Future Ben

I presented a talk to the NYU Biotechnology club today, Metabiotechnology: or Why Biotech Sucks Right Now. Attendance was low but the crowd was more bemused than offended at the title. Often as you put a presentation together your thesis develops. And feedback from your audience is even better for that purpose. Drew and Dusan were particularly helpful but I was surprised at what did and did not resonate.

I will try to post the talk if I can figure out how to get powerpoint into wordpress. Basicly my thesis is that the current hegemony of Biotechnology is Biobusiness. While there is nothing inherently wrong with a free market the system is monolithic and there are huge needs that are very poorly served. The most prevalent being the needs of developing nations.

As I was preparing and during the presentation I realized that it was worse than that. The science supporting Biotechnology is often undermined by profit motivation. My case study on this was the “Green Revolution.” Initially plant breeding and ecological management through pesticides and herbicides seemed like a good idea. It has become pretty clear in the past 20 years that this is not the case and that there are much more sound and sustainable practices. Yet people with access to all of the data pointing to the failings of previous generation technology continue use ultimately damaging methods. In fact they have subjugated Biotechnology to continue even farther down this destructive path. (Hence the subtitle.)

So the evils of greedy corporations aren’t all that new, as several people pointed out. But what surprised me was the audience response to my proposal. If Biotechnology is currently monolithic and profit motivated then the weaknesses of that system opens up the possibility of Biotechnology that is dynamic and either need, OR profit motivated.

Maybe I didn’t express that clearly enough, but I got a lot of knee jerk capitalism. “Technology has to have a product,” or “that system works a lot better than government funding.” Both true statements, but not in anyway an argument against need motivated Biotech. And I acknowledge that there are government grants to encourage people to develop need based technologies, but there has to be something more, something new.

I am glad I used the agriculture case study because the great weakness of current agriculture is that it is monoculture based. And that is exactly the problem with Biotechnology and Big Pharma. Sure there are a lot of little Biotech companies, but they are all playing the same game. Especially since they all presumably follow the FDA rulebook. A true disruptive Biotechnology would bypass this whole system. Is paradigm shift old enough to be retro? It sounds stupid, but there were very intelligent people in the audience who couldn’t imagine that there could be an alternative to our current system.

If you equate it to other paradigms, Biotechnology is ready for it’s own version of the personal computer, model T, cotton gin. I think sequencing was the equivalent to the printing press or early computer. Biotech is fortunate in that it can take all of the lessons from the electronic and information technology fields. Open source, distributed systems and other meta-technologies. The question is, what will that technology be? If history is any teacher we won’t know until it becomes pervasive.

Dude I don’t even know where to start. On the surface it’s not really that much of a crackpot site, it just has the all the standard layman’s freaky science highlights. Nothing about Atlantis, but what the Brazillian Stonehenge has to do with the future I don’t know. Maybe the dude is right and Light Transformation is going to be the single most important scientific theory of our time. Although its not so much of a theory as a series of wandering “what if” statements based entirely on handwaving and misderstood generalizations. ( I knew the spite would kick in)

So why on pick on somebody else’s vanity site which is also based loosely on science and the future. It’s a matter of priciple! There is a real danger in presenting your assumptions along with a little data. This website is the result. What kind of reference is the fucking Book of Knowledge: The Keys of Enoch? Who peer reviewed that? Actually, I am noticing most of the citations are largely self referencing. Of the few links that acutally work my personal favorite is this statement on the martian pyramids.

Pyramid structures which range in dimensions of 3.0-base to 6.0 km mean diameter have been identified in the Elysium Quadrangle of Mars. Geologic processes that could result in such features have not produced a satisfactory scientific explanation for some of the pyramids. Thus we must keep in mind that what may appear to be a natural hill from an aerial view may be a pyramidal artifact.

Perhaps, instead of preparing for the contemporary scans of the Martian micro-intelligence, we might prepare ourselves for a close examination of pyramidal structures as blueprints for bio-magnetic analogs? The Martian and Egyptian pyramidal grids may be models preparing us to meet the superior architects in our immediate universe? Perhaps, the pyramid is a future artifact?

And all this is based on what data?

OK…So based on this image alone, not only does Mars have pyramids from the future, any hill on Mars could be actually be a pyramid in disguise that might “hold the keys to man’s existence.” This dude comes right out and says that we should beleive that a bunch of piles of sand are magical because it would be awesome if they really were. Get over yourself!

