Author: karlschmieder

Notes from SynBioBeta SF 2014

I spent last Friday at SynBioBeta’s annual synthetic biology conference. I attended to meet company founders for a book I’m writing and to help my existing clients better understand this field and how it might impact them. Here’s my notes from the conference: According to Rob Carlson, author of Biology is Technology, total biotechnology revenues […]

What!? DNA Extraction and Replication in Captain Underpants? Yes, It’s True.

I love it when my boys are exposed to the next generation of biotechnology in fiction. So I was surprised and very happy when I came across a mention in Dav Pilkey’s “eleventh epic” Captain Underpants and the Tyrannical Retaliation of the Turbo Toilet 2000. This section even involves DNA extraction and replication, with mention […]

Three Pool Rhumba – Now Available

For some, the technologies to bioengineer skateboards exist today. But when biohacked boards and living wheels ride the sentient pools will new issues arise? What if you believe, fundamentally, that synthetic biology goes against the laws of nature? Three Pool Rhumba provides six brief glimpses of a world inhabited by skateboarders and biohackers. Enjoy your […]

On the F-Train

She’s carrying her new eyeballs in a Styrofoam box on the crowded uptown F train, is jostled, drops the box and it opens, eyeballs rolling zig-zag across the floor, hitting heels and sandal-clad feet, eliciting loud “Ohmigods” and “What the?” as she screams “My eyes!”

Things that influenced me this week – March 21, 2014 edition

This was a busy week of completing projects, starting new ones, trying out new tools, and being exposed to a lot of information. In particular: This week I made the trek to New York’s Javits Center for the annual Interphex show. Interphex (the International Pharmaceutical Expo) brings together the manufacturers that make the biopharmaceutical industry […]

The Pool at 4 PM (excerpt)

My father’s pool is, was, and always will be –– all skaters agree –– absurd. The pale blue surface is very hard, durable, very fast, and sentient. The coping is a great grindable bullnose. The shape is a perfect kidney, just under nine-feet deep. To ride the pool from one lip to the other across […]

Unintended Consequences

You may know the Viagra story. The one where Pfizer scientists synthesized Sildenafil to treat hypertension but during the first clinical trials found it didn’t work. Instead, they observed the compound an interesting side effect. The story continues with Pfizer essentially creating a new disease and marketing the first oral treatment for that disease – […]