#BioTech

[orangeteastudying]

Biochemistry and the best Peach I've ever had

Bioquímica y el mejor durazno que comí en mí vida

[wikipediapictures]

Protein sequencing

“A Beckman-Coulter Porton LF3000G protein sequencer.” - via Wikimedia Commons

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Robin Sloan’s “Moonbound”

On June 20, I'm keynoting the LOCUS AWARDS in OAKLAND.

Robin Sloan has a well-deserved reputation as a sparkly, fizzy writer, the kind of person who can tell a smart/smartass story infused with fantasy-genre whimsy but grounded in high-tech, contemporary settings (think here of Charlie Jane Anders' gorgeous All the Birds In the Sky):

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/01/26/charlie-jane-anderss-all-the-birds-in-the-sky-smartass-soulful-novel/

In Moonbound, a new, wildly ambitious solarpunk novel published today by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, Sloan moves out of his usual, daffy, high-tech/high-weird Bay Area milieu and catapults us 11,000 years into the future, to a world utterly transformed and utterly fascinating:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374610609/moonbound

Moonbound's protagonist is a "chronicler," a symbiotic fungus engineered to nestle in a human's nervous system, where it serves as a kind of recording angel, storing up the memories, experiences and personalities of its host. When we meet the chronicler, it has just made a successful leap from its old host – a 10,000-years-dead warrior who had been preserved in an anaerobic crashpod ever since her ship was shot out of the sky – into the body of Ariel, a 12-year-old boy who had just invaded the long-lost tomb.

This is quite a move. This long-dormant, intelligent fungus originates a thousand years into our own future, long after the climate emergency had been (miraculously, joyously) averted and has arrived in a world ten millennia years even further down the line. It must orient itself from its position inside the nervous system of a 12-year-old, and we have to orient ourselves to having an 11,000-year-distant future explained by an intelligent fungus from 1,000 years into our own future.

This is doing fiction in hard mode, and Sloan nails it. The unraveling strangeness of Ariel's world is counterpointed with the amazing tale of the world the chronicler hails from, even as the chonicler consults with the preserved personalities of the heroes and warriors it had previous resided in and recorded.

And in this curious way, we learn of the history of the chronicler's world, and of the strange world so far into the future that Ariel lives in – and becomes incredible consequential to.

Start with the chronicler's world: on the way to solving the climate emergency, the human race figured out how to cooperate on unimaginably massive projects (for example, addressing the world's runaway carbon problem). This pays huge dividends, ushering in a period of thrilling innovation, as humans and the nonhuman intelligences they have constructed collaborate to explore out planet, our solar system, and – thanks to a faster-than-light breakthrough – our galaxy.

A crew of seven are dispatched to the ends of space with great fanfare – but when they return, they are terrified and full of grim purpose. Something they met out there in the galaxy has convinced them that humanity must never look to the stars again. They blanket the planet in a cloak of dust and establish a garrison on the moon from which they destroy any attempts to leave the Earth.

This triggers a savage war against these seven "dragons" and their moonbase. The chronicler's warrior – the one who was entombed for 10,000 years before being discovered by Ariel – was shot down on a last-ditch attempt to destroy the dragons and their base on the moon.

Flash forward 10,000 years. Ariel lives in a weird, medieval-type village, albeit one in which the peasant-types all wear high-tech performance all-weather gear…and the animals all talk. It's a very strange place – there's a sword in a stone, a wizard in a tower…and an airstrip.

Even as the chronicler is trying to make sense of this anachronistic muddle, Ariel is marching towards his destiny. In short order, he finds himself in fear for his life, and then – for the first time in his life or the life of any other villager – Ariel leaves the village.

This kicks off the road-trip part of the novel, a real bildungsroman that sees Ariel, the chronicler, and a whole Wizard-of-Oz's worth of road pals (including a rusty tin-man type robot who is part of a hive mind of thousands of other robots all over the world; oh and a talking beaver) (oh, and a dead guy) (and there's an elk with a symbiotic beehive in its antlers that dribbles a stead stream of honey down its muzzle).

My editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden once articulated a theory of how science fiction works: you have the world, which is a kind of grand thought experiment, and you have a protagonist, who is a kind of microcosm of that world. Think of the world as this big, heavy gear, and the character as a much-faster-spinning gear that meshes with the world, spinning and spinning, pushing the world inchingly around a full revolution:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/26/aislands/#dead-ringers

The chronicler is a perfect microcosm of this strange world, where dozens of great civilizations have arisen and fallen – the ruins of a great society of hyperintelligent rats turns out to be very useful on one part of Ariel's quest – and where the dragons brood overall, a menace in the sky that the Earth's inhabitants have all but forgotten, but whom the chronicler can't ignore.

Sloan is really having a lot of fun with his talking animals; his transdimensional gods; his space-maddened, murderous lunar AIs. On the way, he's doing all kinds of really cool tricks – like asking us to really sit with the idea of giving moral consideration to the nonhuman world, including "beings" we currently think of as inanimate objects. This is a great riff:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/07/more-than-human/#umwelt

Sloan's debut novel, Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, mixed the tropes and sensibilities of tech culture with a beautiful, escapist fantasy, a "curious little magic shop" tale that was absolutely delightful:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/11/16/mr-penumbras-24-hour-bookstore-the-perfect-nerdish-fantasy/

And with Sourdough, Sloan's second book, he took that same fascination with the numinous (and with nerdy, obsessive hobbies) to the microscopic plane, with a tale of microorganisms and mystery:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/05/sourdough-a-delicious-story-about-nerdism-and-the-flesh-by-robin-mr-penumbra-sloan/

Moonbound delivers Sloan's third – and best! – fusion of fantasy and science fiction, delving deep into the meaning of personhood, language and moral agency with a road-trip story that visits a dazzling collection of wildly imaginative settings and societies in an epic quest to slay the dragons on the moon.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/11/penumbraverse/#middle-anth

[whereserpentswalk]

[turbofanatic]

"Why's the bounty so high?"

