MetaFilter posts tagged with engineering and biology

synthetic biology

kliuless — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:23:24 -0800

Our biotech century: the noocytes are coming... (previously)

A sea of green

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:33:49 -0800

"Algae is the ultimate biological system using sunlight to capture and convert carbon dioxide into fuel... I came up with a notion to trick algae into pumping more [fuel] out." Craig Venter's Synthetic Genomics partners with ExxonMobil in a $600M project to harvest biofuels from genetically engineered algae. "We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry." [previously] "Over the next 20 years, synthetic genomics is going to become the standard for making anything. The chemical industry will depend on it. Hopefully, a large part of the energy industry will depend on it. We really need to find an alternative to taking carbon out of the ground, burning it, and putting it into the atmosphere. That is the single biggest contribution I could make."

Nature's Elegant Solutions

netbros — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:12:04 -0800

Imagine nature's most elegant ideas organized by design and engineering function, so you can enter "filter salt from water" and see how mangroves, penguins, and shorebirds desalinate without fossil fuels. That's the idea behind AskNature, the online inspiration source for the biomimicry community. The featured pages are a good starting point. Cross-pollinating biology with design. Biomimicry is the science and art of emulating Nature's best biological ideas to solve human problems. Non-toxic adhesives inspired by geckos, energy efficient buildings inspired by termite mounds, and resistance-free antibiotics inspired by red seaweed are examples of biomimicry happening today.

Watching Paint Dry

fearfulsymmetry — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 02:56:42 -0800

Prof Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan looks at the physics of wrinkles, creases and folds - from the small to the very large (video demos), feeds his venus flytrap, then rides on his magic carpet.

GATTACA

Gyan — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 04:15:19 -0800

The Promise and Perils of Synthetic Biology

Transhumanism and effective use of the Web

Mars Saxman — Sun, 13 Mar 2005 18:48:07 -0800

More than Human - Ramez Naam's site promoting his new book (about emerging technologies for engineering human biology, more or less), has excerpts, a list of upcoming appearances, and even a full-fledged blog linking to articles and commentary that might be of interest to people curious about the book's transhumanist ideas. Now this is the way to do it.