2nd weekly roundup of miscellaneous stuff

I’ve been away from blogging for nearly two weeks. It’s not that I’m being a slackmaster, it’s just that some impending deadlines at work, a class, and too many other responsibilities have been sapping all my creative energy. Yes, all this focus on this unfamiliar concept of “working” has transformed me into a lifeless, withered husk, a pale shadow of my former self. Ok, not really. While I haven’t had time to blog I did make a note of a few things I’ve run across recently:

··· Get used to eating frankenfood. Last week there were stories about genetically modified rice being discovered in the food supply and GM grass escaping into the wild. Well, what did you expect? I do not worry about eating GM food. I’ll eat GM food all day long, sim-meat grown in vats, whatever. I do worry about invasive species disturbing ecosystems; but, in a way, doesn’t that describe us humans?

··· The nano-enhanced super soldier, on The Neurophilosopher’s Blog.

··· I’m not interested in political races, I admit it. My scorn for politicians—all of them—knows no bounds. But I have to say, this little interactive map at the NY Times site is just fun to play with.

··· Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC). This research center led by the likes of Drew Endy and George Church will be opened with NSF money.

“SynBERC will focus on synthetic biology, fabricating new biological components and assembling them into integrated, miniature devices and systems such as microbial drug factories or tools for seeking out and destroying cancerous tumors, pollutants or airborne warfare agents. Center researchers envision devices that incorporate “off-the-shelf” biological parts–whether enzymes, cells or even genetic circuits–with standardized connections that can even be integrated into non-biological systems. The ERC will push synthetic biology engineering from time consuming, one-of-a-kind development efforts to the rapid creation of new products from standardized components. The efforts could impact the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, genetics and chemical fields, potentially leading to an entirely new landscape of diagnostic, therapeutic, and synthetic chemical industries.“

This is worth keeping an eye on. Not only for the exciting medical and technological advances that will ultimately come out of the center, but the trained synthetic biologists, any of whom will have unique training and specialized knowledge to kill every man, woman, and child on Earth (ok, dramatic exaggeration). Is it wise to churn out hundreds upon hundreds of scientists from all walks of life who have the special skills needed for biological armageddon? Some people say no; I say, this is just where the world is at in biological research and there is no holding it back. The benefits of synthetic biology will outweigh the threat that a bad apple will fall into the basket. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be aware of who these people are, especially when we’re training foreign nationals.

Testbed applications proposed for SynBerc research include engineering tumor-killing bacteria and microbial drug factories, which doesn’t take a lot of imagination to imagine being twisted to nefarious purposes.

··· Writely. I used it, I made a shared document and had it send an email invitation to 3 people to edit my document. ALL three of them said, why the hell would I ever want to use this? I have no answer. Survey says: this is useless.

··· Self-assembling nano-boxes. This article says that “Microscopic metal boxes that hold a few nanolitres of liquid each have been developed by US researchers. They say the tiny containers could someday be used for precision chemistry or even drug delivery inside the body.” Right away I’m thinking, hmmm, maybe that could be used as a weapon delivery system. But naw, that’s really too much effort. Also, it looks like each box is about 150µm on a side, and that’s just way too big. Picture here.

··· Crazy Patents. Some of the ones I really wanted, or feared, to see had broken links unfortunately, like the “Apparatus for facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force” (holy mother of GOD!) But just the names of several of them are amusing enough. Here’s a picture of the Anti-eating mouth cage, AKA the Hannibal Lecter diet helper.

··· Quote of the week: “As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of all government, to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith.” Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

··· Kook alert: Alex Jones, perpetrator of stupid conspiracy theories about 9/11 (but hey, it makes him a few bucks I’m sure), has pics of world leaders saluting those about to rock.

··· While we’re on the subject of political leaders, I’m sorry Senator Stevens, but these tubes are full. (More here.)

··· And furthermore, on the subject of political leaders, I had a hard time stomaching this “Bohemian Grove” business. A certain individual whose name starts with Andy sent this link to me in order to completely destroy all possible faith I ever had that our leaders actually have brains, make some sort of sense, and are more mature than the average first grader. I still hold out some hope that this whole thing is an urban legend, but that’s me, always an optimist.

··· Ok, no more political and conspiracy theory stuff! Check out the Biomedical Image Awards 2006. Great collection of beautiful science photos.