From Science Magazine Germany’s National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina has come down firmly against the use of crops for energy. In a reportissued today from a panel of more than 20 experts who have been working together since 2010, the academy concludes that biofuels should play only a small part in the move toward sustainable sources […]

NOTE: The usually critical UK Guardian has a boxseat in the cheerleading section on synthetic biology, and has recently published another in a series of semi-misleading cheerleading pieces. We agree fully with the need for “engaged and rational public discussions,” on synthetic biology, as the article below calls for. But we don’t agree that the […]

Note: SynbioLeap has posted this announcement for a synbio “Leadership Accelerator Program” . The program takes the focus of how to “best advance synthetic biology for the public good”.  Yet in seeking out 20 “emerging leaders” to spend a week planning around syn bio, all of the sample public interest questions hinge on what to do to promote synbio, […]

By Clive Cookson, from Financial Times Scientists could move from reading to writing genes as research to make microbes distinct from anything in nature is well underway Craig Venter, king of the genome, has been uncharacteristically quiet for a couple of years since his laboratory created the world’s first synthetic life form, a microbe whose genes […]

By Paul Mindus, from the August 2012 Issue of The Monthly Say “Richmond” and many Bay Area residents think of crime, poverty, and the Iron Triangle—and maybe, on the upside, Rosie the Riveter. But the thousands of commuters who speed through Richmond daily on inter-states 580 or 80 may be unaware of some impressive developments over the […]

NOTE: The question of green fuels for the military is an especially sticky one for progressives and environmentalists to wrestle with. As one synbio critic put it, “Do we stand with the Republicans, who think Venter-Exxon-type biofuel enterprises are a scam, or the Democrats, who want to make our military dollars go further, so we […]

Richmond Bay Campus Community Workshop Announced for July 26, 7-8:30 PM The City of Richmond has announced a community meeting about the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Second Campus: Richmond Campus Bay Community Workshop – July 26, 2012, 7-8:30PM (Doors open at 6:30PM) Richmond Memorial Auditorium, 403 Civic Center Plaza Come hear from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and […]

From GEN News Highlights : Jul 16, 2012 When government agencies were forced to confront an outbreak of the swine flu virus H1N1 in 2009, it took almost six months to have the vaccine ready. The next time that happens, vaccines could be ready in less than a week, J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., tells ForbesIndia. Under […]

By Catherine Mayer, from Time Magazine Nearly 70 years ago, the famed Austria-born physicist Erwin Schrödinger — he of the maybe-dead cat — delivered a lecture at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. The title of the talk, “What Is Life?” was as remarkable as the time and place it was delivered — at the fringes […]