Revealed: why your Pinot noir is actually a Pinot blanc (or was that a Pinot gris?)

Heard it on the (research) grapevine. Naotake Murayama, CC BY

The diversity within grapevine varieties is incredibly rich. This is good news for viticulturists – grape cultivators – and wine makers because it allows them to adapt their wine production according to the conditions in their vineyards and to the wines they want to make.

Pinot is one of the most ancient grapevine varieties and the Pinot family is an invaluable source for the production of a wide range of wines from around the world. There’s the Pinot noir from Burgundy, California or New Zealand, Pinot Meunier in Champagne, Pinot gris in Alsace or Pinot blanc in Italy.

Cultivating pinot. Jim Fischer, CC BY

The vine stocks used in viticulture are obtained by grafting. It means that for any given variety, all stocks are identical – or almost all. Spontaneous events in the genomes of some vines can arise which leads to differences between individual plants.

Along with colleagues, we’ve been studying the fascinating Pinot family for 15 years at a special wine research unit at INRA Colmar, in France. In a new study, published in PLOS Genetics, we revealed for the first time the molecular and cellular mechanisms that lead to differences between plants of the Pinot family. And, in particular, on the spontaneous mutations that underpin the change of berry colour.

Spontaneous mutations

A unique chromosomal region in the grapevine genome controls berry colour. Two genes located in this region can induce the biosynthesis pathway – the biochemical reactions that create anthocyanins, the complex red pigment molecules that give a grape variety its berry colour. But when the two genes are inactivated by a mutation, this pathway stays switched off and the variety is white (as Pinot blanc).

Different varieties. Fast Forward Event Productions, CC BY

Almost all coloured varieties, including Pinot noir, display both the active (leading to the black colour) and the inactive form of these genes. Through a detailed molecular analysis of a collection of 33 clones of Pinot noir, Pinot gris and Pinot blanc, we showed that large-scale exchanges between the maternal and paternal (homologous) chromosomes in the grape, leads to the replacement of the chromosomal region that enables the creation of anthocyanins by the corresponding region on the other chromosome that prevents it.

Thanks to this transfer of information between these two chromosomes, which is a rare naturally-occurring event, Pinot blanc-type cells can emerge from a Pinot noir. In the 33 clones we studied, we identified four new chromosomes displaying independent replacements that were responsible for the loss of the anthocyanin-making mechanism, with a size reaching up to a quarter of the length of the entire chromosome.

After occurring in a cell, these mutations then propagate progressively to form a distinct cell layer in the shoot, leading to what is called chimeric plants. This is how Pinot gris arises from Pinot noir: a Pinot noir skin surrounds internal cells that have mutated to Pinot blanc. All of the known Pinot gris are chimeras that associate these two types of tissues.

Pinot noir (left), Pinot gris (centre), and Pinot blanc (right). Agne27, CC BY-SA

In a previous study, we reported multiple occurrences of chimerism by using molecular markers. Such cellular structures do not threaten the plant’s fitness and stay stable through vegetative propagation of the plant by grafting.

Occasionally, cellular rearrangements in the chimera lead to the homogenisation of the whole plant. This is how Pinot gris can emerge from a Pinot blanc – by invading the internal mutated cell into the coloured skin, which then spreads the mutations throughout the plant.

Diversity within varieties is the result of a series of rare events. It implies that a mutation must first occur in a cell that is, or will become, part of the shoot. Then the mutated cell must multiply to form a distinct cell layer. If it is formed, the chimera must then survive the annual pruning of shoots and be selected for vegetative propagation.

In this study, berry colour was used as a model trait to shed light on the molecular and cellular mechanisms behind the colour variations of the Pinot family. Through these mechanisms, the grapevine stocks drift over time and grapevine genome evolves. Of course, similar molecular and cellular mechanisms may impact other propagated plants, which creates diversity.

