scholarly journals Opening up the future(s) of synthetic biology

Futures ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 32-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Frow ◽  
Jane Calvert
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
The Future ◽  
Opening Up

Othering Time: Strategies of attunement to non-human temporalities

APRIA Journal ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 75-83
Author(s):  
Alice Smits
Keyword(s):  
Ethics Of Care ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Curatorial Practice ◽  
Time Zones ◽  
The Future ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Epistemological Framework

In her article 'Othering Time: Strategies of Attunement to Non-Human Temporalities,' art curator and researcher in the field of art and ecology Alice Smits delves into artistic practices that tune into deep time and non-human time zones. Starting from the viewpoint that our current ecological crisis is in need of developing an ethics of care towards generations far into the future and life forms extremely different to ours, she discusses art and aesthetic knowledge as particularly well suited for experimentation with new stories and sensibilities about our place in time. Making use of geologist Marcia Bjornerud's concept of 'timefulness,' the article focuses on several art projects by Rachel Sussman, Katie Paterson and Špela Petrič, whose works engage in developing a more time-literate sensibility that aims to understand how our everyday lives are shaped by processes that vastly predate us. Underlining changing ways of understanding of time and space by opening up to what is referred to in the title as 'othering time,' art opens up as a discourse in its own right that can interrogate the sciences as a specific epistemological framework that is in need of revision. The author concludes with a few references to how these artistic practices change her own curatorial practice.

Shaping the future of synthetic biology

Science ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 348 (6232) ◽  
pp. 296-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Kuiken
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
The Future

Open Source in the Cloud

2014 ◽  
pp. 179-191
Author(s):  
Egbert de Smet
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Power Supply ◽  
Distributed Storage ◽  
End Users ◽  
The Future ◽  
Cloud Providers ◽  
Open Standards ◽  
Living Environments ◽  
Crucial Part ◽  
Opening Up

Whereas “Open Source” in software is still gaining momentum in many fields of applications, it is even more present in the “behind the curtains” scene of the Cloud. It is behind the scenes because Cloud tools are only operated by Cloud providers creating their infrastructure, not by end users. But as that infrastructure is going to be a crucial part of the IT environment of the future, like water and power supply have become for the wider living environments, it is good to note that this infrastructure is not limited to (commercial) proprietary technology and standards, but rather is subject to input from the major Open Source players. This chapter reviews the main technologies of this moment in Cloud software: CloudStack of Citrix and Apache, OpenStack of Suse and Openshift from RedHat. Also the CEPH-technology for distributed storage is added in this overview due to its obvious relevance for the Cloud. The brief review of these products confirms that FOSS indeed plays a major role in the Cloud, opening up that technology for open standards and “public” ownership of this soon-to-be an essential part of our IT environment.

User Involvement in Service Innovation Processes

2018 ◽  
pp. 42-61
Author(s):  
Hanne Westh Nicolajsen ◽  
Flemming Sorensen ◽  
Ada Scupola
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Service Innovation ◽  
Idea Generation ◽  
User Involvement ◽  
Research Library ◽  
Future Workshop ◽  
The Future ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Innovation Processes

This article presents the results of a study investigating user involvement in the idea generation phase of service innovation, and discusses advantages and limitations of such involvement. Specifically, the study compares the use of social media such as blogs and future workshops to generate idea for service innovations in the context of a research library. Our study shows that the blog is good in opening up for user contributions, while the future workshop involving users and employees is particularly good at qualifying and further developing ideas. The findings suggest therefore that methods for user involvement should be carefully selected and combined to achieve optimum benefits and avoid potential disadvantages.

Life as It Could Be

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-114
Author(s):  
Luis Campos
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Molecular Biology ◽  
The Future ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
The Universe

This chapter explores the intersection between two related fields: synthetic biology and astrobiology. Pushing the engineering of life past traditional limits in molecular biology and expanding the envelope of life to forms never before extant, synthetic biologists are now beginning to design experimental ways of getting at what astrobiologists have long suspected: that the life known here on Earth is but a subset of vast combinatorial possibilities in the universe. The resonances between the future engineered possibilities of this world and speculations about possible biologies on habitable others are not merely happenstance. Indeed, there is a curious and compelling deeper history interlinking scientific speculation about new forms of life elsewhere in the universe with visions for the human-directed engineering of new forms of life on Earth. For decades, the astrobiological and the synthetic biological have mutually inspired each other and overlapped in powerful genealogical ways.

Intermediality and the Future Anterior

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Julie Bates
Keyword(s):  
The Future ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Opening Up

Abstract This essay traces the ways in which the intermedial practices of the artist Brian O’Doherty and writer Brian Dillon cast into relief Samuel Beckett’s own intermediality, marking it as a still-relevant set of propositions for dissolving boundaries between media and posing questions about time. I propose that intermediality functions for O’Doherty as an optimistic means of opening up potential new forms and futures, but for Beckett and Dillon alike designates a negative aesthetic and political dynamic, anticipating failure even in the moment of experimentation. This time-annulling intermediality is evocative, I believe, of what Dillon describes as “a modernist future that never came to pass.”

scholarly journals Systems Biology and Synthetic Biology: A New Epoch for Toxicology Research

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark T. Mc Auley ◽  
Hyunok Choi ◽  
Kathleen Mooney ◽  
Emily Paul ◽  
Veronica M. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Systems Biology ◽  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Aromatic Hydrocarbons ◽  
Personalised Medicine ◽  
Adverse Birth Outcomes ◽  
New Era ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The Future ◽  
Polycyclic Aromatic ◽  
Innovative Techniques

Systems biology and synthetic biology are emerging disciplines which are becoming increasingly utilised in several areas of bioscience. Toxicology is beginning to benefit from systems biology and we suggest in the future that is will also benefit from synthetic biology. Thus, a new era is on the horizon. This review illustrates how a suite of innovative techniques and tools can be applied to understanding complex health and toxicology issues. We review limitations confronted by the traditional computational approaches to toxicology and epidemiology research, using polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their effects on adverse birth outcomes as an illustrative example. We introduce how systems toxicology (and their subdisciplines, genomic, proteomic, and metabolomic toxicology) will help to overcome such limitations. In particular, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of mathematical frameworks that computationally represent biological systems. Finally, we discuss the nascent discipline of synthetic biology and highlight relevant toxicological centred applications of this technique, including improvements in personalised medicine. We conclude this review by presenting a number of opportunities and challenges that could shape the future of these rapidly evolving disciplines.

scholarly journals What can science and technology studies learn from art and design? Reflections on ‘Synthetic Aesthetics’

2016 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Calvert ◽  
Pablo Schyfter
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Art And Design ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Academic Texts ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Research Agendas ◽  
Opening Up

In this paper we reflect on a project called ‘Synthetic Aesthetics’, which brought together synthetic biologists with artists and designers in paired exchanges. We – the STS researchers on the project – were quickly struck by the similarities between our objectives and those of the artists and designers. We shared interests in forging new collaborations with synthetic biologists, ‘opening up’ the science by exploring implicit assumptions, and interrogating dominant research agendas. But there were also differences between us, the most important being that the artists and designers made tangible artefacts, which had an immediacy and an ability to travel, and which seemed to allow different types of discussions from those initiated by our academic texts. The artists and designers also appeared to have the freedom to be more playful, challenging and perhaps subversive in their interactions with synthetic biology. In this paper we reflect on what we learned from working with the artists and designers on the project, and we argue that engaging more closely with art and design can enrich STS work by enabling an emergent form of critique.

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