A history and future of digital and biological technology, with Jane Metcalfe

Deviate with Rolf Potts

“We need positive visions of how all this technology gets deployed, because what we visualize is what we build.” –Jane Metcalfe

In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jane talk about the pioneering work she did with Wired during the dawn of the “digital revolution” (3:00); how and why Jane’s professional focus shifted away from digital issues and into food and health issues in the ’00s (15:00); how science is trying to bring in diverse new data points and communication models to improve holistic health worldwide (28:30); how the health of the world’s humans is not separate from the health of the world’s animals, plants, and microorganisms, and how a bio-economy seeks to harness rather than extract the resources of nature (41:00); how regional and cultural differences affect how we perceive health, nutrition, and technology, and the importance of ethics in making scientific decisions (51:00).

Jane Metcalfe (@janemetcalfe) is the co-founder of Wired Magazine, and the chair of the Human Immunome Project, a global non-profit working to decode the immune system in order to transform how we prevent, diagnose, and treat disease.

Notable Links:

• Notes from a peripatetic salon across northern Thailand (Deviate episode)
• Hotwired (first commercial online magazine)
• HotBot (early web search engine)
• Louis Rossetto (writer, editor, and entrepreneur)
• Neuromancer, by William Gibson (science fiction novel)
• Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson (science fiction novel)
• Cyberpunk (subgenre of science fiction)
• Electric Word (technology magazine)
• Digital Revolution (shift from mechanical to electronic technologies)
• Ethernet (computer networking technology)
• proto.life (newsletter covering the neobiological revolution)
• Neo.Life: 25 Visions for the Future of Our Species, by Jane Metcalfe (book)
• The Non-GMO Project (non-profit organization)
• David Eagleman (neuroscientist)
• Human genome (complete set of nucleic acid sequences for humans)
• Immunome (code set for proteins that constitute the immune system)
• Single-cell sequencing (context-driven technique for studying cells)
• Microbiome (community of microorganisms in a habitat)
• One Health (interdisciplinary approach to ecological health)
• Zoonotic disease (disease than can jump from non-humans to humans)
• Bioeconomy (use of biotechnology in the production of goods)
• CRISPR gene editing (technique to modify genomes of living organisms)
• Bioengineering (application of biology to create products)
• Interbeing (philosophical concept in Zen Buddhism)
• iGEM (worldwide synthetic biology competition)
• Gene drive (technology of genetic engineering)
• CRISPRcon (gene editing technology conference)
• Kevin Kelly (author and futurist)

The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber.

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