The New York Academy of Sciences

 

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  Overview

  More than two billion people are affected by malnutrition—both undernutrition and overnutrition—in developed and developing countries. It is well documented that those who struggle with poor nutrition suffer from cognitive development problems, are sick more often, are more prone to disease, and die younger than their nutritionally-secure counterparts.

  There is near-universal support for a high-level, coordinated effort to identify core areas of nutrition science research and strategically apply work in these areas to remedy the global crisis in malnutrition. Many organizations are performing cutting-edge research to understand the physiological basis of nutrition-related problems, designing behavioral interventions, and working to advance policy. However, stakeholders across functional and geographic sectors agree that there is a need for a prioritized nutrition science research agenda that is easily accessible and can be translated into application and public policy changes.

  To respond to this challenge, the New York Academy of Sciences, in partnership with The Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation, has established The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science. The Sackler Institute is dedicated to advancing nutrition science research and knowledge, mobilizing communities, and applying this work in the field.

  Objectives

  Three overarching goals for the Sackler Institute are:

  • To develop an agenda for nutrition science research.
  • To build communities around important areas of nutrition science through public-private partnerships and public outreach with conferences, webinars, podcasts, e-briefings, and other publications.
  • To stimulate research in nutrition science.

  The Institute is generating a coordinated network across sectors, disciplines, and geographies that promotes open communication; encourages exchange of information and resources; nurtures the next generation of scientists; and drives community intervention design and public policy changes.

  Contact Us

  For more information about The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science, contact nutrition@nyas.org.

  Stay Connected

  If you would like to receive regular email updates from The Sackler Institute for Nutrition Science, please visit www.nyas.org/Subscribe, create an email profile, and be sure to tick the "Nutrition Topical eNewsletter" box.

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  • The Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation

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Education Resources

 

• Connect A Million Minds

  Time Warner Cable's Connect a Million Minds program allows parents and community members to pledge to connect young people with the wonders of science.

• Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

  The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, a program of Society for Science & the Public, is the world's largest precollege science fair competition.

• NBC Learn

  NBC Learn is the educational arm of NBC News that makes the global resources of NBC News and historic film and video archive available to teachers, students, schools and universities.

• The Conrad Foundation Spirit of Innovation Awards

  The Conrad Foundation's Spirit of Innovation Awards is a rich program that combines science, education and entrepreneurship in a revolutionary model of incentivized competition.

• New York Academy of Science: Pathways to Science

  The NYAS Science Teachers Program is designed to build a community of science educators in and beyond New York City and to provide a space where science education professionals can convene, learn and collaborate about exciting scientific topics, education policy, curriculum, and best practices in the classroom.

• Scitable by Nature Education

  Scitable is a free science library and personal learning tool brought to you by Nature Publishing Group. ( Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)

• National Science Teachers Association

  For over 60 years, NSTA has been a beacon for science education, providing ways for science teachers to connect with one another.

• Macmillan's Children

  Macmillan Children's Publishing Group is home to some of the most highly acclaimed and noteworthy children's imprints in the publishing industry and features tools for parents and educators.

• HowtoSmile.org

  SMILE is collecting the best educational materials on the Web and creating learning activities, tools and services-all designed especially for those who teach school-age kids in nonclassroom settings.

• The Lawrence Hall of Science: 24/7 Science

  It's science and it's fun! These interactive activities let you use hands, feet, eyes, ears, brain, imagination and cool tools to experiment, design, test and discover amazing things about the world around you.

• Intel Science Talent Search

  Intel Science Talent Search, a program of Society for Science & the Public, is the U.S.'s oldest and most prestigious precollege science competition.

• National Lab Network

  National Lab Network is a nationwide initiative to build local communities of support that will foster ongoing collaborations among volunteers, students and educators.

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Big Climate Danger Could Arrive as Soon as 2036

 

By Mark Fischetti | March 27, 2014 |  

 

Climate change is changing. In three days we will find out how much, and how rapidly. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is meeting in Yokohama, Japan, will release the second report of its massive assessment on Sunday, March 30 EDT (March 31 in Japan). The report will weigh the impacts of climate change today and into the future, as well as how vulnerable people and places are to those impacts. A draft of the report, leaked last year, indicated that major risks such as drought, flooding, hunger, disease and stunted economic growth would begin sooner than previously estimated.

