I'm cross-posting this in my blog from the ORIGINS group because I want to try to make sure as many people get to see this as possible.

Edge Master Class 2009

These videos are all embedded so the best I can do is link you to the page where they can be viewed.

These are a series of 6 lectures on the current* state of synthetic genomics (5 by Church, 1 by Venter) given to an audience of movers and shakers - some familiar names (Sam Harris, Lawrence Krauss), I've copied out the full-class list at the bottom.

Theses are amazing to listen to because you can hear not only the advanced state of digital biology, but also it's limitations and potentiality (watch the venture capitalists closely...)

Thinking caps on, because you're going to be hearing the words,"electron-microscopy" "protein-folding" "activation sites" and "enzyme catalyst" quite a bit.

but, what is so refreshing - and it takes one back a little - evolution isn't a bone of contention for these people: it's trivially true and accepted. Instead this is about the real intelligent design: all the super-cool things you can make and do once you understand the mechanisms of not only how evolution has produced biological structures but how these can be modified, improved and put to work on new purposes.

Do your brain a favour and set aside 6 hours to learn about the very-recent state of the art.

I say very recent because when you see the exponential curves this stuff is being developed at, two things will probably happen: your jaw will hit the floor and you'll realise at the rate that bio-engineering is working, it outstrips Moore's Law, so 6 months is like a lifetime to these people.



Enjoy.


Edge Master Class 2009




*circa six months ago (July 2009)


**
Stewart Brand, Biologist, Long Now Foundation; Whole Earth Discipline

Larry Brilliant, M.D. Epidemiologist, Skoll Urgent Threats Fund

John Brockman, Publisher & Editor, Edge

Max Brockman, Literary Agent, Brockman, Inc.; What's Next: Dispatches on the
Future of Science

Jason Calacanis, Internet Entrepreneur, Mahalo

George Dyson, Science Historian; Darwin Among the Machines

Jesse Dylan, Film-Maker, Form.tv, FreeForm.tv

Arie Emanuel, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment

Sam Harris, Neuroscientist, UCLA; The End of Faith

W. Daniel Hillis, Computer Scientist, Applied Minds; Pattern On The Stone

Thomas Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Senior Advisor for Science, Technology and Innovation for the National Economic Council

Salar Kamangar, Vice President, Product Management, Google

Lawrence Krauss, Physicist, Origins Initiative, ASU; Hiding In The Mirror

John Markoff, Journalist, The New York Times; What The Dormouse Said

Katinka Matson, Cofounder, Edge; Artist, katinkamatson.com

Elon Musk, Physicist, SpaceX, Tesla Motors

Nathan Myhrvold, Physicist, CEO, Intellectual Ventures, LLC, The Road Ahead

Tim O'Reilly, Founder, O'Reilly Media, O'Reilly Radar

Larry Page, CoFounder, Google

Lucy Page Southworth, Biomedical Informatics Researcher, Stanford

Sean Parker, The Founders Fund; CoFounder Napster & Facebook

Ryan Phelan, Founder, DNA Direct

Nick Pritzker, Hyatt Development Corporation

Ed Regis, Writer; What Is Life

Terrence Sejnowski, Computational Neurobiologist, Salk; The Computational Brain

Maria Spiropulu, Physicist, Cern & Caltech

Victoria Stodden, Computational Legal Scholar, Yale Law School

Nassim Taleb, Essayist & Risk Engineer, The Black Swan

Richard Thaler, Behavioral Economist, U. Chicago; Nudge

Craig Venter, Genomics Researcher; CEO, Synthetic Genomics, A Life Decoded

Nathan Wolfe, Biologist, Global Virus Forecasting Initiative

Alexandra Zukerman, Assistant Editor, Edge