Immune Systems
Quite a multi-layeredness of the artificially strengthened immune systems they have in place at the Thai border. Microbes and terrorist: hand in your passport. Peculiar image of the week.
What is Next Nature?
With our attempts to cultivate nature, humankind causes the rising of a next nature, which is wild and unpredictable as ever. Wild systems, genetic surprises, autonomous machinery and splendidly beautiful black flowers. Nature changes along with us.
Posts Tagged ‘Biopolitics’
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Dolphin fitted with prosthetic fin
Tyre manufacturing company has come to the rescue of Fuji the dolphin who was stricken by a mysterious life threatening illness and lost her fin. She caught a disease that begun gradually rotting her tail and her tail had to be amputated to save her life.
For awhile the now 37-year old Fuji survived without a fin, but her lack of exercise and weight gain proved problematic. A friend of the handler’s working at one of Japan’s leading tyre makers, Bridgestone Corp, offered to make them an artificial tail fin for Fuji, the first of its kind in the world. The result was a tail fin 30 centimetres in length and 70 centimetres wide, a bit smaller than the tail of a healthy dolphin of Fuji’s size.
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Moscow won’t let it snow
Already in the early days of modern civilization, people claimed that they could control the weather. A known example from recent history are the rituals that American Indians used to induce rain.
Nowadays, many people still tend to regard these stories as fairy-tales and consider controlling the weather impossible. In Moscow though, the mayor recently proposed a snow-free city. It proves that several countries, including the People’s Republic of China, USA and Russia, are modifying precipitation for several decades. In Russia, it is common practice to engineer dry days on public holidays and special events in Moscow.
Moscow’s plan is to disperse a mixture of silver iodide, liquid nitrogen and cement powder into clouds to trigger precipitation. This ensures that snow is banned from Moscow’s city centre, but results in a regional climate change in the areas just outside Moscow where the clouds empty their load. You can imagine the consequences…
Related: Hurricane control causes storm of lawsuits, Fight climate change: Hack the planet, China controls weather for olympics.
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Do It Yourself Pet
Image: A. Sidorov
Have you ever fantasized about creatures which carry the biggest smile? Or creatures which are so deeply covered with fur that you wish they were real? Good news, soon you’ll be able to watch your favorite animal become alive!
While the average consumer is still happy with laser printer technologies the first 3D printer which uses organic materials is on its way. Currently we already manage to print cell structures of about 2 inches high. Once finished these devices will be used for noble purposes like printing organs, victimless meat or other food. However, the real fun starts some years later, when they are cheap enough to buy one yourself.
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Craig Venter – Catalyst of evolution
If the six hour crash course on synthetic genomics is a bit too much for you, there is always a more snappy TED lecture in which Craig Venter ponders on whether we can create new life out of our digital universe. Needles to ask what his answer is.
Dr. Venter now has a database now with about 20 million genes and thinks of them as the design components of the future. In little over half an hour the audience is walked through the latest endevours in synthetic genomics.
His talk covers topics like: How to boot up a chromosome. How he plans to replace the petrochemical energy with bacteria that turn CO2 into energy. How to take security measures. Why people who think of evolution as just one gene changing at the time have missed much of biology. And why it is a mistake to think they are trying to create life from scratch, as they are merely playin on one of the key principles of nature: all life derives from other life.
Nature changes along with us and it is changing fast. Buckle up for a catalyst of evolution.
Related: Build a better being, DNA Synthesizer, Top 10 new organisms, Mapping the DNA world, Google DNA, Poetry of Genetics, Crash course on synthetic genomics, How biotech will drive our evolution, Human genetic DNA sequencing soon child play?.
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Mapping the DNA world
DNA related tools, once expensive and restricted to research and crime labs, are rapidly becoming affordable. Like GPS – once a high-tech wonder now turned into a everyday gadget – simple DNA sequencing may soon be available to almost everyone.
Undoubtedly DNA related applications will transform society as we know it: Synthetic pets, Amateur food testing, Faked DNA evidence, Genetic mapping, Genetic social networks, DNA as information storage, HumanDNA trees, Hyper Fruit… the applications are mind bubbling and seemingly infinite.
Designer Niko Vegt, master student at the Next Nature theme, has been working on an imaginary map of the DNA world. Unlike a regular map, which represents a physical territory, the DNA World map represents a conceptual territory of DNA related applications and developments. Its main continents are Science, Medical, Heath, Personal, Social, Justice and Environment – all surrounded by an ocean of Ethics.
Browse a demo version of the map and let us know what you think. Read more »
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Artificial ‘trees’ should stop climate change
The British researchers conclude that the climate is changing so quickly, without geo-engineering we will be impossible to stop it. The use of artificial trees is number one on their list of recommendations.
The technology behind the artificial trees, which should filter CO2 from the air, is currently being developed. The present-day prototypes are able to retrieve a thousand times more CO2 from the air than a regular tree.
The ‘trees’ are about the size of a sea container (!) – should be an interesting addition to the landscape, here is a picture of an actual prototype. Researchers believe they will be able to mass-produce them soon and expect they will be part of our landscape within ten to twenty years.
