Mapmaking and conquest has a disturbingly close history. As indigenous people learned, the innocuous mapmaker may be followed by weapons, property claims and exploitation. So too for the recent rash of science projects using mapping
Written for The Ecologist - 20/06/2008
As to global annihilation, I’m stumped. Most of us wouldn’t recognise a strangelet if it casually devoured us in the street
There’s a slim chance – about one in 50 million – that nobody will ever read this article. A physics experiment taking place under the French-Swiss border could theoretically [...]
Now that you can drive your ‘nano’ car, listening to your ipod ‘nano’ while wearing ‘nano’ sunscreen and ‘nano’ clothing, the UK’s largest organic certifier has just introduced the perfect nano-antidote - a ‘nano-free’ standard for consumer products. The Soil Association – one of the world’s pioneers of organic agriculture announced today that it is [...]
What do ocean-going yachts, space-traveling bacteria and synthetic life have in common? J. Craig Venter, of course. The self-styled genome tycoon has been busy pushing the boundaries on what may appear at first glance to be unrelated enterprises. Nothing could be further from the truth. A suite of recently uncovered patent applications lodged by Venter and his colleagues reveal not only an attempt to grab ownership over much of synthetic biology (see news release) but also a breathtakingly bold business plan for producing millions of new synthetic organisms per day. At the heart of this are plans for a new, automated process enabling rapid assembly of complete synthetic genomes - plans that, if realised, could render current genetic engineering techniques quaint and obsolete. Venter calls it “homologous in vitro recombination” or “combinatorial genomics.” ETC suggests it might be properly dubbed “shotgun synthesis” and it has the potential to blast apart current biotech practice.
The BP-Berkeley deal, the new joint Bio Energy institute, and also the recent job hop by John Menlo of BP fuels to Amyris Biotech - are all extra strings tying the interests of the Syn Bio community as a wholeever closer to the interests of big business. It should be noted that in each of thse cases CEO Keasling plays a central role. The same man who claims to be developing Synthetic Biology to serve the worlds poor (via synthetic artemisinin) seems to be rather busy these days serving the fabulously rich.
“I think this is going to become the foundational technology of the 21st century” - that was the triumphant message with which Tom Knight of MIT brought Synthetic Biology 3.0 to an end today. An engineering generalist who moved from artificial intelligence to artificial life, it was Knight who, along with Drew Endy, developed [...]
‘The cool’ and ‘the concerned’ – that was how Zurich-based ethicist Nicola Biller Andorno today aptly characterised the two tribes attending Synthetic Biology 3.0…The cool, in her lexicon, are the synthusiasts, those who regard making synthetic life forms as…like…hey dude, that’s like, so cool. The concerned, roughly speaking, is made up of people like [...]
Sunday afternoon and Synthetic Biology 3.0 gets underway in high spirits amidst the glass and concrete of the ETH Campus. Host Sven Panke kicked off the conference promising that SynBio3.0 would have something for everyone — the enthusiasts (clearly the majority), the curious and the skeptics (we guess that’s us).
This was clearly the day [...]
Some of us from ETC are in Zurich for the next few days observing what happens when you cram several hundred synthetic biologists and industrialists into a conference room — the evolution of a new industrial species? These ‘Synthusiasts’ are now into their third annual international congress, Synthetic Biology 3.0, each conference named like a [...]
Is Craig Venter, the so called “bad boy of biology”, about to announce the world’s first synthetic lifeform? (or ‘Syn’ for short)… we don’t know. According to New Scientist “rumours are circulating that his institute will soon unveil the first synthetic bacterium”. What we do know is that he has applied for a patent with broad claims that include a synthetic organism itself…
(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.