Viticulturists can only select these very rare events when they observe them (though some viticulturists pretend to have selected specific stocks fully adapted to their terroir, it is possible that they use diversity created by spontaneous mutations). But the diversity created when these mutations happen are great for creating flavour – the difference, for example, between a chardonnay and chardonnay muscaté. There are also different clones of Syrah that show very different levels of resistance to the Syrah decline (a disease) – a result of this clonal diversity.

If intelligence services want more powers they must learn to live with increased oversight

Who is watching them while they are watching you? sacred_destinations, CC BY-NC

The UK’s security and intelligence services face a “technology arms race” against terrorists and criminals' use of the internet and encryption, the head of MI6, Alex Younger, has said.

The internet and big data, he said, can “combine to our advantage, allowing us to know more about the people we meet”. But their opponents have the same tools – opponents “unconstrained by consideration of ethics and law”.

The implication is clear: give us more powers in order to meet the threat. The British spy chief echoes similar comments from the FBI and CIA, from police chiefs, and now from Europol.

But the stream of revelations stemming from the Edward Snowden documents reveal an altogether different view of surveillance carried out by GCHQ and other agencies. The subsequent inquiry by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) into surveillance practices found reasons to worry about acceding to demands for greater powers, and missed opportunities to hold the agencies to account.

Nothing to see here

The ISC inquiry examined the range of surveillance techniques and how they were used, the scale of use and nature of their breach of privacy, and the legal safeguards surrounding their use.

The committee’s report may be readily characterised as seeking to reassure the public that the immense amount of surveillance does not amount to anything untoward occurring. The committee found GCHQ has “neither the legal authority, the technical capacity nor the resources” for “blanket coverage” of all internet communications. Committee member Hazel Blears MP declared that “the way in which the agencies use the capabilities they have is authorised, lawful, necessary and proportionate”.

On the other hand, there was no shortage of criticism; Privacy International pithily summed it up in saying:

No jargon can obscure the fact that this is a parliamentary committee, in a democratic country, telling its citizens that they are living in a surveillance state and that all is well.

Consolidating power and responsibility

The main recommendation of the report was that the current out-dated, fragmented, over-complex and unclear legislative legal framework should be replaced by a single new comprehensive act, one that “must clearly set out the intrusive powers available to the Agencies, the purposes for which they may use them, and the authorisation required before they may do so".

A number of intelligence-based activities, such as data-sharing with foreign intelligence bodies, currently have no clear statutory basis and in some cases are likely to be unlawful. Putting surveillance activity on a firmer legal footing is to be welcomed, especially considering that current laws date from before the recent explosion in social media use. The opportunities to gather personal information from data online have exponentially increased; inevitably, legal safeguards and regulations have failed to keep pace.

England’s doughnut of knowledge. Ministry of Defence

Snoopers' Charter?

The concern is that the proposed new legislative framework, while much more comprehensive, still doesn’t address the key concerns raised by what we’ve learned from the Snowden files. To give any reassurance that privacy will be respected and protected, progressively more intrusive surveillance measures should warrant progressively higher levels of authorisation. This would suggest granting a greater role to judges, as a more independent check and balance; instead the committee proposes to give the authority to government ministers.

It has been suggested that this report may pave the way for a so-called “Snoopers’ Charter”, forcing data controllers and ISPs to hand over details of emails, social media messages, texts and voice calls.

In the context of a legislative overhaul, the system of oversight provided by the ISC might also have been expected to come under scrutiny. Yet the fact that it took the Snowden revelations to stir up any action over GCHQ’s bulk collection of data suggests that it was a role that had hardly been rigorously discharged.

Power without control

So the findings of the ISC’s report, and the committee’s tendency to exonerate agencies from wrongdoing seem in harmony with calls for more powers for the likes of MI6, MI5, GCHQ – not in opposition. Whether or not there are extensive statutory guidelines for the agencies’ activities does not in itself create any confidence that mass surveillance is not occurring. Greater transparency, in the sense of providing more information or clarification of the law, doesn’t necessarily demonstrate that powers are not being abused – as indicated by what we’ve learned from the Snowden files.

