Lifeboat Foundation

My sociology of knowledge students read Yuval Harari’s bestselling first book, Sapiens, to think about the right frame of reference for understanding the overall trajectory of the human condition. Homo Deus follows the example of Sapiens, using contemporary events to launch into what nowadays is called ‘big history’ but has been also called ‘deep history’ and ‘long history’. Whatever you call it, the orientation sees the human condition as subject to multiple overlapping rhythms of change which generate the sorts of ‘events’ that are the stuff of history lessons. But Harari’s history is nothing like the version you half remember from school.

In school historical events were explained in terms more or less recognizable to the agents involved. In contrast, Harari reaches for accounts that scientifically update the idea of ‘perennial philosophy’. Aldous Huxley popularized this phrase in his quest to seek common patterns of thought in the great world religions which could be leveraged as a global ethic in the aftermath of the Second World War. Harari similarly leverages bits of genetics, ecology, neuroscience and cognitive science to advance a broadly evolutionary narrative. But unlike Darwin’s version, Harari’s points towards the incipient apotheosis of our species; hence, the book’s title.

This invariably means that events are treated as symptoms if not omens of the shape of things to come. Harari’s central thesis is that whereas in the past we cowered in the face of impersonal natural forces beyond our control, nowadays our biggest enemy is the one that faces us in the mirror, which may or may not be able within our control. Thus, the sort of deity into which we are evolving is one whose superhuman powers may well result in self-destruction. Harari’s attitude towards this prospect is one of slightly awestruck bemusement.

Here Harari equivocates where his predecessors dared to distinguish. Writing with the bracing clarity afforded by the Existentialist horizons of the Cold War, cybernetics founder Norbert Wiener declared that humanity’s survival depends on knowing whether what we don’t know is actually trying to hurt us. If so, then any apparent advance in knowledge will always be illusory. As for Harari, he does not seem to see humanity in some never-ending diabolical chess match against an implacable foe, as in The Seventh Seal. Instead he takes refuge in the so-called law of unintended consequences. So while the shape of our ignorance does indeed shift as our knowledge advances, it does so in ways that keep Harari at a comfortable distance from passing judgement on our long term prognosis.

Continue reading “Steve Fuller's Review of Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari” »

Rebirth of the 1960s cult classic “Fantastic Voyage”; however, this time its not a movie.

When asked what exactly a “nano submarine” was, University of California San Diego chair of nanoengineering professor Joseph Wang described it as like something taken from the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, where medical personnel board a submarine were shrunk to microscopic size to travel through the bloodstream of a wounded diplomat and save his life.

Professor Wang said his team was getting closer to the goal of using nano submarines in a variety of ways, minus the shrunken humans and sabotage of the 1966 film.

Continue reading “U of California: Nano submarines could change healthcare, says nanoengineer professor” »

Good; glad they are hearing us. Because it is a huge issue for sure especially with some of the things that I seen some of the researchers proposing to use CRISPR, 3D Printers, etc. to create some bizarre creatures. Example, in March to scientists in the UK wanted to use CRISPR to create a dragon; personally I didn’t expect it to be successful. However, the scientists didn’t consider the fallout to the public if they had actually succeeded.

For a few hundred dollars, anyone can start doing genetic editing in the comfort of their own home.

Oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) extend over about 8 percent of the oceanic surface area, but account for up to 50 percent of the total loss of bioavailable nitrogen and thus play an important role in regulating the ocean’s productivity by substantially impacting the nitrogen cycle. By sequencing single cells and metagenomes from OMZs, researchers identified bacteria of the SAR11 clade as being abundant in these areas, although no previously known anaerobic metabolism had been described for this group. Detailed sequence analysis of SAR11 single cells, followed by functional characterization experiments, revealed the presence of functional nitrate reductase pathways as a key adaptation to oxygen-poor, or anoxic, environments. These results link SAR11, the world’s most abundant organismal group, to oceanic nitrogen loss.

The Impact

Microbes play key roles in maintaining the planet’s biogeochemical cycles, and while the role of SAR11 bacteria in the marine carbon cycle has been well documented, its important role in regulating nitrogen bioavailability was hitherto unknown. In partnering with a national user facility, scientists had access to state-of-the-art single-cell sorting and synthetic biology capabilities at the DOE JGI, enabling them to identify and functionally characterize the role of SAR11 in oxygen minimum zones in the ocean.

Continue reading “Identifying the Microbial Culprits Initiating Oceanic Nitrogen Loss” »

Alterar a natureza da natureza.

Inovadores estão trabalhando em direção a um mundo no qual a matéria viva é totalmente programável por meio da biologia sintética onde as pessoas já não são apenas consumidores de tecnologia, mas os cidadãos de um mundo tecnológico.

Continue reading “Changing the Nature of Nature” »

A team of Harvard Medical School scientists, which includes genetics professor George Church, have designed a bacterial genome that has been rewritten on a massive scale, with changes in more than 62,000 spots.

They haven’t used it to make living E. coli yet, but the findings, reported today in Science, mark progress towards genetically engineered bacteria that could make new materials without risk of exchanging genes with organisms in the wild.

“It‘s an important step forward for demonstrating the malleability of the genetic code and how entirely new types of biological functions and properties can be extracted from organisms through genomes that have been recoded,” Farren Isaacs of Yale University, who has worked with the team in the past, told Nature.

Synthetic biology allows synthesis of tailored DNA. Applications: life sciences, industrial biology, fine & specialty chemicals, energy, agriculture, & waste/bio-remediation.

August 19th, 2016 – Creative Peptides, a professional supplier of peptides manufacturing upon academic, clinical, commercial and government laboratories in diverse applications, has released its efficient Glycopeptide Synthesis service, to help speed up the advance in solid phase methods.

Nowadays, glycopeptides have played a pivotal role in a myriad of organisms and systems, such as biology, physiology, medicine, bioengineering and technology, etc. As is known, synthetic glycopeptides are able to offer an unique frontier for research in glycobiology and proteomics as well as for drug discovery & development, drug delivery & targeting, diagnostics development and biotechnological applications, which also promotes the development of modern biomarker discovery process.

Based on rapid achievements in peptides research, increasing number of scientists are trying to discover more effective methods in modern scientific research, such as deslorelin acetate, aviptadil acetate, Chimeric Peptides, and so on. Technically, the Glycan chains of glycopeptides are involved in numerous biological recognition events, including protein folding, cell-cell communication and adhesion, cell growth and differentiation, as well as bacterial and viral infection. Actually, a framework of probing human implicit intentions for the purpose of augmented cognition has been described at Creative Peptides in recent days, which helps more and more people gain new insights in peptide application.

Continue reading “Creative Peptides Has Released New Discovery in Glycopeptide Synthesis” »

We are entering an era of directed design in which we will expand the limited notion that biology is only the ‘study of life and living things’ and see biology as the ultimate distributed, manufacturing platform (as Stanford bioengineer, Drew Endy, often says). This new mode of manufacturing will offer us unrivaled personalization and functionality.

New foods. New fuels. New materials. New drugs.

We’re already taking our first steps in this direction. Joule Unlimited has engineered bacteria to convert CO₂ into fuels in a single-step, continuous process. Others are engineering yeast to produce artemisinin — a potent anti-malarial compound used by millions of people globally. Still other microbes are being reprogrammed to produce industrial ingredients, like those used in synthetic rubber.

Continue reading “The Synthetic Biology Era Is Here—How We Can Make the Most of It” »