Breakthrough to end the great locust plagues on the horizon let’s remember to design processes for sustainability

 Breakthrough to end the great locust plagues on the horizon let’s remember to design processes for sustainability

 

As a scientist in a “developing country”, I am sometimes baffled by the many scientific breakthrough and the associated technologies that the so called “developed countries” relied on to make them great. Many of the core principles are so problematic that the scientists involved should have ruffled their invention to make its implementation free from calamitous outcomes. There are many such examples that I will not spend too much space and time to elaborate on but only list three: atomic energy, opioids and weedicides. Any invention that has massive coverage area and affects a high number of people should be studied for a generation before it is applied at scale. Especially when is it a radically new invention. We need 35 years or more to ensure that the world will not be burdened with spending so much more to deal with the unforeseen dangerous effects.

 

We need new areas of research that look at accelerating the course of time and the natural evolution to learn the what some of these dangerous unforeseen effects can be. That is if we cannot wait for a generation to deploy our new world saving technologies. I recently read on the huge amounts that the USA government was willing to spend to deal with the opioid crisis in addition to the lives damaged and lives lost. We needed to calculate carefully what the value of opioids have compared to the price that has to be paid for its dangerous side effects.

 

We are at the cusp of another technological leap to deal with the great locust plagues of the world. Some scientists have just published the discovery of the swarming pheromone, called 4-Vinylanisole, that is used by locusts to create their destructive super-organism to lay waste large tracts farmlands and forests. I am sure many companies are already carrying out field tests of possible solutions to solve the problem and cash in on the current plague in East Africa. While at it, let’s pulse and think hard about the environment and save the future ahead of time. It is possible. It is possible to design an innovation system around this situation that has not been used before. One that mimics how a newborn baby reimagines the world based on new realities and not the experiences of their ancestors alone.

 

Let’s get out of the economic-centric innovation system that is driven by profit and senseless competition. Many companies have rushed to profit only to be liquidated to pay off the damage done by their stupid ideas and toxic products. I know I promised to cite only three examples but the examples of asbestos and radium I recently watched on TV is still too powerful to ignore. The real value of innovation is to improve life in the long haul, we should therefore pick safety over specific and narrow range results. All results must be entered into the decision-making process with equal weight. True advancement should be like music, it should leave no pain. The bullish will retort, “no pain no gain”. Yes, there is pain in every gain but here the pain should be about enduring the problems long enough for the solution to be long lasting. Since nature invented water as the medium of life, there has not been any other to replace it. We now even look for water on far away planets as a sign of life. The pain should be about designing “powerful telescope versions” of innovation systems that are able to see far into the future as the telescopes are able to see far into the past to pick up red-shifted light of star when they first formed.

 

I do not have answers to the sustainability questions, but I can pose a few questions to see what others think:

 

1. Is it possible to avoid burning the trapped locusts and release smoke back into the environment that will interact with the genome of the locust to evolve a new pheromone in record time?

 

2. Is it possible to ensure that the system designed to kill the locust also has a mechanism to collect them to generate more profit?

 

3. Is it possible to use trapping systems that do not leave the remains of killed locusts on land to generate warning signals for developing larvae to switch behavior to avoid mass entrapment?

 

4. Is it possible to incorporate this new 4-Vinylanisole substance into a mobile unit that is able to nicely draw in the locust swarm and gently freeze them to death and prepared the collection for other uses?

 

5. Is it possible to create medium sized ships to draw the locusts out to sea and freeze them into animal feed, and leave useful insects on land untouched?

 

6. Is it possible to ensure that the production of the 4-Vinylanisole does not include processes that leave toxic residue for the environment?

 

7. Is it possible to trap all volatile emissions from the processing of the trapped locusts such that they can never escape into the environment to train and evolve the sensory systems of the new locusts?

 

I hope we will not be inpatient to push the emergency button to unleash the next human made catastrophe on this fragile earth.

 

 

Scientific papers:

 

Catching plague locusts with their own scent

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02264-x

 

4-Vinylanisole is an aggregation pheromone in locusts

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2610-4

Guo, X., Yu, Q., Chen, D. et al. 4-Vinylanisole is an aggregation pheromone in locusts. Nature (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2610-4

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Patrick Kobina Arthur (PhD),

parthur14@gmail.com

Ghana Must Pursue Industries of the Future: technology companies to power and drive the development agenda.

Ghana Must Pursue Industries of the Future: technology companies to power and drive the development agenda.

The future prosperity of Ghana and Africa will not rely on "gold, cocoa and timber". These were the industries of the 19th century. To progress we need industries of the future, industries of plenty ideas and little materials. "gold, cocoa and timber" these were industries of plenty materials and little ideas.

Using viruses in the ocean to create batteries of the future, Biomimicry as industrial scale processing (like making ceramic materials using the biochemical processes similar to those used to make seashells, etc). Look for a book call "Biorefinery". Africa's future is that of Biotechnology - for medicines, functional foods, advanced materials (like fungus made quantum dots for advanced optics), bio-inspired electronics and robotics, new generation computer applications development, etc. "gold, cocoa and timber" I say again is 19th century.

To succeed with the quest for industries of the future, there is the need to create new hub to house the technology culture that is needed for each specific idea to thrive. The example of "Silicon valley" is a powerful idea to provide the organizing principles.

