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Civil Society and the Politics of Nano-Scale Converging Technologies
Published in Kamilla Lein Kjølberg, Fern Wickson, Nano Meets Macro, 2019
Concerns about ‘extreme monopoly’ extend to synthetic biology. In December 2007 ETC Group revealed that Craig Venter’s research team is filing patent claims on a wide swath of synthetic biology in an attempt to become the ‘Microbesoft’ of synthetic life (ETC Group 2007b). The claims extend to virtually any genome that has been partly or wholly modified using synthetic DNA, whether ‘substantially identical’ to a natural genome or not. In the words of Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, Tom Knight, “This is extremely serious. If the claims were to be granted, it’s like saying ‘we own life’” (ETC Group 2007b, p. 1). Venter’s scientific team is hoping to make history by announcing the creation of the world’s first-ever human-made species – a bacterium made entirely with synthetic DNA in the laboratory. Although Venter’s team has already applied for worldwide patents on the synthetic bacterium, it remains a theoretical achievement to date. Venter claims that his synthetic biology company, Synthetic Genomics, Inc., will ultimately create commercial microbes that produce drugs, chemicals and fuels. In 2007 he told Business Week, “If we made an organism that produced fuel, that could be the first billion - or trillion-dollar organism. We would definitely patent that whole process” (Sheridan 2007). The World Intellectual Property Organization published the Venter Institute’s patent application claiming a hydrogen-producing bacterium in late November 2008.
Public Opinion, Public Perception, and Public Understanding
Published in Susanna Hornig PriestCRC, Nanotechnology and the Public, 2017
The distinction between life and nonlife—a distinction that is deeply engrained in many cultural traditions and reflected in familiar phrases such as “the sanctity of life”—was strongly challenged by biotechnology. It is currently being challenged further by developments in synthetic biology and synthetic genomics, techniques that promise to give us the power to actually create life from nonlife. Synthetic genomics researchers have been combining genes from completely unrelated organisms for a number of years, producing garden slugs and even pigs turned yellow by a jellyfish gene. This goes well beyond what “conventional” genetic modification techniques can generally do; the researcher has much more control over the processes involved because they can literally manufacture the necessary genetic material. These researchers have already created self-replicating life by artificially producing strands of DNA that are then inserted into a living cell, creating a new and previously nonexistent type of one-cell organism that is then capable of reproduction (Fox 2010).
The effect of three new biodiesel feedstocks (second-generation) on the performance and emissions of diesel engines
Published in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects, 2020
Farid Jafarihaghighi, Mehdi Ardjmand, Hasanali Bahrami, Mehrdad Mirzajanzadeh, Mohammad Salar Hassani
There are four generations of biofuels in the world. Rapeseeds, soybeans, and palm oils are some of the first generations of biodiesels (Ahmad et al. 2011). The leading problems of this group of biofuel are related to their effect on food security in the world. Non-edible feedstocks are the second generation of biofuels. Some of them are mahua, salmonoil, seamango, jatropha, jojoba, and tobacco seed. Some of the advantages of this generation are that they are more environmentally friendly, more efficient, have no effect on human food, require less farmland, grow in wastelands, have higher cetane number, noncorrosive qualities, clean and renewable properties, and etc. (Ashraful et al. 2016). Microalgae, animal fat, waste frying oil, pyrolysis oil, and fish oil are considered as the third generation source of biofuel. The price of production of this generation is superior to other sources. Genetic engineering is applied by Synthetic Genomics Company in the production of large scale biofuel, which is considered as the fourth generation of biofuels (Abdullah et al. 2019). The most common procedure for their production is transesterification. This is more common compared to other ways, such as direct use and blending, microemulsion, and thermal cracking (pyrolysis) because the high purity methyl ester is obtained by the transesterification of vegetable oils with the methanol and alkaline catalyst (Yusuf, Kamarudin, and Yaakub 2011).