http://etcblog.org/2007/06/25/the-cool-and-the-concerned/ (et cet er a) and other things; such as human rights, biodiversity, biopiracy, converging technologies, global governance and corporate concentration. An experimental growing plot for news, views and new ideas. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:44:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 http://etcblog.org/2007/06/25/the-cool-and-the-concerned/#comment-5482 pete Sun, 01 Jul 2007 20:28:39 +0000 http://etcblog.org/2007/06/25/the-cool-and-the-concerned/#comment-5482 Thanks for being there, these reports are a useful corrective. The "cool" folk remind me of 1970s-era computer nerds, and part of the interesting comparison is that they really, as far as I can tell, had very little clue what their cool programs would be used for. Are these SynBio engineers onto revolutionary techniques and if so what we they -- or their successors -- do with them? The biofuels and bioweapons concepts seem to me distractions, albeit very powerful sources of funding. I suspect the real applications have not yet been imagined. Or will SynBio run into hard roadblocks as did gene therapy (which still gets hundreds of millions of research dollars)? Seems like an open question to me ... Thanks for being there, these reports are a useful corrective. The “cool” folk remind me of 1970s-era computer nerds, and part of the interesting comparison is that they really, as far as I can tell, had very little clue what their cool programs would be used for. Are these SynBio engineers onto revolutionary techniques and if so what we they — or their successors — do with them? The biofuels and bioweapons concepts seem to me distractions, albeit very powerful sources of funding. I suspect the real applications have not yet been imagined. Or will SynBio run into hard roadblocks as did gene therapy (which still gets hundreds of millions of research dollars)? Seems like an open question to me …

]]> http://etcblog.org/2007/06/25/the-cool-and-the-concerned/#comment-5269 jimt Tue, 26 Jun 2007 22:46:46 +0000 http://etcblog.org/2007/06/25/the-cool-and-the-concerned/#comment-5269 Thanks... I've changed it. Thanks… I’ve changed it.

]]> http://etcblog.org/2007/06/25/the-cool-and-the-concerned/#comment-5253 Biologist Tue, 26 Jun 2007 11:32:02 +0000 http://etcblog.org/2007/06/25/the-cool-and-the-concerned/#comment-5253 FYI - prokaryotes do not have a nucleus, eg see your point about the synthetic organism have 'two nuclei'. FYI - prokaryotes do not have a nucleus, eg see your point about the synthetic organism have ‘two nuclei’.

]]>