Everybody wants to believe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and that all of our questions will be answered if we can just get over the horizon. And let us not forget that old chestnut. Everything you know is wrong, but I have got it all figured out, so come join my clique of people who know what’s really up. I would like to make through at least one Burning Man without having to hear a variation on that one.

But what if they really were pyramids? That would in fact be awesome.

What the hell am I supposed to do with that? I have spent a large chunk of my day trying to figure out another of these little puzzles and it has left me rather cross. In fact I have spent at least a dozen hours over the past few days trying to pick apart other people’s cryptic little maps. This is the promoter/enhancer of Flk1, some receptor that does I don’t know what. The point is that this sequence will cause expression in developing vascualture. The key word here is SEQUENCE. Why am I looking at a crude line drawing when they could just post a text file? No, instead I have to Genbank and BLAST my way through the mouse genome looking for the right piece of DNA then take my best guess at what they cut out. Did they not know the sequence? I guess this stuff came out in 1995 so it wouldn’t be surprizing.

I remember an a review paper about Genomics being, “too much information” to be useful. Give us our bright and shining gel bands of approximate size! Luddites! I dig through notebooks of paper notes, pictures, crude maps all for one text file worth of information. And the actual DNA is nowhere to be found. Its a wonder anything ever got done that way.

So here I am, doing reverse bioinformatics to digitize what has already been published. Compiling my sequences in VectorNTI and creating dynamic maps that have more information that I am going to use, which is just about enough.

Well that wasn’t so bad. I can’t get back futureben.org yet, but thanks to the find and replace feature of text edit I pretty easily converted the old database to futureben.net. Interestingly enough the only thing that didn’t back up was the look of the site. Another vestige of the past is shed. I feel so clean. Now how do I get my google standing up for futureben.net?

Before I worry about that I am trying to get another site up genosynthesis.org. This one won’t be a blog. There aren’t enough resources for synthetic biology. The point of me doing this isn’t to entertain anybody its a mental focus and it certainly not to be a web designer. I can barely use Wordpress! Futureben is about me. What is the future as I see it? It has been a real help to me. Genosynthesis will be about what I do. Synthesizing genes. I just have to figure out this Joomla thing now.

The existence of my “fucking website” is at risk! Dynamic action must be taken to save the future of futureben! Now I know nobody actually reads any of this, but it’s a blog so I will self referentially blog regardless! The point of this site, other than vanity, is to have some connection to the ideals of communication. Any sane mad scientist holes his or herself up in the lab and lets the layperson wonder what they are up to until the villagers finally come crashing the gates with torch and pitch fork in hand. That’s just not me though. And so, if somebody is wondering exactly where I went awry, here it is as a matter of public record.

So the site is going to migrate to a new home. I would say a new server, but I don’t know how nameservers and such actually work. It could possibly remain on the same server. For all I know they just change some pointers and we’re done. Another thing that may or may not change is the name of the site. The relationship between the current webmaster and me is…not very friendly. I don’t actually own the name of the site so unless an act of non hostility occurs, I will have to come up with a new nickname. How many domain names involving the word “future” could there possibly be?

Hey, facing adversity is human. And triumphing over adversity is heroic, so let’s hope the New Year will bring an even better website than the 15 minute hack job I am currently updating. A note on Wordpress. It is awesome! I do in fact know next to nothing about the series of tubes that make up the internet but I have been able to keep a blog going with minimal effort. I was feeling some anxiety about how to transfer this site but backing up all the files was pretty simple. Really the hard part is going to be setting up Wordpress in the new server space and I think there are about a million people who have done it already. Oh look! You just click a radio button and it installs itself. So easy a biologist could do it. Maybe I can make an actual website next.

Here is to a new year of breaking from the past, finding fresh starts and personal growth. Here’s to the bag of crickets I accidently let loose in the lab just now. Here’s to all of the mice who will sacrifice themselves on the altar of science to help me acheive my vision. Here’s to all of the beautiful and tragic creations that will carry our hearts and minds from the world we know into the terrific and terrifying dreamscape that is forever the future.

Excelsior!

Everybody is talking about the Achitecture Exhibition in Venice! Admittedly nobody that I know or who would want to talk to me. Why don’t I have any architect friends? Is it me or is it a personality type that I don’t get along with? Maybe architects have to be too straightlaced… Oh I forgot I had a point.

