassic-Jurassic Extinction
● Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction
● Holocene Extinction
 Ordovician Mass Extinction
● took place 488 to 443 million years ago
● a rich variety of marine life flourished in
the vast seas and the first primitive
plants began to appear on land
● considered to be the second largest mass
extinction of all time
 Devonian Mass Extinction
● took place 416 to 359 million years ago otherwise
● known as the Age of Fishes, as it spawned a
● remarkable variety of fish Theories put forward to
explain this extinction include global cooling due to
the re-glaciation of Gondwana, or reduced
atmospheric levels of the greenhouse gas carbon
dioxide because of the frosting of the continents. A
major asteroid impact has also been suggested.
●
 Permian Mass Extinction
● began about 299 million years ago the worst extinction event
● in the planet's history The emerging supercontinent of
● Pangaea presented severe extremes of climate and
● environment due to its vast size. The south was cold and arid,
with much of the region frozen under ice caps. Northern areas
suffered increasingly from intense heat and great seasonal
fluctuations between wet and dry conditions. The extinction’s
single biggest cause is the Siberian Traps, an immense
● volcanic complex that erupted more than 720,000 cubic miles
of lava across what is now Siberia. global climate change

●
 Triassic-Jurassic Extinction
● The start of the Triassic period (and the Mesozoic era)
was a desolate time in Earth's history. Something—a
bout of violent volcanic eruptions, climate change, or
perhaps a fatal run-in with a comet or asteroid—had
triggered the extinction of more than 90 percent of
Earth's species. The Triassic closed in the same way it
● began. Something—perhaps a volcanic belch or an
asteroid collision—caused another mass extinction.
Dinosaurs, however, survived and went on to dominate
the Jurassic.
Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction
● One day about 66 million years ago, an asteroid
roughly 7.5 miles across slammed into the
waters off of what is now Mexico’s Yucatán
Peninsula at 45,000 miles an hour. The massive
● impact—which left a crater more than 120 miles
wide—flung huge volumes of dust, debris, and
sulfur into the atmosphere, bringing on severe
global cooling.
 Holocene Extinction
● Earth is currently experiencing a biodiversity crisis. Recent
● estimates suggest that extinction threatens up to a million
species of plants and animals, in large part because of
human activities such as deforestation, hunting, and
overfishing. Other serious threats include the spread of
● invasive species and diseases from human trade, as well as
pollution and human-caused climate change. (Explore
National Geographic magazine's special issue on
extinction.)
 WHAT IS THE
IMPLICATION OF
EXTINCTION?
 How do humans
drive the sixth mass
ext inct
ion?
 HEALTH
a state of complete physical,
mental and social well-being and
not merely the absence of disease
or infirmity.
 How does
biodiversity affect
the health of the
society?
● Decrease in biodiversity is eminent worldwide.
● Vertebrates fell to 60% from the 1970’s due to human
causes.
● It is projected that by 2020, wildlife decline will be 67 %
of the present number.
● The World Wide Fund for Nature and Zoological Society
of London reported an annual decrease in wildlife by 2
%.
● A major cause is human population which has doubled in
number since 1960 to 7.4 billion.
● Humans have industrialized the natural habitat of
wildlife as well as marine life.
● Earth might enter the sixth mass extinction event
according to experts.
● Mass extinction is described as the disappearance of
species at a rate of 1000 faster than usual.
● The disappearance of species in a certain environment
causes an imbalance in the ecosystem, producing more
chaotic changes that harm the entire ecosystem
([Link])
● This is but a pressing statement for people to know
more about the importance of our diverse environment,
and how human activities can either contribute to its
growth or destruction.
Lesson 12

NANO WORLD

AND GENE THERAPY

LESSON OBJECTIVES:
1. Discuss the major impacts of nanotechnology on society,
including health, environment, and industry.

2. Analyze nanotechnology issues through the lenses of science,

technology, and society.

