So what is this DIYBio movement? It sits at the confluence of democratizing bioscience and the need to have the tools of science under our control or knowledge. Who are we? Artists, scientists, amateurs{in the best meaning of that word}, but primarily citizens. We have different motivations, skill sets, tool sets, but we share that need to understand, to know, to tinker, to share, to dream, of better futures. To re-examine the ‘old’ technologies and the ‘new’ technologies of biotechnology and to reintroduce them to each other, to de-commodify what we can, and to appropriate what we can’t. 

Science has a part to play in the future development of communities across the world, and it needs to work in these communities and for them, not be something that occasionally impinges upon them from the outside, and having grass-roots level engagement facilities that are the natural place for people who need to make use of science seems to me to be the key to making this work. http://www.appropedia.org/TheFWD_IanSimmons

Citizen science or more to the point Community science has been in my thinking this year. I had

• a residency at 25SG where I turned a gallery into a site for exploring science, making plastic and glowing bacteria, and
• went to Madrid for Interaactivos’10 Community Science, and
• contributed to Future is…, Allenheads
• contributed to Questioning Digital Inclusion, Access Space

Out of both of these came out this idea, of how as a Scientist I could benefit the people and communities around me. Also, what knowledge of the community would I need. How could I learn more about what is going on in a community? I don’t have concrete answers but an example from a different sphere. At future this.. David Butler mentioned Artist Ella Gubs’s “Whats Missing?” project in North Shields in which she asked the locals what was missing in their community. What she discovered was that there was a lot more positive things happening than met the eye.

In the full article, Ian Simmons related how he helped mediate in a argument about whether a neighbours use of snail bait could have killed another neighbours cat. Of course there was no dosage table on snail bait and cat mortality, but there was basic information, and Ian could explain to his neighbours why it would not have been possible for the cat to have been killed by the snail bait.

TheFWD IanSimmons

From Appropedia navigation, search

This is an entry in The Future We Deserve – a collaborative book project about the future. See all the entries or talk about this entry.

---

Using Science Locally

Recently I found myself in the back lane here in Whitley Bay, sorting out some weirdness with the recycling bin and talking to the chap next door, who specialises in teaching mystic running techniques, when the local ‘cat lady’ came up and started accusing him of ‘murdering’ a cat by putting slug pellets on his veg garden, which she assumed it had eaten. He was a bit put out by this, so I said I’d look into it from a scientific perspective and work out whether this was likely to be possible. So, having worked out the type of pellets, found out what they actually contained and in what concentration and the size of the deceased cat, it was clear that the beast would have had to eat a heaped tablespoon full of the things in order to croak, which put my neighbour’s mind to rest, if not, entirely, our cat lady’s. What relevance, then has the Whitley Bay Cat Poisoner got to do with sustainable futures? Well like many cities, Newcastle has a big landmark hands-on science centre, but there’s no reason why this should be the only model for this kind of thing. We need science centres that are relevant to my neighbour and the cat lady, small, local places, more like libraries and community centres than flagship visitor attractions, where instead of it just being lucky that I was about when the matter of cat poisoning arose, it’d be natural to go ask these kinds of questions. True, you may say, but haven’t we got Google for that? In a way, I suppose, yes, but then it needs people to know what they are looking for to make the connections, there is no chart out there that conveniently tabulates slug pellets/lethal cat dose, believe me, I’ve looked. Such a place would also have a small array of regularly changed simple hands-on exhibits where people could drop in and explore casually, clear updates on the latest science news, family workshop activities, kid’s weekend and holiday clubs, they would also provide support for science in local schools, work with the community on projects where science might be useful to them, and like libraries you might have two or three in even a small town. It’s not rocket science, the basic models exist for all these functions – science centres, community science outreach, co-enquiry programmes with universities, science shops, all of these are part of the jigsaw that could come together to create this kind of initiative. It just needs someone to decide to do it, and a moderate amount of money. Science has a part to play in the future development of communities across the world, and it needs to work in these communities and for them, not be something that occasionally impinges upon them from the outside, and having grass-roots level engagement facilities that are the natural place for people who need to make use of science seems to me to be the key to making this work.

Ian Simmons hit the nail on the head, how do we make this ability to wade through knowledge and come up with the pertinent facts, accessible? how does it in turn engage people in seeing science as serving them rather than big business?

I feel lucky to be in Newcastle, like my hometown of Adelaide, there is a lot going on, but it is not always apparent.

• lesson of the wiiMote: a piece of technology that is not crippled, has amazing functionality and is cheap +  a community of developers means that we all can make Epic Shit if we want to

Alexandra Deschamps Sonsino, TinkerIT called on us to:

• consider technology as a tool, rather than something to consume. She argues that we are in a similar place to the pre-industrial time, where ‘ordinary folks’ are making things that help solve there own personal problems, or fulfill desires. (see t!pot a weighing device that tells you when the teapot is empty so you can decide whether you want the last cup)

Harry Erwin talking about the types of behaviours he is modelling in silico

Last week I attended the second day of the Conference on Natural Computing and Intelligent Robotics at Sunderland University. This meeting was organised by NCAF (the Natural Computing Applications Forum)  meeting hosted by the Hybrid Intelligent Systems group at Sunderland.

An Approach to Developing a Library of Voltage-gated Channels by Harry Erwin (University of Sunderland).

