Category Archives: Uncategorized

Working with bioengineers: reflections from an experimental workshop hosted by Engineering Life

by Annie Hammang In late 2016, Engineering Life hosted the third of its fourth experimental workshops, on Mapping Synthetic Biology Workflows. Collaborative work between engineering biology (or, alternatively, synthetic biology) and the social sciences has been around nearly as long … Continue reading

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Curating Art and Science: Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology

We are pleased to have this guest blog from Science and Technology Studies scholar and curator Hannah Star Rogers. Resurrecting the Sublime is a synthetic biology based artwork which presents the scents of extinct plants. A collaboration between synthetic biologist … Continue reading

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New Doing Engineering interactive website

By Pablo Schyfter Engineering Life has launched a new website—‘Doing Engineering’—that presents different perspectives on engineering in a novel and playful way. The website is based on one of our workshops and like that workshop, tries to find diverse and … Continue reading

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A systemic separation of concerns: reflections on Synthetic Biology UK 2018

By Sophie Stone Last month, I attended the annual synthetic biology conference, Synthetic Biology UK 2018 (SBUK2018). For those unfamiliar with the field’s conference landscape, SBUK is an annual event positioned as “the premiere UK synthetic biology meeting”. It is … Continue reading

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The history of DNA synthesis – a workshop on history for Synthetic Biology and beyond

One way to give a history to something like synthetic biology is to reduce it down to a narrower collection of parts, and then produce a history of the origins and development of those parts. Each part that gets followed … Continue reading

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How to face the unknown: how the Convention on Biological Diversity can change its approach to scientific uncertainty

By Deborah Scott Next week, delegates to the scientific advisory body of one of the world’s largest environmental treaties, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), will gather in Montréal. If it is like most recent meetings of the Subsidiary Body … Continue reading

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An evil person’s guide to doing public engagement badly

A few weeks ago Deborah Scott and I were invited to participate in an interdisciplinary workshop organised by the Eastern ARC on synthetic biology and society. For my presentation I basically gave Claire Marris’ paper ‘The Construction of Imaginaries of … Continue reading

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What about the frogs?: Reflections on ‘Community and Identity in the Techno-Sciences’ workshop

Our post this month comes from Chris Mellingwood, a PhD student affiliated with and contributing to the Engineering Life project. You can contact Chris on c.r.mellingwood [at] sms.ed.ac.uk. The sight of un-melted dirty snow on an urban street may not seem … Continue reading

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Pablo Schyfter article, ‘A nature with their nature’, in LA+ issue on simulation

This month Dr Pablo Schyfter has featured in LA+ (Landscape Architecture Plus). You can find the full issue and Dr Schyfter’s article here. For those without access to this journal, we upload the final draft here. Schyfter, 2016, A nature … Continue reading

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Creation, Care and Complicity: exploring synthetic biology with the Golem

By Deborah Scott This post is a continuation of thoughts prompted by the Shuffle Festival. Other scholars more systematically consider the role of fiction and legends in how societies understand and seek to influence science and technology. If, like me, … Continue reading

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