The fact that the agencies’ opponents are “unconstrained by consideration of ethics or law” does not, and should not, provide an argument that the agencies should be less constrained. Younger accepted that the difference between the agencies and their opponents was the rule of law. So demands for greater powers should concentrate their focus on the constraints that legal reform could impose, because the rule of law is not something that the UK or any of its government agencies should start considering as optional.

New DNA technique means pointing the finger at the right identical twin just got easier

Won't get fooled again (posed by models). twins by iofoto/www.shutterstock.com

DNA profiling (or genetic fingerprinting) has proved a revolutionary tool for forensic investigators as a means to identify potential suspects, exonerate the innocent and convict the guilty. But, like any forensic technique, it has its limitations. One limitation is in cases involving identical twins, something that has raised technical, legal and ethical problems – until now.

The more closely related one human is to another, the more similar their DNA profiles. For example, the probability of a DNA match between two random, unrelated individuals is in the region of one in a billion. For two full siblings, the probability drops to one in 10,000. Identical twins present the same DNA profile.

In forensic investigations, this presents problems. Under the ethical premise that it is better to let ten guilty men go free than to imprison one innocent man, if the courts cannot decide which twin is responsible then both must go free. There have in fact been a small number of high-profile cases where the suspects were identical twins, leading forensic genetics researchers to explore how this could be addressed. Now we’ve come up with a solution, recently published in the journal Analytical Biochemistry.

Finding a difference between equals

One method is mutation analysis, where the whole genome of both twins is sequenced to identify mutations that might have occurred to one of the twins. If such a mutation is identified at a particular location in the twin, then that same particular mutation can be specifically searched for in the crime scene sample. However this is very expensive and time-consuming, and is unlikely to be paid for by cash-strapped police forces.

The Forensic Genetics Research Group has demonstrated proof of principle of a cheaper, quicker technique. The basic principle behind this test is the concept of DNA methylation. This is effectively the molecular mechanism that turns on and off various genes.

For example, a blood-specific gene is also present in brain cells, but the cells in the brain do not produce the blood-specific component, because the gene is “switched off”. Many mechanisms affects the methylation status – whether a particular gene is “on” or “off” – of the DNA, but in the case of identical twins, the significant factor is environmental effects on them since birth.

As the twins grow older, the degree of difference between them grows as they are subjected to increasingly different environments. For example, one might take up smoking, or one might have a job outdoors and the other a desk job. This will cause changes in the methylation status of the DNA.

Methylation and melt

In order to analyse this, the DNA is extracted from the sample and then undergoes a process called bi-sulfite treatment. This reaction targets the methylated areas of the DNA and changes the sequence of its component nucleotide bases, known as A, C, G, and T.

DNA sequence, showing GATC nucleotides. Sjef

If a section of DNA is heavily methylated and then subjected to bi-sulfite treatment, the DNA sequence becomes heavily changed, so that for example C becomes T. The new characteristics of the DNA could be discovered by further sequencing – but again, this is expensive. Instead we carry out what is called high resolution melt curve analysis (HRMA).

Graph showing the different melt temperatures of DNA samples taken from two identical twins. Stewart et al./Analytical Biochemistry, Author provided

Human double stranded DNA is held together by hydrogen bonds that link these ACGT nucleotide bases. Guanine (the G of the ACGT nucleotides) is bound to cytosine (C) by three hydrogen bonds, and thymine (T) is bound to adenine (A) by two hydrogen bonds. If one sequence is predominantly made up of GC bonds that are methylated, then following bi-sulfite treatment, these GC bonds become AT bonds and the number of hydrogen bonds in that sequence decreases.

What HRMA does is to subject the DNA to increasingly high temperatures until the hydrogen bonds break, known as the melting temperature. The more hydrogen bonds that are present in the DNA, the higher the temperature required to melt them. Consequently, if one DNA sequence is more methylated than the other, then the melting temperatures of the two samples will differ – a difference that can be measured, and which will establish the difference between two identical twins.

