Stewart Brand

Synthetic Biology’s Future Assembled in Boston Last Weekend

iGEM challenges multidisciplinary student teams to solve real-world problems with entirely new biological systems that they design and build from interchangeable sequences of DNA. The assembly last Monday marked the final segment of the 2014...

What We Learned at Techonomy Bio

Techonomy's offices on Manhattan's West 22d Street have been buzzing ever since our half-day Techonomy Bio conference on June 17. We got an overwhelmingly positive reception for a meeting that brought leading researchers and experts...

Techonomy Bio Debuts June 17 in Mountain View!

At Techonomy we don't launch new events lightly. So Techonomy Bio is a big step. It's a half-day conference the afternoon of Tuesday June 17 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. We're...

Techonomic Top 5: Reanimating the Woolly Mammoth, Facebook Drones, and more

The passenger pigeon became extinct in 1914, though not long before it flew in flocks that could number in the billions (yes, with a "b"). But a group of scientists has teamed up with tech...

Life Sciences: What to Expect in 2014

Now that we have recapped the major trends of 2013, let's look ahead to what will be exciting in 2014 in life sciences. In the past couple years, scientists have gone from the first proof...

A Technoskeptic’s Take: Makers Are Suckers

Do-it-yourselfers with access to advanced tools and technologies are poised to democratize manufacturing, enable a bottom-up industrial revolution, reinvent retail, even remake America—at least that’s been the optimistic take. Evgeny Morozov offers a contrasting negative...

Immortality and Collaboration: Onstage at Techonomy 2013

The Saguaros were vibrating outside the hall in Tucson during Techonomy 2013 last week, such were the energy waves emanating from the stage. Or perhaps the foundation of business was shaking. I don't know. One...

How the ’60s Counterculture Is Still Driving the Tech Revolution

Every innovation starts with an act of insubordination. So said tech entrepreneur, futurist, and scientist Walter de Brouwer. “It starts with saying ‘no,’ with disrespect. If you respect and listen to everything, there is no...

From Homebrew Computers to Biohacking: Innovators of Two Generations

Stewart Brand, president of the Long Now Foundation, joined Eri Gentry, cofounder of the BioCurious hackerspace in Sunnyvale and a research manager at think-tank Institute for the Future, for a wide ranging conversation about “Life...