The IPCC won’t necessarily tell us when, exactly, we will cross the line into major trouble. But I’ll have an answer to that in a moment.

A lot is riding on this meeting because it marks a clear change in strategy for the IPCC. Despite increasingly dire warnings it has issued for 24 years, various polls show that as many as half of Americans still are not sure that the science is certain. So the hundreds of scientists from around the world who are involved in this report will present the ongoing findings in terms of risks, rather than data and error bars. The spread ranges from risks that are highly likely but may have modest implications, to those that may be unlikely but have severe consequences, such as runaway melting of Greenland, which could raise sea levels dramatically.

The report will also present a variety of possible solutions, such as better disaster planning, the breeding of drought-resistant crops and technologies that can save energy.

Talking about risk and how to lessen it is also a strong attempt by the IPCC to put climate-change denial to rest. The IPCC is no longer focusing on defending the science; it is moving on, trying to advise cities, states and countries about the regional risks that will confront them, and what can be done.

Another major report released last week by the American Association for the Advancement of Science upholds this strategy, as well as the expected IPCC findings. AAAS billed the report, called What We Know, as an initiative to increase dialogue on the risks of climate change. Rather than needlessly arguing over the science, “We can debate the policies,” said James McCarthy, an oceanographer at Harvard University and co-chairman of the report. “And that’s the debate we should be having.”

Policies are needed soon because the new IPCC report is expected to show that climate change impacts are happening on every continent, that people in all nations are vulnerable to extreme climate events, and that if the world does not begin to act soon it will miss the chance to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius—a goal that leaders of almost 200 countries support.

What IPCC seems unlikely to say, however, is when the world will cross that two-degree line. The AAAS report does not give a date either. Part of the reason is that being so specific requires scientist to settle on just how sensitive the atmosphere is to a rising level of greenhouse gases. This level is usually expressed as a concentration of CO2, which has been mounting steadily for decades. Estimated at roughly 280 parts per million when the Industrial Revolution began, it briefly hit 400 ppm last May—the first time it reached 400 ppm since humans have been on Earth. This year it hit 400 ppm on March 12, and will linger there longer, until plants and trees grow their spring leaves and absorb some of it, bringing the number down into the 390s. The levels will continue to ratchet up annually if nations everywhere do not begin to reduce CO2 emissions.

As CO2 levels rise, so does the average global temperature. It has already risen 0.8 degrees C since pre-industrial times. But when will it cross the 2-degree-C threshold, if nations do not change? The answer comes from Michael Mann, and it’s very soon: 2036.

Mann, a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University, was a key contributor to the third IPCC assessment in 2001 (the latest is the IPCC’s fifth, since 1990). That work resulted in the so-called hockey stick: a curve that shows a global average temperature that is roughly steady for 1,000 years but then turns abruptly upward in recent times. Mann is not involved the current IPCC assessment. But he knows the numbers from the latest science that IPCC is using, so he did some calculations and published them in the current issue of Scientific American.

Mann first settled on the two most likely numbers for the “equilibrium climate sensitivity.” ECS is a common measure of the heating effect of greenhouse gases. He then plugged those ECS values into the so-called energy balance model, which scientists use to investigate possible climate scenarios.

The model showed that if the world continues to burn fossil fuels at the current rate, the planet will cross the dangerous warming threshold of 2 degrees C in 2036, only 22 years from now, when using the higher sensitivity number, which Mann thinks is most realistic. When he entered the lower ECS value—very conservative, in his view—the world crossed the threshold in 2046, just 10 years later (see the graph above). The truly tough news revealed by these and further calculations is that to reliably avoid 2 degrees C of warming, the world should hold CO2 levels below 405 ppm, barely above where they are now.

You can see his numbers, graphs and conclusions. And you can even do the calculations yourself, if you like.

Mann’s projections are probably bolder than what we will hear from the IPCC, because he doesn’t have to get scores of nations to settle on wording for a report. But the IPCC and AAAS have the same message as he does: nations everywhere will have to act fast if they want the planet to stay below the danger threshold. IPCC will reveal its language on Sunday night. Scientific American will be reporting it, so stay tuned.

About the Author: Mark Fischetti is a senior editor at Scientific American who covers energy, environment and sustainability issues. Follow on Twitter @markfischetti.

