Be a part of The Future of Life summit, February 19-21, 2003.

Speakers include James Watson, Richard Dawkins, Ray Kurzweil, Jaron Lanier, Bill Joy, Craig Venter, Francis Collins, Edward O. Wilson, Steve Jurvetson, and many more.

The Future of Life

] The journal will accept basic and applied papers dealing
] both with Engineering, Physics, Chemistry and Computer
] Science and with Biology and Medicine with respect to
] bio-molecules and cells. The content of acceptable papers
] ranges from practical/clinical/environmental applications
] to formalized mathematical theory. Themes will include:
]
] Biocompatibility of materials; Tissue engineering aspects
] at the nano and micro scale; Molecular and biomolecular
] sensors and electronics; Nano and microtechnology for the
] study of bio-molecules and cells; Computer methods for
] nanobioscience; Bioinformatics and biocomputing;
] DNA computing; and more.

IEEE Transactions on NanoBioscience

My problem is that I have been persecuted by an integer. For seven years this number has followed me around, has intruded in my most private data, and has assaulted me from the pages of our most public journals. This number assumes a variety of disguises, being sometimes a little larger and sometimes a little smaller than usual, but never changing so much as to be unrecognizable. The persistence with which this number plagues me is far more than a random accident.

I was sure I'd already blogged this, but I couldn't locate it, so here it is (perhaps again).

The Magical Number Seven

At least two biologists in the group that is discussing the experiment said they believed that it was premature or unethical and could stir policy makers to limit further stem cell research or ban it.

Stem Cell Mixing May Form a Human-Mouse Hybrid

Bulli is a toolkit, with examples, for generating Parquet Deformations.

Bulli - 'Parquet Deformations' a la Escher

The annual meeting of the Institute of Medicine was held on October 14, 2002 in Washington, DC. Listen to the talks and view the presentations online. Selections include:

Francis Collins, on the Genome Project; Eric Lander, of the Whitehead Institute, on "The Human Genome and Beyond"; Claire Fraser, of The Institute for Genomic Research, on "Harnessing the Genome" for medicine; DNA Forensics; Barry Scheck, on "The Innocence Project"; and more.

Genomics and the Future of Health and Society

In "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature," Steven Pinker -- a psychologist at MIT and author of several popular books on cognition and linguistics -- attempts to shatter contemporary versions of the blank slate. To this polemical task he brings an arsenal of scientific research, acute analysis and pugnacious attitude. Bubbling beneath an affable charm, strong passions, apparently simmering since graduate school, give some of his arguments a bitter aftertaste.

A University of Chicago professor reviews Steven Pinker's latest book for The New York Times.

'The Blank Slate': The Evolutionary War

AMO science does more than prime the pump from which our society's material wealth flows. In addition to providing the basis fro new technology, it also is a source of the intellectual capital on which science and technology depend for growth and development.

This concise new report from the National Academies provides an assessment of atomic, molecular, and optical science. Readily downloaded in PDF format, linked here.

Atoms, Molecules, and Light: AMO Science Enabling the Future [PDF]

Pinker provides calm in the stormy debate by disentangling the political and moral issues from the scientific ones. He shows that equality, compassion, responsibility, and purpose have nothing to fear from discoveries about an innately organized psyche. Pinker shows that the new sciences of mind, brain, genes, and evolution, far from being dangerous, are complementing observations about the human condition made by millennia of artists and philosophers. All this is done in the style that earned his previous books many prizes and worldwide acclaim: irreverent wit, lucid exposition, and startling insight on matters great and small.

Steven Pinker, best-selling author of _The Language Instinct_, _How the Mind Works_, and _Words and Rules_, has a new book. Amazon offers the table of contents as well as the text of the first chapter.

Pinker has collected related materials, including links to published reviews of the book, on his web site. Visit

    http://www.mit.edu/~pinker/slate.html

The Blank Slate | Steven Pinker

Presented by the UMDNJ Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Newark Division

Show up at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (on South Orange Ave in Newark) to attend a free one-day symposium. The keynote speaker will be Eric Drexler, founder of the Foresight Institute. Lecture topics include:

Nanotechnology and the Future of Medicine
Structural DNA Nanotechnology
Making Things Move Using Nanotechnology - Nanomagnets
Tumor Therapy with Actinium-225 Labeled Nanogenerators

Nanotechnology in Biomedical Research