com dot Jankowski Tito + DIYbio

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/12sailor.html?hp

Hope she gets up and keeps going!

Tito

A few months ago I was invited to speak at the California Legislature Select Committee on Biotechnology.  The other speakers covered a wide range of biotechnology, from the teachers leading an amazing high school biotech program in San Mateo (kids are getting 4 or 5 years of lab experience in high school), to Drew and Rob of synthetic biology fame.

Who makes innovation happen?

It was great to see that the committee was well aware that biotechnology is big, and getting bigger. But we’re missing innovators like the Wright brothers to get it off the ground. American innovators like Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright make innovation happen, and they started in a bicycle shop. The missing piece here is that biotech is hard. The face of global innovation in biotech will be teams of people working together, sharing, and learning, in hand with users and beneficiaries. The face of global innovation in biotech is a community lab, where everybodies and nobodies learn and share technology, safety, training, equipment, and an appreciation for respect for the biology that already surrounds us.

The idea of a community biotech lab is new and exciting, and at the same time very familiar in America. It’s shop class, a garage, a library, and a community center — with a biotech twist. If you’re interested in learning about the world’s first community lab, check out BioCurious.org. To get involved and put gas in the tank, consider become a Founding Member like me.

I’m proud to know that our leaders in California are excited about the future of biotechnology in the Bay Area. Open communication between communities is a luxury, not a right, and was a pleasure to have been given an open ear.

I’ve attached the agenda from the meeting, as well as the slides from my presentation.

Who-makes-innovation-happen-The-case-for-a-community-biotech-lab-in-the-Bay-Area

California Legislature Select Committee on Biotechnology: agenda – February 19

There are a flood of gel boxes on eBay, which means you can get your lab started on the cheap! I’ll be posting “Buyers Guides” on the DIYbio site in the upcoming weeks to make sure you get the best deal on biotech equipment.

Check it out, you can create your own stretchable sensors made of cloth/yarn with steel fibers sewn into it. Totally changes the way I think about electronics (circuit boards, switches, batteries, etc). More projects @ http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=2108

Tito

Sichuan pepper

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_pepper

“On the contrary, many young people in the late 1960s saw computers as something evil, part of a
technological conspiracy where the rich and powerful used the computer’s might against the poor
and powerless. This attitude was not limited to students protesting, among other things, the now
exploding Vietnam war (a conflict fought in part by American computers). The machines which
stood at the soul of hackerism were also loathed by millions of common, patriotic citizens who saw
computers as a dehumanizing factor in society. Every time an inaccurate bill arrived at a home, and
the recipient’s attempts to set it right wound up in a frustrating round of calls usually leading to an
explanation that “the computer did it,” and only herculean human effort could erase the digital blot
the popular contempt toward computers grew. Hackers, of course, attributed those slipups to the
brain-damaged, bureaucratic, batch-processed mentality of IBM. Didn’t people understand that the
Hacker Ethic would eliminate those abuses by encouraging people to fix bugs like thousand-dollar
electric bills? But in the public mind there was no distinction between the programmers of Hulking
Giants and the AI lab denizens of the sleek, interactive PDP-6. And in that public mind all computer
programmers, hackers or not, were seen either as wild-haired mad scientists plotting the destruction
of the world or as pasty-skinned, glassy-eyed automatons, repeating wooden phrases in dull
monotones while planning the next foray into technological big-brotherism.”

Good book, you can buy it here on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-Levy/dp/0141000511/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264542783&sr=8-2

back in california with stamps for japan, india, and thailand on my passport

Great work by 2 DNA explorers — it seems high school students are kicking ass all over the place. Check out this big DNA species identification project, about 200 samples and lots of cool findings. Even one that suggests they found a new species of cockroach!

“We identified 95 different animal species.”

You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you that all of the species displayed above were found in local supermarkets and homes in New York City. A feather from a duster yielded Ostrich DNA. A delicacy labeled “sturgeon caviar” instead turned out to be from the strange-looking Paddlefish. A popular Asian snack was revealed as Giant flying squid. Bison DNA was found in a dog biscuit.

>

We found DNA evidence all around us. We found DNA “name tags” in all kinds of human and pet foods including raw, cooked, dried, and processed items. We obtained DNA from dried soup mix, scrambled eggs, dog food, chicken McNuggets, hamburger, beef jerky, bologna, yogurt, cheese and even butter. By analyzing DNA, we traced tiny, unrecognizable bits of once-living things to their source.

We could identify animals from what they left behind in the environment. We found tell-tale DNA in dried-out horse manure in Central Park, a pigeon feather on the sidewalk and a shed snakeskin.

Website: http://phe.rockefeller.edu/barcode/dnahouse.html

PDF of samples and results: http://phe.rockefeller.edu/barcode/DNAHouse%20specimens,%20results.pdf