31–40 of 286 posts
The day anyone can get dna-programmable yeast and a reactor to grow it- big pharma is goone. What a nice woody sort of word.
Why not start with spider-silk dresses: https://boltthreads.com/
Synthesizing some simpler drugs sounds feasible even with amateur equipment, but still far from trivial. But I can't see that working reliably without the ability to do proper analytics on all steps. And regular people don't just have an NMR spectrometer at home. Chemical reactions usually don't have a single product, other side reactions are possible. And they also don't use up 100% of the educt, so you have to get…
I've only watched NurdRage videos, but it seems like sending samples to commercial NMR labs is pretty feasible as he does that regularly. So that might not be as big of an issue.
Honest question: What does it even mean to be an anarchist these days? What is the default "anarchist"? Because Wikipedia isn't really helping.
Only took 2 years and ~$22k, but of course, replicating his synthesis would be a little bit easier... for another PhD Chemist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddCuWX4vtOA&list=PLU79801KtV...
Open Insulin @ Counter Culture Labs: https://experiment.com/projects/open-insulin If you want to look at templates for your own immunotherapy, CRISPR, optogenetic tools etc.: https://serotiny.bio/notes/proteins/ Which, once built can be then be ordered as DNA, shapeways-style using: https://serotiny.bio/notes/pinecone/ The cure for certain kinds of blindness, just approved by the FDA yesterday is, in total, a well-de…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
“”” Noam Chomsky: Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal famili…
Vs the classical conservative world view in which order, even if it's unjust, is usually better for everyone, even the people on the bottom, than chaos; and that dismantling power structures, if done suddenly or without care, is more likely to result in chaos than in a new, more just, order. I've been wondering lately if there is room for the notion of a conservative anarchist, who questions hierarchy but dismantles…
Sure! Those are the collaborationists, and are the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
I'm only half-joking, see what happened to the Mensheviks in 1917-1921.
>Then he took another sip from a flute of Taittinger Champagne. What? >Swaggering, charismatic, and complex, Gag me. >Michael Laufer has become a fixture in the growing biohacker movement ever since he published plans last year for a do-it-yourself EpiPencil — a $35 alternative to the pricey EpiPen. That couldn't possibly go wrong, eh? >It’s not clear whether anyone has actually ever used a homemade EpiPencil to prev…
Agreed that the article is a little too flattering to his ego, but what about people desperate for medical aid, can't afford it, and would probably end up with pain/death without this as an alternative? What should they do?
That seems both super dangerous, and super awesome. It's not something that we should have to consider. But this is the world we live in, now; legitimate supply lines of life-saving medicine have collapsed for a fair number of people. I understand why people might be troubled by someone actively going out and advocating this as opposed to simply making the information available, but if you're offered medicine with 95…
When drug companies issue patents, do they not also publicise production methods?
The real issue is probably that there are so many moving parts, especially when you get to the more complex drugs (e.g. antibodies). You would have to go through a million patents to find all the information required to create the actual molecule and also get it in a state to put into your body.
And even with all the information, it is unlikely anyone is sufficiently resourced (whether it's money, tools, or know-how) to actually make something viable.
That seems both super dangerous, and super awesome. It's not something that we should have to consider. But this is the world we live in, now; legitimate supply lines of life-saving medicine have collapsed for a fair number of people. I understand why people might be troubled by someone actively going out and advocating this as opposed to simply making the information available, but if you're offered medicine with 95…
The cost of medicine I require to be functional enough to hold down a job has risen so much that the copay is the equivalent of the entire out-of-pocket cost from a few years ago. The medication was discovered in 1969. The application method, which is the shitty excuse for the patents protecting its $2,200/month price tag, was first approved for use by the FDA in 1979. The drug has been for sale in it's current form…
This is what government granted monopolies look like.