I remember the first time I read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins I felt almost physically illuminated. It has had the single greatest influence on my thinking of any nonfiction book I’ve read. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 years since it was published, but it has and Edge has the transcript (and audio) of the celebration: a conversation with Daniel C. Dennett, Matt Ridley, Sir John Krebs, Ian McEwan, Richard Dawkins, Melvyn Bragg and Helena Cronin at The Old Theatre in London. A caveat: although my usual practice is to post no link until I’ve read it myself, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read the transcript of this event. I can’t promise it’s worth your while, but with that suite of luminaries it’s got to be interesting.

If I had a dime for every web 2.0 site on this list, I’d spend it all on bandwidth fees trying them all out.

The NACHIP Project, a collaboration of European scientists, have succeeded in creating an interface between silicon technology and the living tissue of individual neurons. This idea is still very much in its infancy, but will eventually open up a whole slew of applications that are straight out of science fiction stories, like prosthetic devices to combat neurological dysfunction.

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology has announced the first series of its research papers, in which experts in the field examine the potential outcomes of this technology; all but one of the essays are available for publishing or reprint under Gnu Free Documentation License (GFDL). SF fans may be interested to note that David Brin is one of the contributors. Another is the redoubtable Ray Kurzweil, who is hosting discussions of the papers on his futurist site KurzweilAI.net.

I love airships. I love hotel airships even more!