DIY Biologists To Open Source Research 147
destinyland writes "Falling costs and garage tinkering are creating a grass roots movement of amateur biologists whose research is more transparent than that of academia. They are building lab equipment using common household items and even synthesizing new organisms, and their transparency also allows the social pressure which creates more ethical research. DIY Bio.org fosters lab co-ops for large equipment and provokes important discussions. (Would it be ethical to release a homegrown symbiote that cures scurvy in hundreds of thousands of people?) This movement could someday lead to bottom-up remedies for disease, fuel-generating microbes, or even a social-networked disease-tracking epidemiology. 'In much the same way that homebrew computer science built the world we live in today, garage biology can affect the future we make for ourselves,' argues h+ magazine, which featured the article in their summer issue."
Re:DIY first post (Score:1, Funny)
No, it appears to be someone named "Anonymous Cowardon."
Re:Bottem up? (Score:1, Funny)
Nothing wrong with doing some fun research on my own. For example my scientific interests lie in determining mutation rates of several local strains of HIV - and it's a lot of fun to run PCR on DNA samples of my fellow coworkers in a basement. It is also much easier to test things on human subjects, no need for FDA approvals ! Little do the little devils know that they are literally sacrificing their lives for the science !
Re:"social pressure .. more ethical research" (Score:3, Funny)
Interesting question: If you catch a GPL virus that is only being distributed as binary, are you guilty for copyright violation when it redistributes itself?
Ahhhh SNAP! It's time for the Kazza and bit-torrent MP3 virus!!!
Step 1. Take existing bot.net code and add utorrent with registry settings to start in hidden mode.
Step 2. Have it set to automatically download mp3's via rss or something.
Step 3. Distribute to the pleebs.
Step 4. Pleebs become seed servers.
Step 5. Watch RIAA sue all the pleebs.
Step 6. Watch everyone in the world get really pissed off.
Step 7. New defense, My system had that damn virus.
Step 8. No Profit for dem guys!
Step 9. Move to underground lair and work on those sharks with freaking lasers baby! BRILLIANT
Re:DIY, meet DEA (Score:3, Funny)
Well, I dare you then. Post your address, and let's see what happens ;)
Re:Science is already open source (Score:3, Funny)
> Well, you've succeeding in taking a (mostly) accurate statement used to make a general point, and drug it through several layers of unnecessary quibbling.
Isn't that what universities are all about ?