The Idea of Precaution: Ethical Requirements for the Regulation of New Biotechnologies in the Environmental Field

The rapid emergence of new biotechnologies for selectively altering genetic material—so-called genome editing—has sparked public controversy about how their development and application in the environmental fields are to be regulated. Since the use of these new technologies harbors not only considerable potential but also risks of serious damage whose occurrence is uncertain due to their application in complex environmental systems, many national and international legal authorities are currently adhering to policies of precaution. According to critics, however, precautionary measures and the legal principle of precaution on which they are based are unduly restrictive in the case of the new biotechnologies, hindering advancements in both research and various fields of application. At the same time, legal notions of precaution are highly ambiguous within and across different national and international formulations, thereby further complicating the controversy about their implications. This paper goes beyond the concept of precaution as found in environmental law by examining the ethical significance and the ethical justification of precautionary measures in the environmental field. In particular, it clarifies the criterion of potential damage, disambiguates different types of epistemic bases in precaution decisions, and considers the relevance and implications of different ethical risk theories as to their response to epistemic uncertainty and vagueness. The two main conclusions are that, first, irrespective of the ethical risk theory embraced, there is an ethical obligation to take precautionary measures whenever serious damage is possible and the probability of damage occurring epistemically uncertain or vague. Regarding the risk assessment, it is argued that the burden of proof lies not with those who fear the occurrence of serious environmental damage. Rather, it is up to those whose actions give rise to such fears to demonstrate that serious damage is extremely improbable or scientifically absurd. Second, the moral responsibility to determine precaution situations and to specify appropriate precautionary measures is attributed not only to state authorities but also to industrial players as well as research communities. Based on these two conclusions, recommendations are given as to how the precautionary principle should be incorporated in political and legal decision-making

Mouse Heterochromatin Adopts Digital Compaction States without Showing Hallmarks of HP1-Driven Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation

Mouse cells package heterochromatin into compact foci. Erdel et al. show that these foci lack hallmarks of liquid droplets and rather resemble collapsed polymer globules. Their size, accessibility, and compaction are independent of HP1. They can adopt two distinct folding states that possibly represent the fundamental modes of chromatin compaction

Evagination of Cells Controls Bio-Silica Formation and Maturation during Spicule Formation in Sponges

The enzymatic-silicatein mediated formation of the skeletal elements, the spicules of siliceous sponges starts intracellularly and is completed extracellularly. With Suberites domuncula we show that the axial growth of the spicules proceeds in three phases: (I) formation of an axial canal; (II) evagination of a cell process into the axial canal, and (III) assembly of the axial filament composed of silicatein. During these phases the core part of the spicule is synthesized. Silicatein and its substrate silicate are stored in silicasomes, found both inside and outside of the cellular extension within the axial canal, as well as all around the spicule. The membranes of the silicasomes are interspersed by pores of ≈2 nm that are likely associated with aquaporin channels which are implicated in the hardening of the initial bio-silica products formed by silicatein. We can summarize the sequence of events that govern spicule formation as follows: differential genetic readout (of silicatein) → fractal association of the silicateins → evagination of cells by hydro-mechanical forces into the axial canal → and finally processive bio-silica polycondensation around the axial canal. We termed this process, occurring sequentially or in parallel, bio-inorganic self-organization

Democracy and Environmental Decision-Making

It has been argued that environmental decision-making can be improved be introducing citizen panels. The authors argue that citizen panels and other models of citizen participation should only be used as a consulting forum in exceptional cases at the local level, not as a real decision-making procedure. But many problems in the field of environmental policy need nonlocal, at least regional or national, regulation due to the fact that they are of national impor-tance. The authors argue that there are good reasons not to institutionalise national citizen panels. They advocate the view that more reasonable and more competent solutions can be found by introducing forms of direct democracy.participation, citizen panels, consensus conferences, democracy