The Quest: Practical Advice for Online Medical Searches

 

By Christine Gorman | March 27, 2014 |  

 

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Credit: CDC/Debora Cartagena

Being an informed patient is, in many ways, tougher than ever. A tsunami of material is freely available on the Internet nowadays, from medical datasets to research papers to instructive videos. But when you’re searching for something specific for yourself or a loved one, the most relevant streams of data are often hard to find or decipher.

I am spending the next several weeks writing up some of the tips and tricks for online medical searches that I’ve picked up over the years. I also plan to include a bunch of other people’s hard-won habits for finding just the right study, clinical trial or care-giving guide.

Let me be clear, I’m not talking about playing doctor here, trying to match up symptoms to a particular disease or condition. Rather, I’m seeking to explain some of the best ways to look up the information you need, after you’ve been given a definitive diagnosis, to help you better understand your options.

By gathering these pointers in one place, I hope these blog posts will help people get up to speed faster if they suddenly find themselves needing to research a health condition or understand treatment options. Going forward, I’ll tag the posts “how-to-search-medical-info” so you can see what else has been covered and find other installments in the series.

If you have something meaningful to contribute, please use the comments section below. If this project starts gaining momentum, we’ll figure out a more efficient way to collect and rate your tips and ideas.

Getting Started

The first place to check if you need to learn a lot in a hurry is MedlinePlus. The site was launched just over 15 years ago by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to help consumers find and make better use of authoritative medical information. It provides a quick overview of more than 900 medical topics, expertly curated by information specialists on a daily basis. As an added bonus, MedlinePlus is also available in Spanish.

Why am I such a fan of MedlinePlus? Because the medical librarians at the NLM have already done a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Let’s say, as an example, you’re helping a friend with throat cancer. You start typing “throat cancer” into the MedlinePlus search box and even before you can finish typing, the entry auto-completes, giving you a sense that at least you’ve picked a meaningful key word (very important). See screenshot below.

Right at the outset, MedlinePlus gives you a definition with—and this is key—some of the more technical names (more key words) for various kinds of throat cancers. You learn that “the different parts of the throat are called the oropharynx, the hypopharynx, and the nasopharynx.” And maybe this jogs your memory that the doctor told you this was an “oropharyngeal cancer.” So now you know you’re talking about the back of the tongue going down into the throat.

What I didn’t realize, until I spent a week at the NLM last fall, is that this page is the result of some medical librarians having created a complex search algorithm that finds and ranks the material you see on the page. For example, even though I did not enter a search term about “human papilloma virus (HPV),” some of the information that the search produces very high up in the list on the right includes links to HPV and throat cancer.

It turns out that while most throat cancers are caused by alcohol or smoking, infection with HPV has also recently been linked to throat cancer. And I didn’t have to know that before typing in my search.

In this case, I have an option to refine my search by the HPV-keyword (on the lower left). And I can see in the detailed results on the right that “head and throat cancer survival may be longer if tumor is caused by HPV.”

 

Young at Heart? Tool Calculates True Heart Age

 

Young at heart? A new tool developed by British scientists may be able to tell you. The calculator assesses the true age of your heart, and how long you are likely to live before suffering a heart attack or stroke, by evaluating a series of cardiovascular risk factors tied to genetics and lifestyle.

The tool, created by researchers from several British medical societies, is being recommended to determine the risk of developing heart disease later in life, according to a report on the calculator by the LiveScience Website

Current prevention strategies for heart disease are based on short-term estimates, which are heavily dependent on age and gender, researchers said. Therefore, younger people and women tend to be excluded even if they are leading a lifestyle that puts them at high risk later in life.

The new tool, detailed in the British Medical Journal Heart, has been designed to identify at-risk individuals and predict how many years they can expect to live before they have a heart attack or stroke. It is based on the growing body of evidence showing that there is a long buildup to heart disease, said the researchers from Joint British Societies. It takes into account people's current lifestyle, blood pressure, cholesterol level, and medical conditions that may affect their heart.

Special: Coronary Heart Disease: 5 Tips to Reduce Your Risk

For example, a 35-year-old woman with a family history of heart disease who smokes, has high blood pressure, and elevated total cholesterol would have a true heart age of 47 and could expect to survive to age 71 before having a heart attack or stroke, according to the calculator.
But if she quit smoking, cut her total cholesterol, and lowered her blood pressure, her heart age would fall to 30 and she could expect to live to age 85 before having a heart attack or stroke.

