It’s another first for Dr. Craig Venter, the world’s leading human genome research biologist. Released in the January 24th issue of Science, a team of 17 researchers at his J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) has created the largest man-made DNA structure. By synthesizing the 582,970 base pair genome of a bacterium, Mycoplasma genitalium, JCVI has completed the second of three steps necessary to create the kinds of synthetic organisms that might one day recycle carbon using a modified photosynthesis process.

The third and final step will be for the JCVI team to create a living bacterial cell based entirely on this synthetically made genome. Speaking at Pop!Tech in 2006, Dr. Venter said this whole process would take two years, and the team seems well on their way. Whether genes move swiftly to become the design components of the future, as Venter suggests, or the field becomes logjammed by skeptics, he’s poised to be a leader for years to come.

You can read the press release here, and see pictures of the organism here.

Peggy Shea Andrews

While talk of AIDS has become nothing but white noise for many, Zinhle Thabethe, a counselor working on the frontlines of the South African HIV epidemic, is taking action. Through home visits, working with AIDS orphans, educating nurses and doctors, and singing in the internationally acclaimed HIV-positive Sinikithemba Choir, Zinny’s goal is to fight stigma by raising awareness, and to ensure that people with HIV get plugged into treatment and stay on treatment – all in one of the most resource-constrained environments in the world.

Now, National Geographic is recognizing Zinny’s extraordinary contributions by naming her one of the 2008 class of Emerging Explorers – individuals who represent the next generation of world-changing talent from many different fields.

We continue to work with Zinny and her colleague, Dr. Krista Dong of iTeach, on Project Masiluleke, a Pop!Tech Accelerator project focused on using mobile devices to improve HIV care in South Africa and beyond. And we join in congratulating Zinny on her National Geographic nomination.

Just because we civilians have to suffer through meals of stringy beef and stale chicken onflights doesn’t mean that astronauts must tolerate the same.

Even at zero-g, space explorers can get hankerings for something a bit more interesting. This summer, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) unveiled 29 Japanese food products to be used on the International Space Station.

More on the menu here.

But the food of the future sure looks a lot like those pureed fruit bags that caused quite a stir at Pop!Tech 2006.

Our friends at Trollback + Company were selected as winners in PRINT’s A+C=D Business Graphics Review for their Court TV outdoor-advertising campaign and 2006 Pop!Tech conference graphics. The review recognizes the best in design work done for corporate clients across the globe, from print ads and corporate identities to animated short films, websites, interactive games and more.

Trollback’s work will be featured in the September/October 2007 issue of Print Magazine.

Last weekend, new media artist and Pop!Tech 2006 speaker Hasan Elahi was interviewed on NPR’s Studio 360 hosted by Kurt Andersen about Hasan’s website art project, Tracking Transcience.

The website has tracked Hasan’s life in all its mundane glory, in real time, for more than 5 years now. He began the project in response to his experience in an airport where he was wrongly identified and detained as a terrorist and was constrained to report on all of his whereabouts and movements on the days around 9/11 to the FBI. After he was freed of all charges, he decided to voluntarily track his movements online.

Pop!Tech Host and Curator, Andrew Zolli is also on the program to discuss the impact of Hasan’s work and its context in a world with a changing view of privacy.

Listen to it here on iTunes, or visit the Studio 360 website and listen to the episode online.

AND stay tuned for Hasan’s upcoming Pop!Tech Pop!Cast of his 2006 presentation. Check Pop!Tech Pop!Casts for more information.

This weekend, Pop!Tech Balladeer Jonathan Coulton was featured in the New York Times Magazine article “Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog” . The article describes how the internet and social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook, Friendster) have changed the relationship between musician and fan. Rock stars need MySpace pages, blog entries, and they need to respond to fan-emails because–they need the fans. Today fans are expecting all these things. No wonder Jonathan has become a poster-boy for this New Music Paradigm. Besides being an extremely approachable human being, he is also a decidedly accessible rock star as well. In fact, his accessibility has become something of a vocation for him.

He says: “People always think that when you’re a musician you’re sitting around strumming your guitar, and that’s your job,” he said. “But this” - he clicked his keyboard theatrically - “this is my job.”