Via BBC, NY Times. Related: Windmill trees, Cellphone Treemasts, Fight climate change, hack the planet, Let the Dutch bury the carbon, Humans to blame for global warming, Doggerland – Mapping a lost world, If the implications of global warming were fair, Global Warming Ready Campaign.
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Lab creates fake DNA evidence
DNA evidence has been the most bulletproof evidence for forensic sciences in recent years. Not anymore. A laboratory at Nucleix, a life-sciences company, has demonstrated it is possible to manufacture DNA that would be accurate enough to pass forensic scrutiny:
“You can just engineer a crime scene,” Nucleix founder Dan Frumkin told The New York Times. “The current forensic procedure fails to distinguish between such samples of blood, saliva, and touched surfaces with artificial DNA, and corresponding samples with in vivo generated (natural) DNA.”
“Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”
Frumkin and co-authors announced their technological achievement in a paper for the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. Fortunately, the company also offers a solution: one particular methyl group appears in naturally-occuring DNA, but not in Nucleix’s product.
Sources: NY Times, Scientific American, Technology Review, Neatorama. Related: Surrogate Sushi unmasked with DNA test, DNA Synthesizer, DNA as information storage. Thanks Jeroen Bosch.
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Why are carrots orange? It is political
No, the image above does not some show some collection of freshly genetically designed hypercarrots in various colors of the rainbow. This is the spectrum of colors carrots used to have – and in some regions of the world you can still find white, yellow, red and purple carrots. In most countries however, carrots tend to be orange nowadays. Why is that?
They’re orange for entirely political reasons: in the 17th century, Dutch growers cultivated orange carrots as a tribute to William of Orange – who lead the the struggle for Dutch independence – and the color stuck. A thousand years of yellow, white and purple carrot history, was wiped out in a generation.
Although some scholars doubt if orange carrots even existed prior to the 16th century, they now form the basis of most commercial cultivators around the world. Presumably crosses between Eastern (purple), Western (white, red) and perhaps wild carrots led to the formation of the orange rooted carrot sub species. Turkey is often cited as the original birthplace of the hybrids (or mutations) of the two groups.
Whatever the origins, the Long Orange Dutch carrot, first described in writing in 1721, is the forebear of the orange Horn carrot varieties so abundant nowadays. The Horn Carrot derives from the Netherlands town of Hoorn in the neighborhood of which it was presumably bred. All our modern, western carrots ultimately descend from these varieties. Hypernature avant la lettre.
Source: Carrot Museum. See also: Hyper fruits, Comeback of the ‘ugly’ fruits, Better than the real thing.
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A.T.R.E.E.M.
Meet A.T.R.E.E.M. (acronym for Automated Tree-Rental for Emission Encaging Machine), a device that compares daily activities, energy and products to the growth of a tree.
“From an ecological perspective, CO2 is a byproduct of the living, either directly or indirectly. From the economic perspective, CO2 may become the world’s largest commodity market. What do we consider the price of our own byproducts?
This project aims to criticise the carbon trading system as well as raise awareness of how good we are at destroying the planet.” -
Crash course on synthetic genomics
Next Monday when your colleagues ask you what you have been doing for the weekend, you might answer you something default like you went out with friends, danced, biked to the beach, etc… Or you could answer you took Edge’s crash course on synthetic genomics.
It’s only six hours of video and deals with questions like “What is life, origins of life, in vitro synthetic life, mirror-life, metabolic engineering for hydrocarbons & pharmaceuticals, computational tools, electronic-biological interfaces, nanotech-molecular-manufacturing, biosensors, accelerated lab evolution, engineered personal stem cells, multi-virus-resistant cells, humanized-mice, bringing back extinct species, safety/security policy.”
The masterclass is guided by George Church and Craig Venter. Participants include scientists, entrepreneurs, cultural impresarios, journalists and architects of the some of the leading companies of our time including Microsoft, Google, Facebook and PayPal – yes, good company indeed.
It is especially sweet how all the ’students’ introduce themselves in the beginning – “I am Larry Page, of Google, I am waiting for the fully designed synthetic pets.” – and continuously intervene with witty questions and remarks throughout the lectures. Well done Edge! Next time you might want to add a few artists and designers in the mix as well.
Via Beyond the Beyond. See als: How biotech will drive our evolution, DNA Synthesizer, Epidermits – the tissue engineered toy.
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Comeback of the ‘ugly’ fruits
Perhaps in the long run, historians will consider this as the official end of modernity as we knew it: The comeback of the wonky cucumber, abnormally bent banana, and comedy carrots, at least in the EU.
As of July 2009, the European Commission abolished more than two dozen laws that have stipulated the look of Europe’s fruit and vegetables – including Brussels sprouts – for the past 20 years. A majority of EU member states, including Britain and Ireland, have voted to reform rules like EC Commission Regulation No 2257/94, which stipulate that only the most perfect-looking produce adorns supermarket shelves and caused international ridicule by stating that all bananas must be “free of abnormal curvature” and at least 14 cm in length.
