Chris Anderson, Wired's editor, is writing dispatches from Davos for Slate. They're great!
When it comes to thinking about how to regulate the science, the best test may be the "yuck factor." This is, as you might imagine, a pretty squishy concept, something along the lines of using gut reaction as a proxy for a long and unproductive philosophical debate…. Dr. Baltimore bravely soldiered on, noting that yuck changes with age and generations; teenagers aren't freaked out by the things their parents are. Indeed, yuck is as much learned as innate: An audience member cheerily volunteered that a 1-year-old will drink apple juice — which is urine-colored — out of a bedpan without complaint. Good point: Perhaps this is not the stuff laws should be made of.
