May 2012 Archives

Last fall at PICNIC '11, I did an Urban Escape "Floating Interview" with Mitchel Joachim (NYU, Terraform ONE) and Oliver Medvedik (Genspace).  We talked about innovation, ecology, architecture, the bioeconomy, and re-imagining cities. Here is a brief description, with some quotes.



And here is a video summary of the first day, with me enthusing about PICNIC, one of my favorite communities.

 

I'm headed to the New York area this week and will be giving three talks (two of which are open to the public).

May 4th, Noon, Princeton University: "Biology is Technology: Garage Biology, Microbrewing and the Economic Drivers of Distributed Biological Production"

May 5th, 1 pm, Genspace (33 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn): "Biology Is Technology: The Implications of Global Biotechnology"

May 7th-8th, The Hastings Institute, "Progress and Prospects for Microbial Biofuels" for the next round of conversations on ethics, synthetic biology, and public policy.  The previous round of conversations is captured in this set of essays, which includes my contribution, "Staying Sober About Science" (free after registration).

Here is my article with Dan Grushkin for Slate and Future Tense on "The Military's Push to Green Our Explosives", about using synthetic biology to make things go boom.  We had way more material than space, and we should probably write something else on the topic.

Here are the first three 'graphs:

Last year, when the United States military debuted footage of an iridescent drone the size and shape of a hummingbird buzzing around a parking lot, the media throated a collective hooah! Time magazine even devoted a cover to it. Meanwhile, with no fanfare at all--despite the enormous potential to reshape modern warfare--the military issued a request for scientists to find ways to design microbes that could produce explosives for weapons. Imagine a vat of genetically engineered yeast that produces chemicals for bombs and missiles instead of beer.

The request takes advantage of new research in synthetic biology, a science that applies engineering principles to genetics. To its humanitarian credit, in the field's short existence, scientists have genetically programmed bacteria and yeast to cheaply produce green jet fuels (now being tested by major airplane makers) and malaria medicines (scheduled for market in 2013). It's an auspicious beginning for a science that portends to revolutionize how we make things. In the future, we may harness cells to self-assemble into far more complex objects like cell phone batteries or behave like tiny programmable computers. The promise, however, comes yoked with risks.

The techniques that make synthetic biology such a powerful tool for positive innovation may be also used for destruction. The military's new search for biologically brewed explosives threatens to reopen an avenue of research that has been closed for 37 years: biotechnology developed for use in war.

Here is Michael Specter's New Yorker piece on H5N1 influenza, "The Dealiest Virus", which has extensive comments by me (the article is paywalled, unfortunately).

Here is an article from The Scientist in which I and others debate the wisdom of pursuing and publishing research into influenza viruses: "Deliberating Over Danger".

For background, see my earlier post "Censoring Science is Detrimental to Security".

Here is the full video of the BBC Horizons show on synthetic biology that aired earlier this year.  My bit starts at 38:30, but you would do well to watch the whole thing.  Oh, and spidergoats!