For most people, the researchers said, the calculator can show the potential gains from an early and sustained change to a healthier lifestyle — such as quitting smoking, eating a healthy diet, exercising, and reducing sedentary activity — rather than taking prescription  drugs.

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the United States, causing nearly 600,000 deaths every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

Os homens batem em mulheres. Como eles são maus.

Simple Test Can Reveal Failing Heart

 

Shortness of breath while bending over is a newly identified symptom of advanced heart failure, researchers say.

This obvious symptom can help alert doctors that heart failure patients have excessive fluid retention, according to cardiologists from the UT Southwestern Medical Center, in Dallas.

"Some patients thought they were short of breath because they were out of shape or overweight, but we wondered if there was something more to it," study first author Dr. Jennifer Thibodeau said in a medical center news release.

ALERT: 4 Things You'll Feel Before a Heart Attack

"So we developed this study to further investigate this symptom," said Thibodeau, an assistant professor of internal medicine in the center's division of cardiology.

The researchers identified the condition -- which they called bendopnea -- after assessing 102 heart patients.

"We discovered that patients with bendopnea had too much fluid in their bodies, causing elevated pressures," Thibodeau said. When they bent forward, these pressures increased even more."

The study was published recently in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Heart Failure.

In heart failure, the heart can't pump enough blood to meet the body's needs, according to the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Bendopnea is not a risk factor for heart failure, but rather a sign that heart failure is becoming more serious and patients might require changes to their medications or treatments, Thibodeau said.

There are 5.7 million Americans with heart failure, and about 10 percent of them have advanced heart failure, according to the American Heart Association.

 

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Investimento em saúde está congelado há 12 anos

 

Em 2002, o orçamento havia reservado R$ 5,4 bilhões para investimentos na área

 

Investimento em saúde está congelado há 12 anos (Arquivo)

Os investimentos na área de saúde estão congelados desde 2002. A análise de dados reunidos pelo Conselho Federal de Medicina (CFM) mostra que, embora o teto para as despesas possa variar de um ano para o outro, a capacidade em investimento na área não se altera há uma década.
Em 2002, o orçamento havia reservado R$ 5,4 bilhões para investimentos na área. Do montante, foram efetivamente usados apenas R$ 4,2 bilhões. Dez anos depois, o autorizado para o setor foi significativamente maior: R$ 12,9 bilhões. No entanto, o desembolsado foi muito menor: R$ 3,7 bilhões. A tendência se confirmou no ano passado: foram autorizados R$ 9,4 bilhões, mas foram pagos apenas R$ 3,9 bilhões. "Os números mostram um problema sério. Existe uma grande distância entre o que o governo promete e o que pratica", declarou o vice-presidente do Conselho Federal de Medicina, Carlos Vidal.
Hospitais.
Relatório aprovado nesta quarta-feira, 26, pelo Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU) sobre a saúde no País mostra que 64% dos hospitais analisados apresentavam uma taxa de ocupação da emergência que ultrapassava os 100% - em outras palavras, eles estavam superlotados.
O trabalho mostra também que 81% das unidades hospitalares analisadas apresentavam déficit no quadro de profissionais. O TCU mostra que a deficiência, por sua vez, é apontada como o principal motivo para o bloqueio de leitos.
A falta de equipamentos mínimos também foi considerada no relatório uma das causas importantes para a redução das vagas nos hospitais. As informações são do jornal O Estado de S. Paulo.

 

Best of Montana Year-Round: Nature and Wildlife

 

Water originating in Glacier National Park—much of it from snowmelt—can be considered the headwater of the continent.

Photograph by Don Johnston, Getty Images

By Maryellen Kennedy Duckett

Glacier National Park

 

Celebrated conservationist John Muir called Glacier National Park’s dramatic landscape “the best care-killing scenery on the continent.” More than a million acres of glacier-carved terrain form an all-season wilderness wonderland: 400-foot-high waterfalls and 762 lakes, treeless summits and coniferous forests, lush alpine meadows and high country glaciers.