3. Critique the costs and benefits of nanotechnology for society,

considering ethical and social implications.
WHAT IS NANOTECHNOLOGY?
Nanotechnology involves the understanding and control of
matter at the nanometer-scale.
The term ‘nanotechnology’ was not used until 1974, when
Norio Taniguchi, a researcher at the University of Tokyo,
Japan used it to refer to the ability to engineer materials
precisely at the nanometre level (Taniguchi 1974).

The primary driving force for miniaturisation at that time

came from the electronics industry, which aimed to
develop tools to create smaller (and therefore faster and
more complex) electronic devices on silicon chips.
 Why nanotechnology
Nanoscience and nanotechnologies are widely
seen as having huge potential to bring benefits to
many areas of research and application, and are
attracting rapidly increasing investments from
Governments and from businesses in many parts of
the world.

[Link]
Nano Materials
Although a broad definition, we categorise
nanomaterials as those which have structured
components with at least one dimension less than
100nm.
Nanoscale in one dimension:
Thin films, layers and surfaces
One-dimensional nanomaterials, such as thin films and engineered
surfaces, have been developed and used for decades in fields such as
electronic device manufacture, chemistry and engineering.

Nanoscale in two dimensions

Carbon nanotubes
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were first observed by Sumio Iijima in 1991
(Iijima 1991). CNTs are extended tubes of rolled graphene sheets.
Inorganic nanotubes
Inorganic nanotubes and inorganic fullerene-like materials
Nanowires
ultrafine wires or linear arrays of dots, formed by self-assembly
Nanoscale in two dimensions
Biopolymers
The variability and site recognition of biopolymers, such as DNA molecules, offer
a wide range of opportunities for the self-organization of wire nanostructures into
much more complex patterns.

Nanoscale in three dimensions

Dendrimers
spherical polymeric molecules, formed through a nanoscale hierarchical self-
assembly process.
Applications
CURRENT
Sunscreens and cosmetics
Nanosized titanium dioxide and zinc oxide
Clays
naturally occurring nanoparticles have long been important as
construction materials
Coatings and surfaces
self-cleaning window, which is coated in highly activated titanium
dioxide
Tougher and harder cutting tools
Cutting tools made of nanocrystalline materials, such as tungsten carbide,
tantalum carbide and titanium carbide, are more wear and erosion-
resistant, and last longer than their conventional (large- grained)
counterparts
Applications
SHORT-TERM
Paints
Incorporating nanoparticles in paints could improve their performance
Remediation
The potential of nanoparticles to react with pollutants in soil and
groundwater and transform them into harmless compounds
Fuel Cells
Engineered surfaces are essential in fuel cells, where the external
surface properties and the pore structure affect performance
Displays
The huge market for large area, high brightness, flat-panel displays, as used
in television screens and computer monitors
Batteries
Applications
LONG-TERM
Lubricants
Nanospheres of inorganic materials could be used as lubricants, in
essence by acting as nanosized ‘ball bearings
Magnetic materials
Nanoscale-fabricated magnetic materials also have applications in data
storage.
Medical implants
Current medical implants, such as orthopaedic implants and heart
valves, are made of titanium and stainless steel alloys, primarily because
they are biocompatible
Machinable ceramics
reduction in grain size to the nanoscale, ceramic ductility can be
increased
Applications
LONG-TERM
Machinable ceramics
reduction in grain size to the nanoscale, ceramic ductility can be
increased
Military battle suits
Enhanced nanomaterials form the basis of a stateof-the-art ‘battle suit’ that is
being developed by the Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA (MIT 2004)
Water purification
Nano-engineered membranes could potentially lead to more energy-
efficient water purification processes, notably in desalination by reverse
osmosis.
Nanometrology
The science of measurement at the nanoscale

The ability to measure and characterise materials

(determine their size, shape and physical properties) at
the nanoscale is vital if nanomaterials and devices are
to be produced to a high degree of accuracy and
reliability and the applications of nanotechnologies are
to be realised.
Instruments used in
Nanometrology
Transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
used to investigate the internal structure of micro- and nanostructures.

Scanning probe microscopy (SPM)

uses the interaction between a sharp tip and a surface to obtain an image.

