As I’ve mentioned before, we’re entering a new phase of technological progress: engineers and technologists are not just seeking inspiration in the mechanisms of the natural world, but are actually reverse- and re-engineering biology to improve synthetic technology. In this case researchers in Germany are studying how bow flies perform their incredible feats of aerial … Continue reading Re-engineering biology
Improving Reality… that’s an ambitious title, no? I’d expect nothing less than ambition from Honor Harger and her crew at Lighthouse, though; this year’s IR (Thurday 5th September, Brighton UK; map here; tickets here) will be the third instalment of their ongoing mission to bring together artists and writers and designers and futures people with … Continue reading Improving Reality
If you’re looking for the sort of bat-shit Faustian gambles that form the back-bone of much military science fiction, following the news from the Pentagon’s science and tech division is like supergluing your lips to a firehose… and Wired’s DangerRoom blog is one of the better consumer-level sources to start with (if you don’t mind … Continue reading Blue-sky bioengineering on the DARPA drawing-board
We’ve seen viruses used to help treat cancer, and help building electrical components, now bacteria are being used to solve hitherto intractable mathematics problems: Imagine you want to tour the 10 biggest cities in the UK, starting in London (number 1) and finishing in Bristol (number 10). The solution to the Hamiltonian Path Problem is … Continue reading Bacterial computers to solve complex mathematics problems
One thing’s for sure – burning hydrocarbons has to be done away with, and soon. The race is on to find new energy sources for our multitudinous needs. One of these potential solutions is to use bacteria in fuel cells. After all, they can produce energy from a wide range of materials, such as glucose … Continue reading Bacterial Fuel Cells