“What Dr Venter did on his holidays”: exploration, hacking, entrepreneurship in the narratives of the<i>Sorcerer II</i>expedition

Delfanti, Alessandro; Castelfranchi, Yurij; Pitrelli, Nico

doi:10.1080/14636770903339050

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…Who was to know what it was worth? Perhaps the data derived from the unsequenced microorganisms out of the ocean might -after being recomposed using bioinformatic technologiesturn out to be highly efficient in transforming sunlight into energy as Venter had announced (see Delfanti et al 2009 ;.…”

Section: Extracting Information From Oceanic Bodiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recoding Life

Tamminen¹,

Deibel²

2018

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This book addresses the unprecedented convergence between the digital and the corporeal in the life sciences and turns to Foucault's biopolitics in order to understand how life is being turned into a technological object. It examines a wide range of bioscientific knowledge practices that allow life to be known through codes that can be shared (copied), owned (claimed, and managed) and optimised (remade through codes based on standard language and biotech engineering visions). The book's approach is captured in the title, which refers to 'the biopolitical'. The authors argue that through discussions of political theories of sovereignty and related geopolitical conceptions of nature and society, we can understand how crucially important it is that life is constantly unsettling and disrupting the established and familiar ordering of the material world and the related ways of thinking and acting politically. The biopolitical dynamics involved are conceptualised as the 'metacode of life', which refers to the shifting configurations of living materiality and the merging of conventional boundaries between the natural and artificial, the living and non-living. The result is a globalising world in which the need for an alternative has become a core part of its political and legal instability, and the authors identify a number of possible alternative platforms to understand life and the living as framed by the 'metacodes' of life. This book will appeal to scholars of science and technology studies, as well as scholars of the sociology, philosophy, and anthropology of science, who are seeking to understand social and technical heterogeneity as a characteristic of the life sciences.

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Section: Extracting Information From Oceanic Bodiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recoding Life

Tamminen¹,

Deibel²

2018

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“…There is a fundamental tension, it is argued, between a hacker ethos of individual responsibility and agency and the care required to maintain the close-knit communities of hacker and makerspaces (Barba 2015; Toombs, Bardzell, and Bardzell 2015). Hackers are technological determinists (Sivek 2011; Söderberg 2013) who have imbibed the worst excesses of a “Californian Ideology” of techno-optimism mingled with lack of attention to wider social conditions and their limiting effects (Barbrook and Cameron 1996; Delfanti, Castelfranchi, and Pitrelli 2009). Similarly, tensions around hacking’s relation to capitalism have been identified within the movement.…”

Section: The Politics Of Makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterizing Hacking

Davies

2017

Science, Technology, & Human Values

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The rise of a “maker movement,” located in hacker and makerspaces and involving the democratization of technologies of production and support of grassroots innovation, is receiving increasing attention from science and technology studies (STS) scholarship. This article explores how hacking is characterized by users of hacker and makerspaces and relates this to broader discussion of the maker movement as, for instance, promoting innovation, engaged in countercultural critique, or as accessible to anyone. Based on an interview study of users of twelve hacker and makerspaces across the United States, it argues that for these users, hacking is not about politics, commercial innovation, or critique. Rather, it is understood as a lifestyle one subscribes to, a meaningful leisure activity, or as providing access to a welcoming and close-knit community. Contrary to expectations of the maker movement as heralding social change, the benefits of hacking were viewed as personal rather than political, economic, or social; similarly, democratization of technology was experienced as rather incidental to most hackers’ and makers’ experiences.

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“…However, to date, there exists no synthesis of the varied malicious opportunities enabled or generated by biotechnology, either currently occurring or forecasted. Instead, researchers in the Life Sciences tend to focus on the benefits of these technologies for successful grant applications to further their research [18,19], social scientists explore the ethical implications of the technology for society (e.g., eugenics [20][21][22]), and governmental officials highlight the exploitation potential for defence security applications [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A systematic review protocol for crime trends facilitated by synthetic biology

Elgabry

Nesbeth

Johnson³

2020

Syst Rev

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Background: When new technologies are developed, it is common for their crime and security implications to be overlooked or given inadequate attention, which can lead to a 'crime harvest'. Potential methods for the criminal exploitation of biotechnology need to be understood to assess their impact, evaluate current policies and interventions and inform the allocation of limited resources efficiently. Recent studies have illustrated some of the security implications of biotechnology, with outcomes of misuse ranging from compromised computers using malware stored in synthesised DNA, infringement of intellectual property on biological matter, synthesis of new threatening viruses, 'genetic genocide,' and the exploitation of food markets with genetically modified crops. However, there exists no synthesis of this information, and no formal quality assessment of the current evidence. This review therefore aims to establish what current and/or predicted crimes have been reported as a result of biotechnology. Methods: A systematic review will be conducted to identify relevant literature. ProQuest, Web of Science, MEDLINE and USENIX will be searched utilizing a predefined search string, and Backward and Forward searches. Grey literature will be identified by searching the official UK Government website (www.gov.uk) and the Global database of Dissertations and Theses. The review will be conducted by screening title/abstracts followed by full texts, utilising pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. Papers will be managed using Eppi-center Reviewer 4 software, and data will be organised using a data extraction table using a descriptive coding tool. A predefined rating system (speculative, experimental or currently occurring) will be used to sort studies, and a thematic synthesis of the results will be presented. Discussion: Despite the concerns raised about the misuse of biotechnology, no previous work has been conducted from a Crime Science perspective to collate and assess the literature. This systematic review aims to identify the types of offending activity facilitated by biotechnology, including synthetic biology and genetic engineering. The objective of the review is to examine whether this offending activity can be prevented by assessing the conditions necessary for the crime events to occur. It is anticipated that evidence generated from this review will guide future research in this area and aid relevant stakeholders to prioritise and allocate limited resources to biotechnology crime prevention. Systematic review registration: PROSPERO CRD42019131685

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“What Dr Venter did on his holidays”: exploration, hacking, entrepreneurship in the narratives of theSorcerer IIexpedition

Cited by 5 publications

References 43 publications

Recoding Life

Recoding Life

Characterizing Hacking

A systematic review protocol for crime trends facilitated by synthetic biology

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