Another Delay + IRB Questions

Sadly some of the packages I ordered got stolen off the front porch of the apartment I'm staying at. This means that with all my travel, I won't be able to do the diet effectively within the current timeline, thus pushing back my algae diet a few weeks. I don't have the proper nutrients without the fresh spirulina, chlorella and other algae samples I'm waiting on, in addition to some biometric equipment for testing. Since I want this experiment to be valid, I cannot begin without everything in place to start.

This makes me really sad as I had carefully planned everything to line up with upcoming events. Despite this setback, I will still be testing different algae recipes and doing my best to post videos on TikTok, Instagram and more. I'm still recording as much as possible to prototype a full-scale diet which I aim to kickoff as soon as possible in May.

The aim is to start May 9th as I'll have a stable living environment, consistent kitchen, and method to receive packages/shipments without trouble.

I also found out that I've been accepted to present on this diet at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Baku, Azerbaijan! I was hopeful that they'd accept my abstract, with some plans to travel there in place already just-in-case, and now that I've been accepted to present at multiple sessions (x4) the pressure is on to follow-through in a robust manner.

In the meantime, I'm working through the following questions for an IRB, to be reviewed by a panel of doctors, scientists and ethicists as a means of covering all possible experimental challenges for publication. Here's the series of questions based on the Biosummit Community Ethics document:

Respect

How can we prioritize the rights of humans, animals, and ecosystems?

How can we best consider the potential impacts of our work, intended and not?

How can we support our community members in putting values into practice?

How can we be attuned to the ways in which our practices instrumentalize other living beings? 

Credit

How do we reach a shared definition of the terms and forms of attribution, and implement a system in which we acknowledge contributions appropriately?

How can we make sure our work is serving as a resource for the community, and the broader public, while continuing to value the labor of those who do the work?

Community 

How do we make decisions collectively?

How do we identify and engage non-bio stakeholders?

Autonomy

How do we decide what forms of self-determination do we value, as individuals and communities? 

Do we value both individual and group self-determination?

How do we identify the relationships of power that impact autonomy? 

What do we need in order to promote autonomy in accordance with our values?

Education 

How can we create space to learn and encourage the confidence to teach?

How can we enthusiastically educate others, within this community and outside of it, about our values and how we put them into action in different contexts?

How can we empower our community to engage with the public in a clear, meaningful, and responsible way?

Open Science

How can we encourage replicability and collaboratively share our results? 

How do we support openness while also being mindful of the risks that openness poses? 

Transparency 

How do we stay honest and open about our failures?

How can we acknowledge ethical conflicts?

How do we decide what acceptable funding sources are?

Data Privacy 

How can we respect the sovereignty of data, treat stakeholders as peers, and agree on terms of use through informed consent?

Safety 

How do we embrace safe practices within unconventional contexts? 

How can we protect each other and create resources for communities to experiment safely?

Justice and Fairness 

How do we center justice in our practice?

How can we avoid perpetuating and creating systems of winners and losers?

How do we account for disparate impact of our work?

Diversity and Inclusion 

How do we make sure our organizations and their leadership respect vulnerabilities, acknowledge privilege, and confront ableism?

How do we make our spaces valuable and accessible to communities whose interests are historically underrepresented in the sciences?

How do we empower our communities by providing an ecosystem of supportive pipelines that help individuals adopt the agency to strive to leadership roles?

Accountability

Is there an active commitment to consider these questions?

How will we be accountable to these ethics?

How will we hold each other accountable?

How do we make ourselves accountable to people outside this community?