Just finished: Alien Ocean

[Kai]

Full title: Alien Ocean: Anthropological voyages in microbial seas. Author: S Helmreich.

This book was an interesting look into human cultural and technological associations with marine microbiology. A large portion of the book was devoted to the bioinformatics people, those that are seeking out new genes for use in biotech industries. I was struck with both how little we know about the oceans and how much money is spent on trying to figure it all out; not only that, but just how CUTTHROAT these people are at getting their hands on the piece of the pie. The bioinformatics industry seems to me like the dotcom industry of the 21st century.

This was less a book about science and more a book about people. The most interesting thing to me was the whole dissolution and "depersonalization" of living things as little units that can be patented and sold like televisions and can openers. What sort of stupid arrogance is it on our part to patent LIFE. And then people like Venter....well, I just think its sorta crazy. Not only is life dissolving by human culture, but we really don't have a clue about the basal branches of the tree. All this lateral gene transfer and viral transfer of genes (especially in the oceans) screws this concept of phylogenetic descent up the wazoo.

There really was more to this book than just biotech, but its the big chunk in the middle. I really liked how the author laid out the cultural implications. In biology, we hardly ever talk about that stuff; I'm so glad to read an outside perspective.

Some other interesting tidbits:

"But I am not a priest for Gaia. Gaia doesn't need priests. Gaia needs scientists."

---Species n. a type of money (aka rebooting old definitions of species to meet the modern movement towards genes as capital)

---Heterotopia n. a very real place that is a mixture of utopia and dystopia. ie, life.

---Hawai'i makes a mess of introduced versus native species definitions due to the cultural significance of certain plants by the Hawaiian peoples.