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Notes, thoughts, and news on synthetic biology by Christina Agapakis.
Category: bioethics
I got a long email from one of the authors of the skull measuring study and I want to make some clarifications to my previous post. It seems that I was not as clear and thorough as I could have...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 9:56 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: social studies
It's not every day that you read about measuring skulls in the contemporary scientific literature. It's kind of a quaintly old-timey, quaintly racist kind of thing to do. But here we are, with a brand new paper about skull...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 12:30 PM • 21 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: social studies
Nick pointed me to a fabulous podcast series by CBC radio called "How To Think About Science." Each episode is a long and fascinating interview with a prominent scholar of science--scientists, philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians who explore how science...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 2:12 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: bioethics
Everyone's favorite Slovenian philsopher, Slavoj Žižek, discussing his provocative perspective on nature, ecology, biotechnology, and climate change while dumpster diving: via Immanent Discursivity (thanks Nick!)...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 4:38 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: bacteria
In a recent conversation about the safety and ethics of synthetic biology in the wake of the announcement of the synthetic genome, many of the professors I was chatting with commented on how they hoped new synthetic biology technology...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 8:27 AM • 15 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: biosafety
Biosafety has been on everyone's mind this week after the announcement of the J. Craig Venter Institute's successful transplantation of a synthetic genome. What horrible pathogen will future bioengineers be able to design? What unforeseeable environmental catastrophe will befall us...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 10:52 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: religion
I'm realizing that perhaps in yesterday's post I took everyone's love and understanding of postmodern feminist theory for granted so I'm going to start a little series of posts that I think will slowly introduce some of the issues that...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 1:58 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: synthetic biology
The reaction to the Venter Institute's synthetic genome transplantation has been decidedly mixed. Is this the beginning of something new and wonderful, the ability to really design organisms from scratch? Is it something more sinister, the beginning of a dark...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 11:10 AM • 13 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: bioethics
Unlike many of my colleagues, I'm not really interested in the whole "science vs. religion" thing, but I do want to point out the very thoughtful analysis of genetic engineering and synthetic biology by the Church of Scotland's Society, Religion,...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 10:47 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: movies
My semester in MIT's course on Documenting Science Through Video and New Media has drawn to a close. I've had a wonderful time and learned a lot about how films and science are constructed by different people in different times...
Posted by Christina Agapakis at 10:58 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