Forensic biochemistry

Our studies have demonstrated that it’s possible to distinguish between identical twins using this method. However, there are some limitations.

It relies on there being a differing level of methylation between the twins' DNA. So for example young twins, or twins raised in highly similar environments may not have yet developed sufficient methylation differences. There is also irregularity in the level of methylation in DNA taken from different body fluid samples – for example, between saliva and blood – which means the same sample fluid is needed from the suspects to be tested as is found at the crime scene. The third limitation is that the technique requires a high sample quantity (around 100 nanogrammes) for DNA methylation studies, and this may not be present at the crime scene.

Nevertheless, we have demonstrated substantial progress towards a relatively cheap and quick test for differentiating between identical twins in forensic case work.

Forensic evidence offers only probabilities, not guarantees that justice will be served

This is science, not clairvoyance. fingerprint by Torsak Thammachote/www.shutterstock.com

Scientific evidence and expert witness testimony are integral to criminal trials worldwide. Yet while we live in a scientific age of increasingly specialised expert knowledge, a growing reliance on forensic evidence is a double-edged sword.

There is no doubting that forensic science techniques provide near-miraculous abilities to detect, investigate and prosecute crime. But any powerful medicine can have strong side-effects, if administered in excessive dosages or to the wrong patients. Forensic scientific evidence has won for itself an aura of credibility that verges on infallibility. This leaves flawed expert evidence as a potent source of potential injustice.

Is forensic science evidence fit for justice? Science and technology constantly evolve; forensic tests become ever more discriminating, cheaper and easier to use, and more freely available to law enforcement. Courts and legislators must not be complacent if they are to keep pace with scientific innovation. Unfortunately austerity-blighted Britain may be storing up serious trouble for the future.

Forensics and miscarriages of justice

It shouldn’t surprise us that forensic science is associated with miscarriages of justice. All forms of judicial evidence are inherently fallible: witnesses are sometimes dissembling or forgetful, or sincere and credible yet wrong. Confessions may be false or made under duress. As reliance on scientific evidence grows so too will the number of miscarriages of justice that stem from forensic science. It’s also fair to say that injustice occurs when the scientific evidence and techniques available are not exploited to their maximum. Scientific evidence is in some areas peculiarly vulnerable to unreliability and misinterpretation.

To begin with, scientific evidence is circumstantial. It may constitute strong evidence of the offender’s identity, his presence at the crime scene, or association with incriminating objects such as the murder weapon or stolen property. But it has at best very little, and generally no value in proving other elements of criminal liability such as intent, grounds of excuse, justification, or the absence of the victim’s consent. In other words, it typically leaves considerable scope for interpretation.

Scientific samples are prone to degradation and contamination, as demonstrated by recent high-profile cases in the UK and Australia in which contaminated samples falsely incriminated innocents. Presented in court, there is a constant danger that it will be misrepresented or misunderstood by lawyers, judges, or jurors. These difficulties are compounded whenever scientific evidence offered by one legal team is contradicted, or given a different interpretation, by counter-expertise advanced by the opposing side.

There will always be a risk of error, attributable to human fallibility, that must be accepted regardless of our efforts to detect miscarriages of justice. But one aspect of modern forensic science evidence is genuinely novel. Starting with the invention of fingerprinting about a century ago, forensic science has operated on the basis that it is possible to identify suspects or physical objects uniquely – an exclusively “matching” fingerprint, tool mark, hair sample, carpet fibre, bite mark would indicate the particular offender (or murder weapon, location of fibres or whatever). But the arrival of DNA profiling in the mid-1980s has seriously disrupted this way of thinking.