If you have limited time, drive the spectacularly scenic Going-to-the-Sun Road, which crests the Continental Divide at 6,646-foot Logan Pass. The 50-mile route provides access year-round (some sections are closed late September to late June) to recreational opportunities and breathtaking vistas. In spring, hike or bike Going-to-the-Sun before the entire road reopens to vehicular traffic. In fall, chart your own autumn foliage tour on some of the park’s more than 700 miles of maintained hiking trails.

During the busy summer season, head to a less visited part of the park like Two Medicine, where you can join a guided hike or boat tour. Winter at Glacier brings fewer visitors and miles of deep powder for snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, ranger-led nature walks, and quiet contemplation.

Yellowstone National Park

 

Photograph by Russell Burden, Getty Images

What’s the secret to getting the most out of Yellowstone? Join what locals call the “5 percent club.” The first U.S. national park, so designated in 1872, draws about 3.5 million visitors a year. But 95 percent of those visitors stay on the Grand Loop Road, getting out of their cars only long enough to watch Old Faithful erupt. Be one of the few who get off the main roads and boardwalks, and consider a spring or fall visit when the park still is easily accessible yet less visited.

Yellowstone covers 3,472 square miles, so there’s plenty of space to explore and animals to see; the park has the largest concentration of wildlife in the lower 48. “Make no mistake, though, the park isn’t a zoo,” says Dan Hottle, public affairs officer for Yellowstone. “This is one of America's last truly wild settings, managed strictly to allow nature to follow its course.”

National Bison Range, Moiese

Photograph by Donald M. Jones, Corbis

The herd of approximately 350 wild buffalo here roams free—and protected—thanks to President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1908, Roosevelt and the U.S. Congress established this National Bison Range on 18,500 acres of prairie near Flathead Lake to save the American bison from extinction. For an inside view of the mighty bison, drive the preserve’s steep Red Sleep Mountain Drive. The 19-mile gravel road—open only during the summer—gains 2,000 feet in elevation and has 10 percent grades.

Plan on at least one and a half to two hours to do the full trip up and back. “From the top, you can view the snowcapped Mission Mountains to the east and the Mission Valley stretching to the north,” says Pat Jamieson, outdoor recreation planner for the Bison Range. “On clear days, you can see beyond Flathead Lake all the way to the mountains of Glacier National Park.”

Wild Horse Island State Park, Flathead Lake

 

Wild Horse Island is a 2,160-acre hunk of land breaking through the waters of Flathead Lake, the biggest freshwater body of water west of the Mississippi—at 28 miles long, up to 15 miles wide, and with 185 miles of shoreline.

“The cleanliness and incredible clarity of the water in the summer and fall makes for spectacular snorkeling opportunities around the lake’s many islands and rocky shorelines,” says David Landstrom, a park manager. “But my must-do activity here is to visit Wild Horse, which is accessible only by watercraft.”

The primitive island is open year-round for day use. Rent a boat from town, pack a picnic, and spend the day hiking and looking for resident wildlife, including a thriving population of bighorn sheep, mule deer, songbirds, waterfowl, bald eagles, falcons, and the island’s namesake wild horses.

Lone Pine State Park, Kalispell

 

Located four miles southwest of Kalispell, Lone Pine is one of the gems of Montana's rich state park system. Covering 270 acres and ranging between 2,959 and 3,709 feet in elevation, the Flathead River Valley park offers 7.5 miles of trails for, depending on the season, hiking, mountain biking, snowshoeing, and horseback riding. The thing that draws locals, though, is the park’s year-round schedule of events, including National Winter Trails Day, which offers the chance to try out snowshoeing on guided hikes; June's National Get Outdoors Day; Raptor Day in September; and the kids Snow Stompers Program, a series of one-hour workshops allowing kids ages four to seven to explore all things winter.

Wind Turbines Generate “Upside-Down” Lightning

 

By Geoffrey Giller | March 3, 2014 |  

 

 

Lightning strikes have been known to incapacitate wind turbines by destroying their blades. But while most tall structures are prone to lightning strikes, wind turbines seem to be especially susceptible. Recently scientists captured high-speed footage of these strikes, and they discovered that the wind turbines may in fact be the architects of their own demise: the nature of the turning turbine helps to cause these strikes.

