Month: August 2011

Nano futures

it has been 25! years since engines of creation. surprisingly little has happened in the meantime, but i am still looking forward to the next book by eric drexler.

Radical Abundance will integrate and extend several themes that I’ve touched on in Metamodern, but will go much further. The topics include:

  • The nature of science and engineering, and the prospects for a deep transformation in the material basis of civilization.
  • Why all of this is surprisingly understandable.
  • A personal narrative of the emergence of the molecular nanotechnology concept and the turbulent history of progress and politics that followed
  • The quiet rise of macromolecular nanotechnologies, their power, and the rapidly advancing state of the art
  • Incremental paths toward advanced nanotechnologies, the inherent accelerators, and the institutional challenges
  • The technologies of radical abundance, what they are, and what they will enable
  • Disruptive solutions for problems of economic development, energy, resource depletion, and the environment
  • Potential pitfalls in competitive national strategies; shared interests in risk reduction and cooperative transition management
  • Steps toward changing the conversation about the future

Taqueria PSA


no fajitas.
no nachos.
no cute clay or adobe plates to match the cute clay or adobe decor.
crema fresca… not sour cream.
no strawberry-kiwi margaritas.
no fajitas.
no fancy menus with a history lesson on mexico.
no 7 layer dips.
no pillow-size burritos.
no tacky red, white, and green uniforms with a red sash around the waist.

did we mention no fajitas?

Molecular biology class

we are making a banana smell generator. the first steps were to clone the necessary genes so we can later splice them into the host yeast. the cloning uses PCR via a thermal cycler. we then check the results of the cloning using gel electrophoresis. this also serves to separate the cloned genes from others in the solution: since molecules of different weight travel at different speeds in the gel. you can just cut the gel into stripes to isolate the molecule you want.