That's not important.

"If you want me to do this, I'm going to need more information."

... She stole something.

"What the hell did she steal to get that kind of bounty?"

Something priceless.

[bellatrizrigel-thecat]

some artwork

One of them is my November pfp and I just pretended Punk was in a dress instead of pants for funsies

[nando161mando]

What stage of capitalism is this?

[deadddreamers]

just some BioTech cuddles <3

VOTE FOR CAMERON !

@tmnt-ocxcanon-comp

[leresq]

The woolly mouse is adorable and so are the puppies that look like dire wolves, but can we stop now? Can we please stop? We don't need mammoths. We don't need dire wolves. They don't have anywhere to live, their niche in the ecosystem doesn't exist anymore. Please don't make dinosaurs I see where you're looking. No. Do not make the torment nexus. We have way better stuff to apply biotech to.

[orangeteastudying]

Reading more papers and having breakfast

Leyendo más papers y tomando el desayuno

[buggbuzz]

doodles abt research lab stuff from the other day. i think we're cursed

[mysteryterror]

i just need somebody. someday to relate too about this science and writer/artist career decisions. i haven't met a person who lived these two lives and i feel so alone in my struggle. i want to get serious in both. i have dreams about a creative studios and science labs. the teamwork in the creative and science industries makes me so excited. yet i can't choose. i want to advance both skills. i dont want to put them to the sides. i want to create art and story something i can feel proud of while still wanting to learn about the beauties of the world and help others

i know im not alone. i just want to talk with someone living through this and not just someone who goes: "oh yeah do science for the money" when they havent described their expierences!

this anxiety has been ruining my social life! its ruining my brain! i just want help

[reachartwork]

more discarded scaffolding

[rainydetectiveglitter]

Stock Market Predictions – March 2025

March is a volatile period for financial markets, driven by Mercury retrograde, Venus retrograde, and significant planetary shifts. Expect uncertainty, emotional reactions, and market corrections.

Key Influences on Markets

Mercury Retrograde in Aries (March 15) Market Effect: Increased volatility, misinformation, and sudden reversals. Traders may overreact to news, causing erratic price swings. Sectors Affected: Technology, startups, transportation, and communication stocks face confusion or slowdowns.

Venus Retrograde in Aries (Throughout March, enters Pisces on March 27) Market Effect: Investor sentiment weakens; money flows slow down. Sectors Affected: Luxury goods, beauty, and entertainment stocks may underperform. However, Venus entering Pisces later supports pharmaceuticals, wellness, and water-related industries.

Mars in Cancer (Defensive Market Mood) Market Effect: Investors act emotionally rather than rationally. High volatility in commodities (oil, agriculture) and housing markets. Sectors Affected: Real estate, food, and defensive stocks (utilities, healthcare) may gain traction as investors seek security.

Jupiter in Gemini (Expanding Speculation) Market Effect: Speculative trading increases, particularly in tech and AI sectors. News-driven price surges are common. Sectors Affected: Tech, AI, digital communication, and online media stocks benefit.

Saturn in Pisces (Liquidity Concerns, Debt Issues) Market Effect: Possible concerns about economic stability or rising debt levels. Government interventions may be needed to stabilize markets. Sectors Affected: Banking, finance, and lending institutions could experience challenges.

Uranus in Taurus (Still Shaking Financial Systems, Crypto Markets in Focus) Market Effect: Ongoing disruption in banking, fintech, and cryptocurrency sectors. Unpredictable price swings in Bitcoin and altcoins.

Neptune in Pisces (Market Speculation & Illusions, Enters Aries on March 30) Market Effect: Sentiment-driven rallies in speculative assets; potential for misleading economic data. Sectors Affected: Oil, pharmaceuticals, biotech, and alternative medicine stocks benefit.

Pluto in Aquarius (Big Tech & AI Revolutions, but Retrograde in May) Market Effect: Transformational shifts in technology, AI, and automation. However, Pluto’s upcoming retrograde in May may trigger regulatory concerns.

March 2025 Market Summary

Early March: Market optimism despite Venus retrograde; speculation runs high.

Mid-March (Mercury Retrograde Begins): Sharp volatility, misinformation, and market corrections.

Late March (Venus Enters Pisces, Neptune in Aries): Market stabilizes slightly, with a shift toward pharma, biotech, and defensive sectors.

[girlsdressingrooms]

T-Rex Leather !

Creative agency VML, genomic engineering leader The Organoid Company, and biotech innovator Lab-Grown Leather Ltd. have joined forces to develop the world’s first T-Rex leather—a cruelty-free, eco-friendly alternative to traditional leather crafted from the DNA of one of history’s most formidable predators.

The process begins with The Organoid Company reconstructing T-Rex DNA sequences, which are then engineered into a custom cell line. These cells are integrated into Lab-Grown Leather’s Advanced Tissue Engineering Platform (ATEP™), where they self-assemble into a scaffold-free leather structure.

Unlike other bio-based alternatives that rely on synthetic scaffolds, this method allows cells to form their own natural matrix, resulting in a material that is structurally identical to traditional leather—only stronger and more sustainable.