Typically when lightning strikes a tall object, the strike is initiated from the cloud. A channel of negatively charged plasma, called a negative downward leader, moves from areas of negative charge in a storm cloud down toward a positively charged building, tree or wind turbine. As the negative leader nears the structure, it induces a positive upward leader, which jumps up to meet the negative leader. The connection forms a current, and the bright lightning flash we observe is actually to the result of a shock wave flowing up the connected channels, called a return stroke.

In the case of these wind turbines, positive upward leaders are generated from the turbine blades in the absence of a negative downward leader from the clouds above.

In the paper describing their findings, published online February 6 in the Journal of Geophysical Research, the researchers describe the phenomenon they think is responsible for this lightning. When tall objects build up a positive charge underneath a negatively charged storm cloud, they form a cloud of positively charged ions, which helps to dissipate the electric field around them. But, says Oscar van der Velde, a researcher at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and a co-author of the paper, “if your blade can escape this cloud of ions, then the field will remain high. And if the field is high enough, you can trigger a real lightning flash.”

The lines that stay illuminated have formed currents with the clouds above. Still, there is no bright flash and thus no return stroke, van der Velde says: “If you get a return stroke… it saturates the image.” This is just as well for the turbines because the return stroke is the most damaging part of a lightning strike. Yet “even discharges without return strokes can cause progressive damage to the turbine materials, ultimately leading to their failure,” van der Velde points out.

 

What Are the Symptoms of Sleep Deprivation?

 

By Brandon Peters, M.D.

Updated February 24, 2014

Written or reviewed by a board-certified physician. See About.com's Medical Review Board.

Sleep Deprivation Symptoms

Sleep deprivation, whether it occurs over the short or long term, can lead to some characteristic symptoms. These resulting symptoms may range from the relatively expected and commonplace, such as sleepiness, to somewhat more serious complaints of hallucinations and memory problems.

Before exploring these symptoms, it is important to understand that the degree of severity will depend on two factors. First, you will obviously suffer more from symptoms of sleep deprivation the longer the time that you spend awake. As an example, staying up an extra hour to watch your favorite television show is far different from getting only four hours of sleep. This may be especially true if the sleep deprivation occurs night after night or if it becomes extreme (such as "pulling an all-nighter").

Secondly, the intensity of your symptoms will vary depending on your circadian clock. Therefore, the symptoms of sleep deprivation will seem much more pronounced during times when you should naturally be asleep.

Explore some of the common symptoms of sleep deprivation, and you may recognize complaints that might encourage you to get the sleep that you need.

 

Net governance: ‘Compromise’ deal may secure internet’s future

 

Net governance: ‘Compromise’ deal may secure internet’s future

China has the highest number of internet users in the world - over 590 million. (Keystone)by Simon Bradley in Geneva, swissinfo.ch March 13, 2014 - 17:20

As the world wide web marks its 25th anniversary, a Geneva-based internet governance expert tells swissinfo.ch why, despite these turbulent times, a global political compromise may be within reach to preserve its future.

Jovan Kurbalija, the founding director of DiploFoundation, an organisation that trains diplomats in internet governance matters, believes the NETmundial meeting in São Paulo, Brazil on April 23-24 could set out the basic principles for a new internet governance deal.
That agreement would include the future status of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The US-based non-profit organisation responsible for assigning domains recently announced it had opened an office in Geneva.
In marking the web’s anniversary this week, British scientist Tim Berners-Lee used the occasion to warn that the internet was under threat from commerce and spying. His foundation has launched a “Web we want” campaign calling for a digital bill of rights in each country to ensure the internet stays free and open.

Jovan Kurbalija

swissinfo.ch: What impact have the spying revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden had on digital politics?

Jovan Kurbalija: They changed the spirit and atmosphere of internet governance worldwide. Internet governance, maybe more than many other policy processes, was based on a great deal of trust. The Snowden revelations have shaken this trust and without trust, realpolitik comes into play. People are suspicious of each other and there is an immediate drive to protect national interests and also to regulate.

