Nicola Jones

'Non fungible tokens' are the latest, greatest, collectible digital equivalents of baseball cards made using crypto-technology. Now science has boarded the train. This month saw sales or auctions of NFTs for: docs relating to two Nobel Laureates from the University of Berkeley; whole genome sequencing packages; augmented reality snaps of Neil Armstrong and various satellites; the original source code for the World Wide Web being typed out; and... a promise to auction up George Church's genome. All of this is weird, and fun, and wacky, and maybe a little bit serious too... My story for Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01642-3

I have been fascinated by the changes to my own work practices and relationships thanks to the emergence of Zoom as a more standard communication technique and social norm for business calls. Sure, we have had access to video calling for ages, and I have used it in the past to chat with grandparents and even for a feature or two when I couldn't manage to make a site visit in person. But the pandemic really thrust video conference into the mainstream. For me, that's been great (I talk to many people I have never met every week; seeing them, instead of just hearing them adds a really valuable layer of information to my work, and helps to establish a bond of trust more quickly). For others... not so great.  Here are some thoughts and interviews on the topic! The promise and perils of life lived online , for Knowable Magazine. https://knowablemagazine.org/article/technology/2021/the-promise-and-perils-life-lived-online