Optical tweezers
use a single laser beam (focused by a high-quality microscope objective) to a spot
on a specimen plane.
 Electronics, optoelectronics and information
and communication technology (ICT)

Technology that can absorb and process information on one

side of the planet and deliver it almost instantaneously to the
other in a form that is immediately accessible.

It also increasingly requires secure encryption of information

so that access to information can ultimately be restricted to
particular individuals.
Applications
Computer chips
Information storage
necessarily developed in tandem with IT is that of memory for data storage
Optoelectronics
relates to devices that rely on converting electrical signals to and from light for
data transmission, for displays for optical-based sensing and, in the future, for
optical-based computing.
Sensors
These include monitoring the quality of drinking water, measuring mechanical
stresses in buildings or vehicles to monitor for structural damage, detecting and
tracking pollutants in the environment, checking food for edibility, or
continuously monitoring health.
Applications
Bio-nanotechnology and nanomedicine
Bio-nanotechnology is concerned with molecularscale
properties and applications of biological nanostructures and
as such it sits at the interface between the chemical, biological
and the physical sciences.

Can be used in medicine to provide a systematic, as well as a

screening, approach to drug discovery, to enhance both
diagnostic and therapeutic techniques and to image at the
cellular and sub-cellular levels, at a much higher resolution
than that of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Applications
Drug delivery
There is enormous potential for nanotechnology to be applied to gene and drug
delivery. The vehicle might be a functionalised nanoparticle capable of targeting
specific diseased cells, which contains both therapeutic agents that are released
into the cell and an on-board sensor that regulates the release

Drug discovery
Nanotechnology techniques offer the possibility of studying drug–
receptor interactions at the single molecule level

Medical Imaging
Non-invasive imaging techniques
Applications
Nanotechnologies and cancer treatment
It has been stated that ‘It is conceivable that by 2015, our ability to detect and
treat tumors in their first year of occurrence might totally eliminate suffering and
death from cancer’ (Roco 2004).

Implants and prosthetics

The development of nanoelectronic systems with high detector densities and data
processing capability might allow the development of an artificial retina or cochlea.

Array technologies
The original DNA chip approach, which carries an array of DNA molecules on an
inert carrier, is now routinely used in gene and protein analysis.
Possible adverse health,
environmental and safety
impacts
Human health
To understand the potential risks to humans from nanoparticles, it is
necessary first to consider briefly the body’s defences against particles in
general and the properties that particles require to overcome these
defences.

Lungs
small particles may be filtered out of the inhaled air by deposition on the
airway wall and removal to the throat by the rhythmical beating action of
microscopic protrusions (cilia) from the lining cells of the airways, or they may
reach the gas-exchanging tissues and be engulfed by phagocytic cells called
macrophages.
Human health
Skin
protected by a layer of dead cells (the epidermis or stratum corneum),
covered by a hydrophobic (water-repelling) lipid layer. Beneath the epidermis
is a layer of living cells supplied by nerves and blood vessels, the dermis.

Gut
The epithelium of the gut differs from the other external epithelia in that its
primary function is to allow absorption of substances into the body. However,
unless diseased, it is impermeable to large molecules such as proteins (the
largest of which are tens of nanometres in size), which it needs to break down
before absorption, and to particles and micro- organisms.
Human
health
 Social and
Ethical Issues
Economic Impact
it seems that effects will be incremental in the short term but, given the fact that
nanotechnologies are likely to enable a great many products and processes, they
may well have significant economic impact in the long- term.

Information collection and the implications for civil liberties

biosensors and chips radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to
replace bar codes, currently being trialled by supermarkets and clothing
retailers

Human enhancement
‘enhancement’ applications; the closest to development being improved cochlear
and retinal implants, to improve or restore hearing and eyesight
Convergence
refers to the multiple ways in which nanotechnologies will combine in the future
with other developments in new technology

Military uses
battlesuit that combines high-tech capabilities with light weight and comfort
Manipulation of biological and chemical agents using nanotechnologies could
result in entirely new threats that might be hard to detect and counter.