FreeRadicalBiologyandMedicine120(2018)S4 ContentslistsavailableatScienceDirect Free Radical Biology and Medicine journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/freeradbiomed 19th Biennial meeting for the Society for Free Radical Research International (SFRRI) - Lisbon 2018 Abstracts of Science and Society Lecture SSL-1 lifespan more than doubled in just over a century. We also take for grantedthesocialreformsthathaveabolishedabsolutemonarchiesand slavery, and that have givenwomen the right to vote and workers the Knowledge and dialogue to deal with uncertainty righttofightforbetterworkingconditions.Andyet,issuessuchasnuclear waste,climatechangeandacquiredantibioticresistance,continuetobe AlexandreQuintanilha seenbymany,asunforeseenandpotentiallydangerousconsequencesof the application of our knowledge. Topics like genome editing, artificial intelligenceandhumanenhancementprovidefurtherevidenceofthese i3S-IBMCandICBAS,UniversityofPorto,Portugal concerns.Thereisapressingneedformeaningfuldialoguebetweenci- tizens and experts so that policy decisions about technological choices maybetrusted.Understandingtherisksinvolvedinthesearchfor,andin “Knowledgeispower”waswrittenmorethan400yearsagobyFrancis theusesof,newknowledgehasbecomeandwillremainamajorconcern Bacon.Centurieslater,Einsteincautioned:“Informationisnotknowledge. ofourdemocracies. The only source of knowledge is experience.” We gain experience by E-mailaddress:[email protected] promotingcuriosity,imaginationandtheaudacitytoquestionauthority. Most of us take for granted the advances in science that allowed our http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.frb.2018.04.551 planet's population to have more than quadrupled and our average 0891-5849/