Nkrumah's False Start

At independence Ghana and Nkrumah had a false start. The industrial plants sold to the country were overpriced and problematic. But speed and ambition meant that the critical assessments could not be done. So once the cocoa cash run dry due to world price collapsed the industrialization efforts halted.

Lessons : make the machines that make the track and the wheels on which your ambitions run on your own.

The 4th Republic has been running a 19th Century Economic model

We need a technology-led strategy for national development. The old economic model of export of unprocessed commodities, agric- and agro-processing based strategy will not take us far. How much cocoa, cashew and pineapples can we export to double our GDP in 10 years? With 5-10 high tech and biotech enterprises, we can more than double our GDP in a decade and that will fix all development deficits in a decade. This is what the Asian tigers did in semiconductor business and automation. Taiwan alone has GDP ten times bigger than that of Ghana, and it's land mass (36,193 km²) is smaller than the former Brong Ahafo region (39,557 km²) and population (24 million) of is less than that of Ghana (area 238,535 km² and 30 million people). 28 years of the 4th republic has run on a 19th century economic model, 2021 and beyond let's think differently and turn to some 21st century ideas.

Technology companies to power and drive the

development agenda

Let's look at 10 technological companies that can take Ghana to the next level using the best of artificial intelligence and blockchain techniques to maintain competitive edge. The choice of industries is based on the model that a company garner market value beyond the 100 billion mark in 20 years of operation. If all goes well, in 20 years all our 10 companies should garner a combined market value of 1 trillion dollars that is 22 times the size of the current economy. At the current growth rates using the economic model with annual growth rate of even 10% (which is not likely), the economy will grow to 309 billion dollars in 2040 from the current 45 billion in 2020. We can easily be a 1309 billion dollar economy if we decide to target high value technological advanced industries.

01. Advanced Health Services Company:

Ghana can take advantage of the great number of medical schools in the country to establish a technologically advanced medical centre that can rival any around the world. First it can provide a cost effective alternative to Africans seeking medical attention outside the continent.

02. Pharmaceutical and Nanomedicine Company:

Medicines are expensive and Ghana has a decent set of components for a successful world leading pharma company to play with the big boys. Setting up a pharma hub around one pharma giant in Ghana will prove useful in getting a company that can garner market value beyond the 100 billion mark in 20 years of operation.

03. Electric Vehicle and Smart Logistics Company:

Mobility is a huge industry that is patronized by the masses, unlike the current situation where the nation has no stake in vehicle production. The future economy will not be stable without a local company. Vehicles operating autonomously will be much more expensive which cannot be left to foreign companies to profit from leading to significant capital flight and job losses.

04. Solar Power and Smart Grid Company:

The question of renewable energy is going to be more critical in the future when hydrocarbon resources have been exhausted. Nations will struggle to develop the capacity to build their own energy system. We are not going to be able to easily but production systems off the shelve. We need to get started now and main to play in the African market.

05. Semiconductor - Superconductor Materials Company:

Research around the work is very close to attaining superconductivity at high temperatures. It is highly that the materials that will be discovered to have superconductivity will end up being impossible to be produced at scale. We can also get involved pursue an approach that suits our high temperature and humidity environment and with a consideration for the limits of mineral deposits in the world. And get ahead of the curve and even explore materials such as graphene and modified versions of it. This how we are going to maintain a significant share of the 21st century technological value.

06. Electronics Component and Telecom Company:

All developed nations have achieved economic success on the back of electronic companies. These companies also create the engineering ecosystems that drive many other industries. By fusing an electronics company with a telecommunication will be strategic for the 21st century challenge of mastering communications and information technology from hardware and software. We can take a radical step and hold off 5G installation until we have built this type of company to be able to implement 5G in Ghana. Apart from securing the economic dividend, we also take control of the security of our network with local engineers who truly understand the systems, because they built from ground up.

07. Precision and Personalized Medicine Company:

This type of medicine is going to displace the current model of healthcare. The requirements for technology and sophistication will be enormous. Starting to create the institutions required now will make Ghana ready for the prime time. Once the world gets into this era of medicine, getting started will be extremely expensive and will lead to the importation of technological solution that will constrain economic growth even further. Unlike the current model of medicine which relies on supplies can be ship from long distances, personalized and precision medicine has to be local due genetics and the nature of cells and tissues that will be engineered to provide treatments of the future. Getting started now will allow Ghana to develop robust technologies for nations that will require them and save the nation from paying a huge cost.

08. Rocket and AeroSpace Technologies Company:

Space technologies have a way to catalyze advancements in other fields through inspiration and training. We will need a space programme to ensure other technological enterprises succeed.

09. Manufacturing and Laser Equipment Company:

In the era of AI, robotics, nanotechnologies, manufacturing equipment will be the new personal appliances. The specializations will grow more complex as they need to be designed to tackle highly specialized. No nation can develop any viable technological company without operating in this space.

10. Biotechnology and Bioengineering Company:

The era of harnessing biological systems to produce functional materials and new medicines makes it an imperative to have a big player in the field. Biotechnology companies are always profitable and make several high end components and materials that are critical to other technological companies. In the future the place for biotech will be even more critical and building institution to operate at scale will be critical to national resilience.

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Patrick Kobina Arthur (PhD),

parthur14@gmail.com

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