"
Team:British Columbia/HumanPractices
From 2010.igem.org
Synthetic Biology & Society
Whether it's agriculture, healthcare, the environment or the economy, synthetic biology has an increasingly important role to play! Visit our forum and join in the discussions!
Our ForumNaNoWriMo x iGEM
In our first collaboration ever, iGEM and NaNoWriMo unite to showcase stories featuring synthetic biology! Follow these NaNoWriMo novelists over the month of November as they craft 50,000 word novels!
Once upon a time...Art disturbs, science reassures ~Georges Braque
What can generate more inspiration or discussion than art? And what is not art? Come take a look. Better yet, contribute!
Be disturbed!
Promoter Maps
We collected hundreds of definitions of synthetic biology from the UBC community-undergrads, grad students and faculty from various disciplines. These definitions were sorted by field/occupation as well as level of education in order to synthesize these promoter maps. Each promoter map consists of words arranged from highest to lowest frequency (with implemented cut-off points), representing the prevalent ideas in our community's awareness of synthetic biology!
Word Clouds
Can't get enough? We've got a storm of word clouds headed this way. Each represents definitions of synthetic biology from students in different disciplines!
The Synthetic Biology Art Gallery
"Art is the Queen of all sciences communicating knowledge to all the generations of the world." -Leonardo da Vinci
"Good art is not what it looks like, but what it does to us." -Roy Adzak
"Art is literacy of the heart." -Elliot Eisner
"The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery." -Francis Bacon
"What a society deems important is enshrined in its art." -Harry Broudy
Whatever your thoughts on art are, come visit our gallery and send us your very own artwork on synthetic biology!
NaNoWriMo
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. In our first collaboration ever, iGEM and NaNoWriMo unite to showcase stories featuring synthetic biology!
Augmented Genesis by Tony Southcotte
The continued advancement of technology has brought about a synthetic evolution in the human species. Biology and technology mesh to create an augmented world, for which users perceive through altered vision, enhanced bodies, and built in gadgetry. Dependence on this new technology would be an understatement, so when an electromagnetic storm destroys the hardware, chaos ensues.
Brought to Life by Richard S. Crawford
It's the epic story of Boris, the first synthetic person, and the challenges he faces as he tries to establish his own identity.
Fledgling Wings by Angelica A.
A young boy named Jonas is a normal teenager. Except for the fact that he is a chimera, a hybrid of human and animal DNA that exceeds 10%. He has enough trouble coping with that, but then his friend David disappears. Now he must discover where his friend is and the secrets behind his disappearance and of all chimeras.
Kalopsiac Green by Karen Llamas
Thomas and Felix are your average lower than middle class teenagers in the near future, whose mothers sold their bodies to science. Amidst a world with many marvels from altered foods to altered people, they know all too well this isn't exactly the destiny that sci-fi novelists spoke of.
Lyghts by Lyvie Hallman Taylor
The human body contains billions of miles of DNA. The human heart beats measure three billion in a lifetime. What really controls us; is it science or love that drives us? A sympathetic scientist wished to combine the two, to efface boundaries between what must be and what can be, to unite frigid logic and warm embrace. She finds hope in LYGHT: specific DNA codes that enhance everything from physical attraction to touches that are able to physically and emotionally heal a partner.
Machmen by Kay Proctor
"Robots turn the tables and program humans to obey the Three Laws of Robotics - for better or for worse." In an underground facility, the first self-sufficient robot was born. Mentored by Dr. Dorothea Calvin Parker, robots grew in their understanding of the human race. They learned of human history, current affairs, strengths, and weaknesses, and came to one conclusion: Humans needed to be fixed...
Perfect Monster by Maggie Burns
This is the story of a medical researcher who commits crimes against humanity to stop a war, then from exile tries to save the world from the terrible fallout of his acts.
Progress Unbound by David Scheidl
Synthetically augmented humans have colonized distant planets. These colonies continue to experiment in order to better survive in their new environments. Meanwhile, Earth is experiencing a moral revival and is now determined to limit the scientific excesses of her daughter colonies.
Triple S, Operation: Fowl Play by Tania Knight
All of the Triple S are unwanted, people who won't be missed. The government's new technology has allowed them to alter the teenage body and give it the ability to shift shape... No-one believes that the adorable stray cat was the assassin that did away with their drug-dealing uncle - or sold them out to the police.
Twice by Vivian Rivera
"The world you know now is a lie. Joseph Kadlowski was killed because he knew too much. It isn't safe to say he was murdered because he's still alive. He's just not in his own body. If you had a chance to live life twice... would you take it knowing there was a price?" As this mind-twisting story unfolds, Joseph learns that he has been killed and his soul transferred into a government-made body...
