Designing Life
Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen
PRX
4.6 • 675 Ratings
🗓️ 29 December 2016
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From "Semi-Living Dolls" to glowing florescent illustrations, artists are using the tools of synthetic biology to grow their own materials and create works of art that are, essentially, alive. It’s one thing to wag our fingers at big scientific institutions for "playing God," but isn't it uncool to tell artists they shouldn't do something, even if it creeps us out?
(Originally aired May 28, 2015)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From PRX. |
| 0:06.4 | Studio 360. |
| 0:12.0 | In today's show, we're looking at how science and art and culture are forging a new discipline, the design of life. |
| 0:21.4 | Synthetic biology used to be completely the stuff of science fiction |
| 0:25.7 | or of huge corporations on the super secret down low. |
| 0:29.8 | But today, it's pretty easy for amateur biologists to tinker with DNA on the cheap |
| 0:35.9 | without the regulatory oversight or the ethical |
| 0:39.3 | standards constraining bona fide scientists. It's exciting territory we're entering for better or worse |
| 0:46.4 | uncharted territory and a lot of artists are leading the way. Synthetic biology is that rare |
| 0:53.4 | scientific field in which the real work being done |
| 0:56.5 | is actually we'reder than what we've seen in movies, on TV. The Hollywood formula for dealing |
| 1:04.2 | with this subject has come in two basic archetypes. First, there's the freaky lone Genius. Dr. Frankenstein meets Dr. Moreau. |
| 1:13.5 | Usually, these guys have been exiled from the scientific community because their ideas are too |
| 1:19.1 | extreme. Among the most interesting recent examples was the 2009 film Splice. |
| 1:25.6 | Sarah Polly and Adrian Brody play a pair of renegade scientists |
| 1:29.4 | who makes animal and human DNA |
| 1:31.7 | into a creature they treat as a child, |
| 1:35.1 | even though this creature |
| 1:37.1 | is emotionally raw and |
| 1:39.1 | dangerous. |
| 1:41.4 | Get you smile for me? |
| 1:45.1 | You know I love you, don't you? |
... |
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