This paper was a demonstration of the ability of a neuroscience-engineering collaboration to unravelling a complex process, in this case how sound is processed in the inferior collicular centre. The computational modeling arose out of the need to discover how the nerves in the IC worked. His group is using computational models to mimic the responses of four populations of nerve cells believed to be important in hearing in the IC.  Although not conversent with the algebra of the voltage-gated channels, I was interested in the explanatory potential of the models. One of the nice advantages over previous modelling of these channels was to anchor the models to DNA sequence terminology, thus providing a way to verify the in silico models in vivo. This would be by using genetic labeling technologies such as fluorescent proteins(see related articles), however it would only tell of the presence of the channel, not the activity.  This still needs to be addressed. His models provide predictions that can be checked in vitro, and give the engineers ideas of how to replicate hearing in robots. The insight that there is more than one behaviour in neurons in the IC, means that just using one type in robotic hearing is limiting.

From this and the other talks of the day, it is apparent that processing sound is computational intensive, having four populations of neurons that respond to different components of the sound means that immediate the processing is decreased. Each neuron ‘tags’ an input with sound, or vowel or consonant.

So what are scientists doing to reduce the amount of comutation needed? They look at simpler organisms, with smaller brains, to see if there are physical or neuronal structures that reduce the amount of computation needed. Lizards and Bats are being used for their use of sound in insect capture and object avoidance.

Related articles by Zemanta

• New calcium reporter for two-photon imaging in vivo
• Biomimetic designs strike again: Rescuebots

Dunn, D, Cruchfield, JP Insects, Trees and Climate: the bioacoustic Ecology og Deforestation and Entomogenic Climate Change http://acousticecology.org/dunn/solitsounds.html

Sonification

Katie Patterson : Vatnajökull (the sound of ) http://www.katiepaterson.org/vatnajokull/vatnajokull.html
Earth–Moon–Earth (Moonlight Sonata Reflected from the Surface of the Moon) http://www.katiepaterson.org/E.M.E/eme.html

Human movement as signal

ipoi http://www.jennifersheridan.com/projects/ipoi/ipoi.html

Times Up! Sensory Circus http://timesup.org/sc/index.html

Mapping

milk project (Esther Polak +leva Auzina http://www.milkproject.net/

HeHe-Nuage Verthelsinki-power station http://hehe.org.free.fr/hehe/nuagevert/index.html

the lake http://www.juliefreeman.co.uk/lake/

Autonomy

heath bunting http://www.irational.org/

“forays” http://forays.org/

HeHe Smoking Lamp http://hehe.org.free.fr/hehe/smokinglamp/index.html

Steim Blogs on the talk

http://steim.org/jamboree08/?p=547

The biomuse is an instrument that takes muscle nerve impulses and digitises them. Originally a wired system, it now wireless over bluetooth and using some differential sensors from http://infusionsystems.com/

As an instrument, Atau finds the biomuse satisfying, he was interested in living with a novel technological instrument over an extended time.

At the mapping session at the Steim Microjamboree. Have seen Atau‘s performance a number of times, it is only in the last few days that I have heard how it is being developed, and understood why it is important.

What I find fascinating is that he is playing a novel instrument that he has worked with for over ten years and now it gets a number of extra parameters, through the accelerometer and mode changes through a number of buttons. This allows a more hands off way of interacting with the software patch.

Another blog by Kristina Andersen on this at the official STEIM blog here

I have a twitter stream, but have it protected but want to share only the #keywords. Maybe one day there will be a semiporus privacy setting, which would be nice, but in the meantime…

#foct08 JimHendler new ways of teaching? should we try to bring childrens attention to focus, or ask better questions on how best to teach 7 minutes ago from TwitterFox

#foct08, Jim Hendler “we love disruptive technology as long as it isnt disrupting us” 10 minutes ago from TwitterFox

@Eingang, but how you know the people you know is related to what you know, if you are trusted, have reputation and skill. 17 minutes ago from TwitterFox in reply to Eingang

@sleepydog made hires through meeting over twitter in his company #foct08 20 minutes ago from TwitterFox in reply to sleepydog

#foct08 content, methods of delivery , and validation, how to get quality 25 minutes ago from TwitterFox

I want something that retweets # even though the rest of my updates are protected, useful at conferences 32 minutes ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 social networking brings me into a group that I care about… 34 minutes ago from TwitterFox

FOCT08 technology is complicated, and has social and political ramifications 34 minutes ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 social networking brings me into a group that I care about… 35 minutes ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 social networking brings me into a group that I care about…(think by @sleepydog) 36 minutes ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08, management of privacy, privacy as a threat vs privacy as an rethink….. 38 minutes ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 cultural blocks on use of social technologies in schools. shortsighted? about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 crackle on the phone psychosocialhuman ‘feel’ of digital technology about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 @josiefraser knows who i am quoting at the technology workshop,but i am not…..but there are about 10twitters here…… about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 but the portion that arent are multiply disadvantaged about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 digital divides are present even in the creative industries, but what about wider community? Many are socially networked. about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 is it possible to make maps of exciting possibilities. about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

#FOCT08 creating packages of overviews of what exciting is happening in New Media, then introducing then to new areas of expertise. about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

what is the future Orson Welles “War of the World” moment #FOCT08 about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

Technology workshop: who is “real” who “virtual” where doe the “work” happen #FOCT08 about 1 hour ago from TwitterFox

The public stream: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23foct08