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By Jonathan D. Moreno, PhD Dr.  Jonathan D. Moreno is one of 14 Penn Integrates Knowledge university professors at the University of Pennsylvania , holding the David and Lyn Silfen chair. He is also Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, of History and Sociology of Science, and of Philosophy. Moreno is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC. In 2008-09 he served as a member of President Barack Obama’s transition team. He is also a member of the AJOB Neuroscience Editorial Board. In September I arrived in Geneva to keynote a conference at the Brocher Foundation on the banks of Lake Geneva, where the ghost of John Calvin still casts a long shadow over the stern ethos of the Swiss. It was a glorious day in that oasis of calm and cleanliness, where the sheer power of holding much of the world’s money in its vaults justifies a muffled smugness. Compulsively, I checked my email as my taxi glided past the Hotel President Wilson, the monument o...

If there’s one thing I learned from the most recent installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, it’s this:  if you’re doing interesting research, it probably has a military application. In the interest of spoiler avoidance, let's just call this Wayne Enterprises invention "dual-use." (http://ixpower.com/2012/07/dark-knight-rises-batman-movie-does-infant-smr-industry-no-favors/) Dual Use Technology The formal name for it is “dual-use technology,” and it’s difficult to find an area of research in which it’s not a relevant concern. Innovations in renewable energy may avert catastrophic global warming, but they also promise to significantly lower military fuel costs and improve the mobility of forces newly unconstrained by the logistics of fossil fuel transportation. Research into nuclear fusion foreshadows essentially inexhaustible carbon-free energy at the same time as it provides a  technological foundation for fusion-triggered nuclear weapons that some bel...