DNA evidence is powerful, but should redefine how we think about evidence. DNA by The Biochemist Artist/www.shutterstock.com

DNA profiles

DNA profiles, derived from only small samples of a person’s entire genetic code, do not claim to point the finger so uniquely. They are statements of random match probability (RMP), the probability that a person would match the DNA at the crime scene? if they were not its donor. The conventional RMP for fully matching DNA profiles in England and Wales has been one in a billion – a tiny probability, but one which concedes the possibility that DNA profiles are not unique.

It was soon realised that, far from a weakness of DNA profiling in contrast to other well-established techniques, in fact DNA profiling represents a truly scientific approach, whereas orthodox forensic practice rested on a fallacy. It is never possible to conclusively identify a person from sets of matching characteristics, unless the characteristics measured are known to be absolutely unique in the population. This kind of uniqueness probably does not exist in the real world – as graphically demonstrated by recent fingerprint miss-attributions in Scotland and in the US.

So with DNA profiling as the new forensic science model, nobody should assert or believe that a matching fingerprint or other forensic trace means “it’s definitely him”. Yet the impression is that many forensic scientists have failed to grasp these radical implications, and continue to make claims for their evidence that lack foundation in either logic or science.

In search of a remedy

For an effective prescription for institutional reform there needs to be an intelligent diagnosis of the existing ailments. Simplistic solutions, or those predicated on superficial misunderstandings of criminal procedure, are liable to do more harm than good. Modest but effective reforms include greater pre-trial dialogue between legal teams, only putting disputed facts before a jury, reinforcing professional ethics among lawyers and expert witnesses, proper scrutiny of scientific evidence before admitting it, and educational initiatives such as the Royal Statistical Society’s guides for interpretation of statistics.

print by polygraphus/www.shutterstock

Unfortunately, in a moment of penny-pinching madness that future governments may regard with incomprehension, the UK coalition government closed down the world-famous Forensic Science Service, arguing – quite improbably – that the private sector would fill the gap.

There are now serious worries, expressed by a parlimentary select committee and in a National Audit Commission report, that this move to free-market forensics is not meeting the justice system’s need for high-quality scientific support and has put in jeopardy long-term forensic research, development and training.

The closure stands against a landscape of “austerity justice”, across which swingeing cuts to legal aid raises serious questions about the viability of effective criminal defence in England and Wales. Meanwhile, the Forensic Science Regulator, professional bodies such as the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences and other key stakeholders such as academic departments must do what they can to pick up the slack, in an effort to ensure that forensic evidence generated and presented in criminal proceedings remains fit for justice.

The price of failure will be paid not by politicians in Westminster, nor by prosecutors, nor by free-market forensic practitioners, but by the victims of miscarriages of justice and through damage to public confidence in the legal system. Something that, in an all-too-familiar historical pattern, may not become apparent for many years, or even decades, to come.

Some shape-shifting animals that can morph to fool others

Pretty impressive, mimicry octopus, but you don't fool us. Klaus Stiefel/flickr, CC BY-NC

Animals come in all different shapes and sizes, but only a few can change their shapes. Researchers in Ecuador recently reported a new species of frog that can change its skin texture from spiny to smooth – the first ever case of a shape-shifting vertebrate.

When an animal is about to be attacked by a predator, it has two choices: run or hide. Sometimes, though, running might actually make the animal more obvious to its attacker. An animal that happens to look the same as its environment, however, may survive by being camouflaged from the attacker, such as moths that resemble fallen leaves, or even help to attract prey – a tactic the orchid mantis uses.

Many animals have evolved such permanent adaptations that help them to mimic their environments. However, along with the newly classified mutable rain frog, there are just a few animals known to be capable of changing their shape.

1. The mutable rain frog

The mutable rain frog - blink and it may have changed form. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Author provided

This frog was discovered in the Ecuadorian rain forest in 2006 but was only recently reported in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society as it took several years to find a second specimen, and only then did the shape-shifting ability become apparent.

