Steak Garden

It's not an outdoor steak fest. It's the new frontier of meat production: steak in vitro. With the technology available, future homes could see steak sized test tubes alongside window boxes of herbs. The pre-assembled packages would include a small tissue sample of the desired meat (synthetic or natural), a biodegradable frame onto which tissue cells can latch on and grow, and enough nutritious serum to feed the tissues.

The steak might not take on the distinct shape of a dead animal, but perhaps the biodegradable frame could come in a variety of forms. Would you prefer porterhouse or flank steak?

Serum traditionally comes from fetal cows but a chemical serum is now used pretty commonly as well. Since the whole point of growing steaks in a test tube would be to cut back on the impact the current meat industry has on the environment and to save a few happy cows, I'm pretty sure the Trader Joe's version of a "grow your own steak dinner" package would include chemical serum as opposed to all natural.

The result is a formless mass of muscle tissue.

Among the first to grow in vitro meat was the artist group SymbioticA. Their project, "Disembodied Cuisine," went on display in France in 2003. Wired recently published an article on cultured meat production possibly reaching industrial levels. I suppose no one would really like to go through the grossities of growing their own meat in a vat, but talk about supporting local, sustainable food.

What the future will NOT look like

The creative minds that Photoshopped these pictures will not be realizing their visions anytime soon but the pictures are still amazing.

None of the pictures depict animals that would have even the most remote chance of usefulness much less genetic viability. The feelings that the slide show sparks do, however, indicate just how entrenched we are in "the way things are."

Platypus are just as weird as any of the animals in the video as they fit comfortably in no category. The furry, billed, webbed footed and venous mammal is as strange as can be, but we accept them just because they have been around. Who knows? Perhaps playpi are the result of years of evolution that we can now speed up ourselves to create the animals depicted here.

Cocktail, Denatured

My inner geek was sparked when I witnessed DNA being extracted from a strawberry at a recent DIYbio meeting in New York. The whole process was carried out in a shotglass and resulted in what looked like it could a pretty pink drink served up at a bar.

The experiment was done with strawberries, dish detergent, water, and rubbing alchohol. Once the strawberry was reduced to a juicy pulp in a glass, a drop or two of dish detergent was mixed in to help break down cell walls. A little water was mixed in, and then alcohol carefully poured down the side of the glass so that it floated above the strawberry pulp. The strawberry DNA released by the mashing and the detergent slowly rose out of the pulp and susepnded between the pink mush and the alcohol.



The little glass looks pretty cool with a little cloud of DNA floating in the middle and since the rubbing alcohol can be replaced with high grade vodka, the party potential of strawberry DNA extraction is pretty high.

The only problem is the dish detergent. Since there is only a tiny drop, it shouldn't cause major discomfort, but the taste of Dawn might not enhance the party experience. Until we find a substitute for dish detergent stick to layered drinks like this one found in Gourmet magazine.

Biophone

Our cells - not the tiny biological systems but portable phones - have become man's best friend. Or at least his most constant companion. They accompany us everywhere and provide us with everything we need. Music, email, viral videos literally at our fingertips.

Biotechnology has become sophisticated enough for designer biological systems to be a hazy possibility for the future.

Introducing the bioPhone - an idea developed in conversation with William Heath, 36, of Palo Alto, a member of the organization DIYbio, which has recently brought genetic monkeying around to the home kitchen a public spaces.

"Cells are nanomachines - they are the most efficient robost nano-devices," says Heath. He envisions a future full of biological machines and when asked what he thought a biological iPhone would look like, Heath proposed a biological system with a smorgasbord of parts. For example, the bioPhone would be able to photosynthesize, like a plant, and have a nervous system like an animal.

In his view, biotechnology's progress towards genetic design is not something to be feared. "You see how it's inevitable, it's green technology, it's biological," says Heath.

Human Lab Rats and Living Screen

It is the last day to watch a movie projected onto a screen made of living tissue in New York City. Corpus Extremis (Life+), located at Exit Art in Chelsea, is the city’s latest transgenic art exhibit. It opened on February 28 and ends today. The exhibit is dominated by the works hosted by SymbioticA, a program at the University of Western Australia that interweaves the two fields of art and science. Guy Ben Ary and Tanya Visosevic, who form the artist group Biokinetic, display a screen made out of various types of tissue onto which short films are projected. Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, the directors of the Living Culture and Art Project, brought us “Victimless Leather” (a tiny jacket grown out of living tissue) in 2004. Their more recent work “Noark II” explores the creative potential of transgenic science and is a “unified collection of unclassifiable sub-organisms.” Kathy High’s “Petition for Lab Rat Shelter” is a less cryptic exhibit. She has adopted lab rats injected with human DNA and taken care of their physical needs as well as, perhaps, their emotional.

Admission is free and lectures by Rich Pell, founder of the Center for Postnatural History, and Oleg Mavromatti, and co-founder of ULTRAFUTURO will be giving lectures beginning at 6pm.

Exit Art
475 Tenth Ave (on the corner of 36th Street)
Tuesday – Thursday 10am–6pm
Friday 10am – 8pm
Saturday 12-8pm
Closed Sunday and Monday

CodeCon - a new breed of hacker

Your genetic makeup could be the newest code to crack for a new species of hackers. The hackers’ conference CodeCon has added a new category for this year’s conference: biohacking. This new section will showcase the work of people who are using the latest biotechnology to create their own genetically modified organisms.

CodeCon began in 2002 as a conference where computer coders presented and demonstrated the various projects they had been working on. Of the various projects presented, BIttorrent is one of the best known. This year’s conference will be held in San Francisco at Cellspace and begins tomorrow. The new track includes presentations by the members of DIYbio, an organization of DIYer focused on the exploration of genetic engineering.

The term “biotechnology” may make more sense than you think. The similarities between computer coding and genetic coding has some people thinking that the next hot field of development may be in designing and building new life forms.

Genetic code and computer code both have very simple basic components. For DNA the most basic components are the proteins: A, T, C and G. For computers, one’s and zero’s. The way in which these basic components are arranged dictate the form and function of the system they code for. A certain configuration of the proteins results in black hair and brown eyes just as the specific way one’s and zero’s are put together make up a computer. With the wealth of knowledge scientists have gathered about genetic code and the traits it codes for, the progress of biology is increasingly expressing the developing characteristics of the computer technology.

The onset of organizations such as the Personal Genome Project, 23andme.com and DIYbio reflect the sophistication with which scientists – amateur or professional – can now work with DNA. The standardization of genetic information makes the manipulation and creation of unique life systems easier. MIT has a growing registry of what has come to be called “biobricks.” Each biobrick begins and ends with an easily recognizable sequence of proteins and codes for a distinct trait. Equipped with these building blocks, scientists can conceivably build their own life forms.

That’s exactly what the young competitors at MIT’s International Genetically Engineered Machines Competition are attempting. For the past 5 years, teams of undergraduates from universities all over the world go to Boston where they compete to create science projects out of the genetic material provided from MIT’s registry of genetic traits. The winning team last year was Slovenia, which developed a vaccine for Helicobacter pylori.

This area of biotechnology, dubbed synthetic biology, will be the playground of presentors who registered in the biohacker category of CodeCon. Tomorrow’s presenters will be presenting the basics of biohacking and showcasing some new techniques such as running gels in straws – something dubbed Keiko gels. The conference will span the length of 3 days and while online tickets are no longer available, tickets will be at available at door. $90 will get you a glimpse of the future of genetic coding.