Social norms, the technology drivers

This issue contains interesting articles involving current areas of international concern, from medical to environmental considerations. Dermatologists have long warned their patients regarding the potential ills of increased exposure to the sun. The contribution by Bhattacharyya and coworkers1 highlights this point by detailing the effects of varying levels of ultraviolet B radiation on exposed mouse tissue. Not surprisingly, increased UV-B results in increased degradation of multiple processes; thus, there is a likely a proper balance between exposure and health. Contributions by Henwood,2 as well as Freeland and coworkers,3 address environmental and laboratory safety issues. Henwood seeks to find dewaxing techniques that will obviate the need for potentially environmentally unfriendly chemicals, while Freeland and colleagues present the idea of using water-soluble buffers in epitope retrieval buffers. The challenge with any such objective is achieving an acceptable balance between efficacy and safety. Seidu’s concern4 is necessity, i.e. lack of refrigeration of samples over time in a medical facility in Ghana with limited budget and resources, but the point could as easily be transferred to places with means but with ‘green’ intent. In this instance, the challenge is balancing efficacy with resources.

The social and cultural norms that drive our technical quests are intriguing. Considering the Bhattacharyya work, various populations have driven social norms of sun exposure — currently, sun exposure is loosely correlated to social status, financial status, or state of well being. We now see that this cultural norm is driving the need for new technological investigation of the effect of this behavior on ourselves. Many books and essays have been written postulating how social inputs and interactions guide the norms. Certainly our information channels have radically changed over time and have subsequently increased our ability to rapidly influence one another, albeit not necessarily with increasing fact-based information. It would be interesting to look at the frequency of social norm change and whether the frequency is greater with increased speed of communication. Recently, the social and cultural forces that have driven the quest for safer alternatives that are environmentally friendlier follow years of desiring and seeking chemicals with one-stop answers to looming problems, with little recognition of environmental negative impact. We are now asking the medical industry to abruptly change and develop new technologies that solve the same problems yet address our rapidly evolving social and cultural standards of safety and environmental stewardship. The music and fashion industries develop incredible technologies to follow radical changes in social norms and expectations. As the social acceptances change, so too do the relevant technologies. This issue of the Journal of Histotechnology points out that the field of histotechnology is able to adapt and change in the same manner; three of the four contributions seek new ways to rethink ‘solved’ problems. The contributions to this issue represent the many ‘behind the scenes’ efforts to accommodate social norms. The next time you encounter a change in social norm, think of the technologies and the technological changes that will be spawned as a result.

Best wishes from Clemson,

Karen J. L. Burg, Ph.D.

Editor-in-Chief