 

Jovan Kurbalija

Jovan Kurbalija is the founding director of DiploFoundation, an organisation that trains diplomats in internet governance matters. He is also a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.
His book An Introduction to Internet Governance has been translated into nine languages and is used as a textbook at universities worldwide.
He is currently a member of the High-Level Committee of the NETmundial that will take place from April 23-24 at São Paulo in Brazil.
His organisation are also involved in the creation of the Geneva Internet Platform. This Swiss government-backed project aims to act as a catalyst for internet governance discussions contributing to the preservation of unified internet and making more informed decisions. One objective is to help small and developing countries that have been marginalised to participate in internet governance debates.

swissinfo.ch: In a recent article you painted different scenarios over the next five years, from “status quo sliding into Wild West” to radical change towards an intergovernmental model like the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). You favour a solution that involves the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and which would bring together governments, NGOs and private sector. Why is that?

J.K.: I’m optimistic as there is a convergence of interest to make some sort of deal. For the US it’s important to have a unified internet because of the economic, social and culture interests. For developing countries it’s important to have it for the social and economic development that is driven by the internet.
For EU countries and others like Switzerland and Norway it’s also highly relevant as they depend on global internet services, 80% of searches in Europe are made via Google. Maybe there will be enough enlightened wisdom to create a new formula to satisfy to some extent all of those specific interests and ensure the future growth of the internet.

swissinfo.ch: Will the NETmundial meeting on the future of internet governance provide a breakthrough?

J.K.: It is the hope of many. The way it has been organised by Brazil, which has been most affected publically by the Snowden revelations, and ICANN, the key institution in the current model, shows that there is a convergence of interest to find a new formula.
But Brazil will have a major challenge to find a compromise at NETmundial. It is make-or-break. A ‘compromise coalition’ has been emerging with Brazil, the EU, Norway, Switzerland and other like-minded countries. And there is a search for a formula that could be equally acceptable for each side of the internet divide.
The future status of ICANN will be essential. Preserving the multi-stakeholder composition of ICANN but outside US jurisdiction and supervision could be the basis for the compromise formula.
NETmundialis too close, and delicate compromises require a lot of time, but I am optimistic that the São Paulo meeting will set out the basic principles for a new internet governance deal that can be further developed by the end of 2015.

A new formula

This is a difficult transitional period for internet governance as stakeholders seek a new formula, trying to reconcile the tension between the current model, led by non-governmental organisations and private firms, and the increasing demands for a stronger role of governments.
After recent telecom summits two blocs formed with Russia, China and some Arab states on one side seeking more power for International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the US and some Europeans wanting to maintain the status quo.

swissinfo.ch: ICANN President Fadi Chehadé last month announced that “huge changes” were afoot and he had the green light to explore reforms of ICANN including the possibility of creating a parallel international structure likely based in Geneva. How significant is this development?

J.K.: ICANN symbolises internet governance in many respects and one of the major controversies concerns US oversight over ICANN. NETmundial and the next few meetings will probably set the future elements for the future position of ICANN.
There is consensus worldwide that ICANN has to be globalised, including within the US which has this historic role, but the question is how it will be globalised. The most realistic option is to have it as a multi-stakeholder institution arranged as Chehadé indicated along the lines of an organisation like the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. This is probably why the Swiss legal system and Geneva are attractive for ICANN.

swissinfo.ch: Do you see the US giving up its control via ICANN and removing ICANN’s explicit link to the US department of commerce to allow it to position itself as a global organisation?

J.K.: If you analyse the power of the US over ICANN you can see the paradox of this power. The US has never used this oversight and removed a country from the internet even if it had the legal basis to do so.
ICANN is the cause of a lot of criticism. It’s in the interest of the US to remove this link and all signals from Washington point in this direction. If there is a proper global arrangement for the future of ICANN, the US will sever this umbilical cord between itself and ICANN.

swissinfo.ch: But you favour the IGF over ICANN or the ITU as a global multi-stakeholder institution to oversee internet governance. Why is that?

J.K.: ICANN manages global internet address book domains like .ch, .org or .com. This is extremely important but represents only a small segment of internet governance. What is missing is a forum where actors can address internet governance questions in a multidisciplinary way, from security, legal, economic, cultural, social to technical issues.
There is a need for serious constructive talk about the role of ITU. In this new emerging architecture one limitation for the ITU is that internet governance issues are less and less technical. They are more and more human rights, legal, economic and socio-cultural and ITU is not developed to deal with non-technical issues.

Internet’s birthday : World wide web turns 25

March 13, 2014

A world without the world wide web is unthinkable. But the internet only came into existence 25 years ago.(SRF/swissinfo.ch)