Jonathan’s a kind of Internet Superstar. While standard means of sales and distribution such as retail CD sales, top 20 radio play or MTV appearances still prevail, the Internet has spurned a whole new channel for reaching audiences and has also created a new metric for determining popularity. Jonathan currently has 5,359 MySpace Friends alone - writing notes to him, emailing with him and, more often than not, getting a response back from him. Not too shabby!

Right now, “Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog” is the #2 most-emailed article on the newspaper’s site, which translates to a spike in traffic to
Coulton’s blog at www.jonathancoulton.com

The article is also chock full o’ links to videos of Coulton’s songs and a great NY Times exclusive “Decoding Code Monkey“.

Check out Jonathan’s Pop!Tech Pop!Cast of his perfomance at the conference last year.

On the heels of Brian Eno’s Pop!Cast, we are releasing his session-mate Will Wright’s presentation. He discusses how we can understand the complexities of the world around us by understanding its underlying simplicity.

Also released today, Bob Freling, Executive Director of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) explains how bringing solar energy to remote villages can be a key to promoting health, education and economic growth in developing worlds.

Will Wright

Bob Freling

You can watch more Pop!Tech Pop!Casts at www.poptech.org/popcasts.

We also encourage you to share these Creative Commons-licensed videos on
your website, blog or other video website. If you do, please let us know
at info@poptech.org.

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City will be opening a new exhibit that explores designs made for individuals and communities of the Global South. “Design For The Other 90%” runs from May 4th to September 23rd 2007.

One of the designs that will be featured is the much-discussed “Life Straw” and other products that were featured at Pop!Tech 2006.
The exhibit will focus on water, shelter, health and sanitation, education, energy and transportation.

While at the museum, you can also check out the Design Triennial where the design for the Ipuli Medical Center is featured. (See previous Pop!Tech blog entry here)

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
2 East 91st Street
New York , NY 10128

It’s been about over a week since we have made our very first batch of Pop!Tech Pop!Casts available online and we’ve had some great movement since then.

We are featured on the homepage of iTunes, we’ve been linked around the web (Thanks to everyone who have been moved to write about the release of the Pop!Casts). All in all - not a bad start. And that was only with our first 22 podcasts.

We have two more to share with you today:

Brian Eno - Musician, producer and artist Brian Eno shows how simple things can give rise to complex things—in art and life. See how he uses Darwin’s ecological model of the world as a roadmap for human culture now and in the future.

(I still admire him for his lovely purple velvet jacket)

Rodrigo y Gabriela - The Mexican acoustic guitar duo sensation Rodrigo y Gabriela put fast fingers to strings for a performance that will put you on your feet and keep you moving. There’s no better way to say it: they rock!

(They inspired me to pick up my guitar again, but I quickly realized that my playing compared to theirs is like those of a monkey with socks on its hands)

There are also some new features on the Pop!Casts page to make it easier to share these amazing talks and performances with your friends. Now you can send an email, share a permalink or embed the Yahoo! Video player on your website or blog.

Enjoy! And there is PLENTY more to come.

Last month, at the Design Indaba conference in Cape Town, South Africa, there seemed to be a veritable Pop!Tech reunion. Brian Eno was one of the speakers at the design conference and had personally invited Reggie Watts to perform at the closing of the conference.

Watch Reggie try his hand at some traditional African dancing and some “not-so-traditional” moves.

Brian Eno Enjoys South Africa on Vimeo

Reggie recently sent over a video clip of his gallivanting about town with Eno (who is holding up a video camera and in yet another sharp suit) and in the background you can see Alex Steffen and Cameron Sinclair, other Pop!Tech alums.

Watching this clip never fails to make me smile.

And don’t forget to check out Reggie’s Pop!Cast of his amazing performance at Pop!Tech 2006 and a bevy of other Pop!Tech presentations from 2006 and 2005..

AND don’t for get to check out the recording, ANTIBABEL, that Reggie Watts and Yungchen Lhamo made exclusively for Pop!Tech and to promote sustainability in rural Tibet via the Machik organization. You can purchase the CD HERE.