Wednesday, March 12, 2008

synthetics


I'm wondering what you two think about this controversial figure & his work. No, not my Governator, but Craig Venter. His TED talk is pretty damn fascinating, but naturally brings up some thorny issues. If you don't have time for the 32 minute lecture and Q&A, there's Stephen Colbert's 6 minute interview that somehow covers most of the same major points.

I mean, fourth generation fuels made from CO2? One can't help but get excited by the possibility, the whole saving-of-humanity-from-inevitable-destruction thing, but there's a catch. And oh, what a catch. (And I guess if you're J, you might not really get as excited about saving humanity anyway.)

And in case you both missed it somehow, The 6th Day was about cloning, and yes, there were 2 Arnies, and yes, he got to use the "go fuck yourself" joke on a fellow cloned person twice in the course of the same movie.

*L

2 comments:

smear said...

I watched the Colbert interview (i love him). Verrrrry interesting. If i have time i'll watch the longer one. He seems pretty intense. If it all happens, I can say: i heard it here first!

And for the record, i woooould save humanity. They just don't deserve it! :)
j

smear said...

I remember him from Celera and (back in 1998? map what? ..hey now) his work has just gotten so much bigger. Craig Venter has a saweeet sailboat, er yacht.
http://www.wired.com/culture/design/magazine/16-01/st_yacht

*k