Craig Venter, king of the genome, has been uncharacteristically quiet for a couple of years since his laboratory created the world’s first synthetic life form, a microbe whose genes were made entirely from inanimate chemicals. But he returned to the scientific limelight this month on a visit to Dublin for the Euroscience Open Forum, during which he gave two public lectures – and updated the FT on plans for “a revolution in synthetic life that is just beginning.”
Board and Patron News
07/13/2012
In the menagerie of Craig Venter’s imagination, tiny bugs will save the world. They will be custom bugs, designer bugs — bugs that only Venter can create.
07/03/2012
CEO of inome Naveen Jain doesn't hire staff, he hires "entrepreneurs" and encourages innovation with an annual iPrize of $100K for the best ideas to move the company forward.
07/03/2012
Incentivized competitions have existed since at least the 1700s when Great Britain offered up a prize to whoever could best measure longitude. Starting in 1996, the X-Prize foundation resurrected the idea, offering up the Ansari X-Prize for the creation of a working private spaceflight vehicle. X-Prize founder and chairman, Dr. Peter Diamandis recently talked to Fortune about his new Nokia X Sensing Challenge and reviving the business of incentivized competitions. The following is a lightly edited transcript.
06/27/2012
Elon Musk just proved that his commercial rocket venture could reach the International Space Station. Now, he wants to show well-heeled motorists on Earth how to navigate without gasoline.
06/22/2012
Peter Diamandis has a perspective that’s too expansive for a single planet. He built his first companies—12 of them—as social and technological thrusters designed to clear the way for human space colonies. Later, as founder of the X Prize Foundation and cofounder of Singularity University, he splashed down to focus on the most pressing problems here on Earth.
05/22/2012
The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off with an unmanned Dragon capsule into dark skies above the the cape at 3:44 a.m. ET — three days after a last-second scrub kept it bolted to the launch pad even as the countdown clock ticked toward zero.
05/16/2012
On May 19, if all goes well, the private spaceflight company SpaceX will launch the first commercial spaceship ever to visit the International Space Station. But the mission will be like no other U.S. flight to the orbiting laboratory.
05/16/2012
The success of the X Prize recently prompted Jain to bring innovation-based contests to his own business. Last year, Intelius held its first-annual "iPrize," a company-wide competition that invites staff to submit ideas for cost-saving measures and new products.
05/08/2012
Whether this turns out to be true or not, Tesla Motors is now poised to build its first semi- affordable car, which puts it between steps one and two of Musk's master plan. By July, the company says it will begin delivering its new Model S sedan, a fully electric vehicle that's being manufactured at Tesla's new factory, in Fremont, California.