The frog visibly changes its skin in a matter of seconds, completely changing texture from spiny to smooth in a few minutes. This change is so rapid that when the first researcher captured the frog to photograph it she thought she had mistakenly taken the wrong frog specimen – the spines had disappeared. The researchers put moss in the container with the frog until they could return it to the wild, but when they checked on it later it had changed its skin texture to spiny again.

The team also identified a second frog species, the Sobetes robber frog, capable of the same shape-shifting behaviour. This indicates that this phenomenon could be present in many species of amphibian and is possibly just unrecorded as it happens so quickly. This is the first known vertebrate to shape-shift over such a rapid time frame – apart from werewolves and J.K Rowling’s Professor McGonagall of course.

2. The golden tortoise beetle

It’s either this or shiny gold. Kenneth ng/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

This species of beetle is capable of changing its colour when mating or to blend in with its background and avoid predation, just as specialist colour changers such as chameleons do. But it can also change the finish of its colour, for example from a shiny gold to a dull red colour. It does this through an optical illusion whereby tiny grooves in the shell can create a shiny surface when filled with liquid and a dull one when drained.

The golden tortoise beetle also undergoes a metamorphosis from the larval to the adult stage (in the same way that caterpillars morph into butterflies). This process of metamorphosis occurs through cells growing and specialising as the beetle grows to maturity and is brought about by hormonal change.

3. Cuttlefish

The same cuttlefish filmed only seconds apart. Klaus Stiefel/flickr, CC BY-NC

Cuttlefish are capable of mimicking their background environment by changing the colour, pattern and texture of their skin. They do this by altering pigments in their skin to change the way it reflects light. This is all controlled by neurons in the brain that transmit impulses and information to the rest of the body.

As well as camouflaging themselves, cuttlefish can alter their skin to startle predators or to communicate with other cuttlefish. Some cuttlefish have even been dubbed as cross-dressers: the males have been known to imitate females in order to sneak past other males to mate with the females.

4. The mimic octopus

This octopus was discovered in 1998 off the coast of an Indonesian island, and is perhaps the greatest shape-shifter of all. Similar to the cuttlefish, it is capable of mimicking its background environment by changing the colour and texture of its skin. However, impressively, it is the only animal able to mimic a diverse range of species – at least 13 have been recorded so far – including lion fish, sea snakes, jellyfish and sea anemones.

Most of the impersonated species are poisonous, giving the mimic octopus protection from predators, but it is also known to imitate members of the opposite sex in crabs, luring them in before feasting on them. The mimic octopus has remarkable dexterity, being capable of changing its colour, behaviour, shape and texture, and can alter its mimickry according to the circumstances.

5. Pufferfish

Watch out, he’s about to puff! Benjamin Jakabek/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND

Porcupinefish and pufferfish are a group of fish that puff themselves up rapidly when threatened. These fish can more than double their size by inflating their stomachs with water or air, making themselves much less attractive as a meal to predators – would you want to eat a large spiky ball? – and too large to be eaten by predators with smaller mouths.

Most porcupinefish and pufferfish also contain a deadly toxin, far more poisonous than cyanide, so if they are taken unaware the predators often won’t last for long. The meat from these fish are considered a delicacy in Japan, where it is carefully prepared by trained chefs, although it seems several customers still die each year.

Exoskeleton boot makes for more efficient walking

Walking on a trail becomes a bit easier with a pair of unpowered exoskeleton boots.

Stephen Thrift

Some boots are made for walking, and some are made for walking more efficiently.

Scientists have developed an unpowered exoskeleton "boot" that reduces the amount of energy spent while walking by about 7 percent. The boot has a passive clutch that activates a spring in parallel with the Achilles tendon when the foot is on the ground. That offloads the effort of the calf muscles, making walking easier, researchers report April 1 in Nature.

Seven percent doesn't seem like much of an energy savings. But humans have been walking for a long time, and finding that a slight energy savings is still possible suggests there's still much more to learn about walking, the team says.

Does civic society need Martha Lane Fox as online champion?

