Criminally under-appreciated Canadian director Vincenzo Natali (Cube) is making a welcome return to the big screen, with Splice.

This clip seems to be the online footage at the moment. 

In fact, the film’s yet to be picked up for distribution - so keep an eye out at your local film festival, it might be your only chance to see it.

You can, however, watch this interview with Natali, where he talks not only Splice, but also his plans to adapt JG Ballard’s High Rise:

Outlaw Biology, present by the UCLA Center for Society and Genetics and Art/Sci, presented a symposium, workshop and exhibition this weekend.

A symposium exploring new forms of public participation in biological research, raising questions and cultivating ideas about how life could and should be studied. Panelists will address issues including do-it-yourself biology, open source science, at home medical genetics, bio-art, and novel ethical engagements with science at the cutting edge. Event schedule includes: Friday, a panelist discussion with artists, scientists and normal people; Saturday, workshops and an open-house exhibition throughout.

A tentative list of workshops and exhibitions included:

1. Bioweathermap, Jason Bobe. With field-trips to the UCLA Arboretum and Hammer Museum (in cooperation with Machine Project

2. Learn to Design a DNA-based nanostructure using cadnano software, Philip Lukeman

3. Paint colorful microbes – luminescent, fluorescent, and pigmented – on do-it-yourself solid media. With a little time and luck, we’ll preserve the painted results in epoxy, like microbiological paintings in amber, Mackenzie Cowell

4. SKDB: Learn to use software tools for open source manufacturing and bioengineering, Bryan Bishop and Ben Lipkowitz

5. Use of Acinetobacter calcoaceticus strain ADP1 as a DIY bioengineering platform, David Metzgar

6. Ars Synthetica: Have an informed, ethical, and open dialogue on the emerging field of synthetic biology, Gaymon Bennett

7. Extract DNA from Strawberries, CSG Staff

8. Lactobacillus Plasmid Recovery and Visualization for fun and profit, Meredith L. Patterson

9. DIY Webcam Microscopy. Join us for a worldwide webcam hacking event and make your own 100x USB microscope for less than $10. We’ll provide the webcams and a live internet feed from other workshop locations across the world, from Bangalore to Australia. Find out more at diybio.org/ucam

10. Velolab, See the first Bicyclized Mobile Biology lab, Sam Starr

In this provocatively titled lecture, from the very aptly named Festival of Dangerous Ideas , Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Professor of Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford and Head of the Melbourne–Oxford Stem Cell Collaboration:

…examines the nature of human beings as products of evolution, in particular their limited altruism, limited co-operative instincts and limited ability to take account of the future consequences of actions. He argues that humans’ biology and psychology are unfit for the kind of society we live in and we must either alter our political institutions, severely restrain our technology or change our nature. Or face annihilation by our own design.

Which is a nice way of saying he makes a strong case for meddling in the genes of our children, and more importantly, can now identify just which ones to tweak.

This is nugenics kids, and it’s shit scary.

(OK, it would be slightly less creepy if he wasn’t wearing his suit jacket like a cape)

Watch on and be afraid;  sooner or later a Government somewhere is going to try this!

The QnA starts mid-way through the second video and is particularly good, in that most of the questions you will have are actually asked by the audience.

thanks to my buddy The Dingo Strategy for the tip-off!

Related:

• Nick Bostrom on existential risks and posthumanity