links for 2009-01-24

"As we develop tools that make it easier for scientists to capture the process of actually doing research, I think that will enable a faster scientific conversation than the current six-month to two-year process."

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"Will synthetic biology improve our lives?

"I think that our cultural understanding of what a machine is will fundamentally change. The machines we build today are completely understandable and predictable. That's why we call them machines. As we get better at engineering biology, maybe that will fall under our understanding of what a machine is. We are biological machines. We might not understand how we work very well yet, but we will. And I think biology is entering a phase in which we can change ourselves for the better."