There needs to be more to the net than just data scraping and surveillance. heyrocker, CC BY

In his iconic Discworld series, the late Terry Pratchett offered two useful social observations: first, that dragons affect the value of personal property and, second, that in order to avoid tyranny we should always question who guards the guards.

The second is relevant to the points made by Martha Lane Fox who, in her recent Richard Dimbleby Lecture, called for the creation of an civic institute to “examine the ethical and moral issues posed by the internet”.

Martha Lane Fox. The Cabinet Office/Crown Copyright

Lane Fox envisages her institute as guardians to watch over us everyday users of the world wide web, and to guard against the domination of corporations, government censorship, and self-serving EU legislative agendas that provide only weak data regulation and protection.

These concerns are not new, and are shared by many who care about the future of the internet. Grandees such as Sir Tim Berners-Lee and his Web Foundation and the W3C, have already campaigned for a more “pro-human” web as it passes its 25th birthday, one that is better suited to digital rights. What’s been called a Web We Want where users have influence over a digital future intended for everyone.

Free people pull in many directions

This is all very well, but the internet is relatively ungoverned: virtual, supranational territory that falls outside the boundaries of nation-states, and which lacks the democratic mechanisms and social protections that they afford.

Claims of a flat, open, and egalitarian internet are misguided. Where there is one rule for one user and one rule for another, social Darwinism – the survival of the fittest – ensues. The web echoes and magnifies the world’s gross cultural relativity and widespread inequality. Its transformative power has reached only half the world’s population, a fact that reinforces the power, money, gender, and class-based inequalities rife offline. Any civic internet institute without major financial support and global political backing will struggle to make a difference.

Such an institute would be forced to consider how the many free-ranging individuals, from many levels of society, which shape the web may react to proposed changes to a platform that is a major part of their lives. Increasingly, online behaviour defines us as individuals, yet direction and control of the internet is held by a technical oligarchy.

So Lane Fox’s call is not limited to the implications of what the web could bring, or what it has already brought – good or bad. It is also an investigation of the scope of human imagination, looking towards what we want the web to be by establishing a set of rules and agreements on decision-making – what Berners-Lee has called an online magna carta. The implications of the internet of things, of the rapid growth of government surveillance, and surveillance-based, data-trawling business models all play in to this.

An institute that aimed to provide a civic counterweight to corporate and government power would have to evaluate where that power lies on the web, the different views of digital privacy and ownership and use of data.

A user’s right to control their data and privacy might require laws or regulation to support that right, ensuring that one is never allowed to treat another as merely a means to their own ends. Then again, users could agree to surrender their data in exchange for services – a deal that need not be Faustian, merely utilitarian. The fact that the mechanisms for this exchange – cash for data, essentially – already exist means the services get built and we all benefit.

Even benevolent, technocratic tyranny must be watched for. davidmasters, CC BY

Standing on the shoulders of giants

Importantly, Lane Fox’s call is concerned with more than technicalities, and is focused on how to strengthen individual freedoms on the web. After all, citizenship emerges from civil, social and political rights and responsibilities – extending this to the web is not such a great leap, but will require wide support and agreement. In fact this may be more important than any institute – an antidote to the concerns of power and dominance that could be as important as movements for gender equality and universal suffrage.

If the internet has technocratic forums such as the W3C, IETF and Internet Society, perhaps society at large should have a representative body to compare to these technocratic ones, to push participatory governance and keep digital citizenry alive to reflect the very human rights of the billions of internet users.

There are already organisations striving to bring understanding to the tangle of power and rights online, including the University of Southampton’s Web Science Institute, the Oxford Internet Institute, and others in the Web Science Trust network.

So perhaps another new institute is not what we need, but instead greater support for those that already exist, and better links between industry, academia and government. This needs to be strengthened against a background of increasing individual digital freedoms, because only this way are we going to be able to innovative and educate our way to a better web for all. These together can engineer new digital leaders for tomorrow, creating online champions for our human rights.