Our Common Flowers / Flowers Commons project is currently (and until March 2011) on display at the Z33 in Hasselt, Belgium as part of the fantastic Alter Nature exhibition.
Karen Verschooren, the shows curator, send us these pictures yesterday. The flowers seem to like to atmosphere there at Z33 and are sprouting vigorously; that the are even going to bloom is a very nice surprise. But we can not take credit for their blooming, as it all in the masterful green hands of Greet Clerx from the University of Hasselt. Many thanks, Karen. Many thanks Greet.

Cover: The Synthetic Kingdom: A Natural History of the Synthetic Future. © 2009 Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg How will we classify what is natural or unnatural when life is built from scratch? We’ll have to add an extra branch to the Tree of Life. The Synthetic Kingdom is part of our new nature.
http://www.daisyginsberg.com
Produced at the Royal College of Art, London.

Just been browsing the NAR – as one usually does – when I came across a special issue on Synthetic Biology. There’s an interesting editorial by James J. Collins, Drew Endy, Clyde A. Hutchison III and Richard J. Roberts introducing and framing Synthetic Biology.
Key points:

• Genetic engineering is Synthetic Biology
• Engineers struggled to deal with complex biological system
• Creating genetic analogs of basic electronic circuits
• Synthetic Biology = improve process of engineering biology, produce specific biotechnology products
• Bringing Science and Engineering together, at the intersections of chemistry, physics, biology and engineering.

And the nice thing about the Nuclear Acids Review Journal is it’s free access. Other journals, take note and emulate.

Anyways, well done, Daisy, well done, Tony, well done, RCA.

http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/content/vol38/issue8/cover.dtl