From their site:

“More than half of the world’s population lives in cities”, states the Director of the 10th International Architecture Exhibition, Richard Burdett. “A century ago, it was less than 10%. The 21st century will be the first truly urban era, in which more than 75% of the world’s population will live in urban areas, much of it in mega-cities with more than 20 million inhabitants concentrated in the countries undergoing rapid development in Asia, Africa and South America. In the meantime, many Western and European cities are shrinking, or have been forced to re-invent themselves in order to adapt to a post-industrial condition.”

So the future is urban! That was my point! Is this really true that in an era where we can be completely mobile we all choose to congregate in dense little clusters. umm yes. A key feature of the urban landscape is public transport and access to public services. These features empower the disenfrachised, which is exactly why third world countries are urbanizing so rapidly. At a recent public health lecture I heard the shocking fact that 99% of the hospitals in China are within 300 miles of the coast. If you want access to any quality social services even in a communist country, you have to live in a city.

But what about the first world. I do know that NY is a few years away from another housing crash. But in general is America urbanizing or suburbanizing? I’m going to find out with an internet road trip across North America! Up next the future of the northeastern seaboard. NY, Boston and Halifax. Where are they going? An more importantly, where are they?

It’s true. I am now a master of science. I am looking at the results of my qualifying exam and it indubitably says, “pass.” Actually the oral exam was eerily smooth. There were a few conversational questions by my board, but other than that they just listened quitely, deliberated for 5 minutes, then brought me back in and said, “congratulations.” I thought I was going to sweat it out for 3 hours under a barrage of impossible questions. I was done in an hour and a half!

I feel strangely disapointed. With an impending sense that the other shoe is going to drop in the next few months. Transgenic mice are notoriously frustrating. But I must tiumph, for the future.

I’m sorry Orlan. I didn’t mean to front on being the posterchild for post humanism. Just the thought of having two penises induced such a megalomaniacal state that didn’t know what I was saying. You still rock. Having funky bumps on your head and fusing your image with people from different cultures is a far better way to bring us into the post human era that running around with a second penis. There are already too many dicks in the world as it is. You are probably pretty mad and if you don’t ever want to talk to me again I understand. Whatever happens, I want you to know that I am still on your side and anytime you want to get some coffee or chai or mate or whatever it is eurotrash artists drink these days, I’m there for you.

Continuing our dismemberment madness:

In china a man: 1. loses his penis in an accident. 2. gets a BRAND NEW penis from a brain dead man 22 years younger than him. 3. After no complications or tissue rejection demands to have his new penis removed because of psychological trauma and its… (are you ready?) swollen shape. Clearly this man is not ready for the post human era.

It gets me thinking though. What are they doing with the dismembered penis? Can I have it? Despite turning 30 I still have functioning genitalia. (At least I’d like to think so.) But why limit yourself? If there is a spare swollen 22 year old’s penis just floating around why should it go to waste? If that poor bastard would rather go through life without a penis just because he didn’t grow it himself then I will gladly go double barrell. It would take me a step beyond post human artist Orlan and make me the poster child for post humaninsm! I don’t know where you could hang that particular poster though.

I am sorry to say my fictitious trist with Illegal Human Remains Girl is over. I admit we were star crossed from the start. Her an exotic dancer living in a polygamos death cult and I, a bashful struggling futurist. But I had to give a try even if it was only a fantasy.

We met over the internet when her arrest made the news. I never thought I would meet somebody through Boing Boing It was rocky from the begining. I was recovering from a painful breakup, she was in a committed polyamorous sadistic relationship and recieving human remains from her fans. We had our issues. I started to get frustrated when she jumped bail. It was like I was the only one who wanted it to work. And then they caught the young medical student who gave her the hand. It kind of made me check myself. Was this what I had to look forward to? My career in shambles and up to 10 years in prison. It was time for me to reevaluate my priorities.

I thought to myself,”Sure she’s cute…” Oh wait I was just assuming that. I had never seen this girl. Usually I consider it rude to google to somebody without their permission, but she never consulted me before jumping bail so I was a bit mad. An image search for “severed hand woman,” and… It was over.

Come on! You don’t even have dreads or a prominent neck tattoo or facial piercing! What is up with that? At least have some running mascara! I believed in you Illegal Human Remains Girl! I had a whole fictional character and wardrobe that you were supposed to live up to. And you can even be bothered to look all spooky and dangerous then I have one thing to say to you.

Its over!