Video of the Week #3: Synthetic Biologist Karmella Haynes
In this week’s video of the week we have a short profile of the work and opinions of Karmella Haynes, a synthetic biologists. The video is a great introduction to the field and a small insight into the life of a synthetic biologist. Check it out here.
Stem Cells Used to Grow Bone In Vitro
Bonus BioGroup, an Israeli biotech company has managed to grow bone from human stem cells in laboratory conditions. This opens the way for bone transplants, something previously impossible. Bone transplants have already been successfully performed on animals, with the step towards humans and commercialisation not being very far away. Read more in this article by […]
Why Science May Be Fundamentally Hard to Believe
A recent study [PDF] by a group led by Andrew Shtulman at Occidental College, has found that humans may fundamentally be opposed to non-intuitive facts. Even though you may learn a fact and willingly accept it as true, your brain resists and will never properly replace its intuitive notions (such as the idea of the world […]
Humans As Bacterial Cities
Metagenomics is a field of research which uses genomic data from a large number of organisms in an ecosystem to attempt to characterise the ecosystem holistically. This technique has only recently been possible with the advent of high throughput sequencing. Metagenomics is particularly good for investigating life which can’t be readily grown/cultured in a lab […]
Bacteriograph Velocirabbit
Zachary Copfer is a bioartist. He currently works primarily in the new medium of bacteriogaphy: photographs produced by glowing genetically modified bacteria (which replace light sensitive photo paper). This work is effectively a new medium for artistic endeavour, one which captures the spirit of the genetic revolution – replacing large numbers of conventional technologies with […]
