recent biomed

The status of research physicians, i.e., biomedical researchers who are trained as medical doctors (MD), is an interesting issue in the history of contemporary biomedicine. What makes research physicians so interesting is how their contributions to research compares with scientists who have received 8-10 years of research-oriented training in the BSc – MSc – PhD track, for example in molecular biology, physiology or […]

One of the potentially most interesting workshop titles I’ve seen announced so far this year is ‘Biodigital lives: making, consuming and archiving the lives of technoscience’. The meeting — convened by Kate O’Riordan (Sussex) and Adrian Mackenzie (Lancaster) and hosted by the Centre for the Economic and Social Aspects of Genomics (CESAGen), the Centre for Material Digital Culture and the Centre for Life History and […]

We are currently preparing a small exhibit on the culture and history of proteins and protein research, which is planned to open Friday 4 september in connection with the official opening of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research. The aim of the exhibition — which shall be placed in the main hall of the Faculty of Health Sciences’s Panum building on U Copenhagen North Campus […]

No biomedical lab could function without pipettes — the ‘containment of precision-measured transfer of liquids between containers’, as I use to think of them. Everyone who has a crush on pipettes (and I tell you, there are many of us, as you can see in this Eppendorf video) will just love the new blog Labtutorials in biology. Created by Bálint Bálint (a junior lecturer at […]

Apropos Colin Rennie’s glass sculpture of ATP synthase: visual artist Luke Jerram and glassblower Brian Jones have created these two non-coloured glass sculptures of the smallpox virus. The artwork is based on a number of scientific representations of the virus, and is made in consultation with virologist Andrew Davidson at the University of Bristol. (top right image from here, below from here) […]

One of the great attractions here at Medical Museion right now is Colin Rennie‘s glass sculpture of ATP-synthase. We have placed it in the basement area to the left of the main entrance — we didn’t dare put it on the ground floor because we were afraid the 18th century wooden floor construction would collapse under the 900 780 […]

A new issue of Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science is out — with, among other things, a thematic section about science at the nanoscale edited by Isaac Record. For example, Joachim Schummer points out that science can be popularized by its ethics (engineering ethics is often propaganda for emerging technology); Joe Pitt explores the rhetorical and […]

Our colleagues at the Norwegian Technical Museum in Oslo are opening a new exhibition, Kroppen/Usynlig Verden (The Body/Invisible World) next Friday. Looks like it’s worth a travel! We may be back with a review (or if someone else writes a review, let us know).

Today, the poster for Design4Science got in place in our external showcases. It’s made by the exhibition designer, Shirley Wheeler (see earlier posts). If you are interested in buying a poster, please write to our outreach officer, Bente Vinge Pedersen (bvpn[atsigntoavoidawfulspamrobots]sund.ku.dk). (more photos here) 

Our next temporary exhibition is on its way. Today Shirley Wheeler arrived with her team from Sunderland (UK) to set up Design4Science, which will open next Tuesday. It’s an exhbition about the interface between design and science, more precisely how design has interacted with molecular biology in the last 50 years. How the invisible biomolecular world has […]

I’ve just learnt about a new interesting project called Material Beliefs, which takes emerging biomedical and cybernetic technology out of the laboratories and into public spaces.  Material Beliefs focuses on technologies that blur the boundaries between the body and materials. They are also interested in how design can be used to stimulate discussion about the value of body-material hybridity. Rather than focusing […]

Just a comment triggered by the announcement for the 3rd annual graduate student conference at the Department of Comparative Literature, Stanford University, 10-11 April 2009 on the theme avatars, personae, heteronyms and pseudonyms. The organisers take the Sanskrit word avatāra as their point of departure (in Hindu theology, an avatar is a deity that descends into a lower realm, i.e., what Xians call an incarnation): “How do […]