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Monthly Archives

August 2005

Conference: "Genomics in Context"

By Biomedicine in museums

“Genomics no longer casts genes as the blueprint that determines traits of humans, animals or plants. Rather genes are seen as “contextual” or as part of an interactive network that encompasses the genome, the cell, the organism and the natural and social environment”

Conference: “Genomics in Context”, 28th-30th September, 2005, ESRC Centre for Genomics in Society, University of Exeter, U.K.

The programme for our forthcoming international conference ‘Genomics in Context’ is now available (subject to minor changes). The conference will be launched by an open access keynote address by bestselling author Matt Ridley and closes with keynote lectures by Prof Stephen Hilgartner and Prof Joan Fujimura. The full programme with details of further plenary lectures and of all abstracts submitted can be found at:
http://www.centres.ex.ac.uk/egenis/events/genomicsincontext/index.htm. Although the deadline for submission of abstracts has passed, spaces are still available for delegates to attend the conference. Special students rates are available, and online registration is possible on the website.

National Museum of Health and Medicine's new exhibit

By Biomedicine in museums

Flesh & Bones, the online newsletter of National Museum of Health and Medicine, Wash. DC, writes in their August-September 2005-issue:

National Museum of Health and Medicine announces the opening of its newest exhibition: “Penelope: The World’s First Autonomous, Vision-guided, Intelligent, Robotic, Surgical Instrument Server.” A robotic scrub nurse assistant with speech recognition, machine vision, and robotic arm path planning and targeting, Penelope was developed by Robotic Surgical Tech, Inc., a Columbia University spin-out enterprise … Penelope is comprised of 4 major hardware and software components: the robotic arm, the instrument platform, the system stand and the system control software.

Read more.: http://www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum/news/robotic_surgical.html

Will biomedicine transform society?

By Biomedicine in museums

Those interested in the recent history of biomedicine shouldn’t miss Nikolas Rose’s Clifford Barcley Lecture “Will biomedicine transform society?” held at the LSE in February 2005. Below is the abstract; the whole paper is available through this link.

Will biomedicine transform society? The political, economic, social, and personal impact of medical advances in the twenty-first century
Every day our news media report some wonderful new advance in biomedicine – new reproductive technologies to give hope to the infertile and allow parents to ‘design’ their children, new stem cell treatments for spinal cord injuries and Alzheimer’s ‘just around the corner’, new ways of screening our genomes for susceptibilities to illness, new pharmaceuticals that will not just alleviate our depression but make us happier and smarter, drugs that might further extend the life expectancy of those in the wealthy west. How should we evaluate this complex mixture of hype and hope in relation to health? Beyond the hype, what will Read More

The "Body World" Wars

By Biomedicine in museums

Nu bekriger “body world”-udstillingerne hinanden: ifølge Florida-avisen Skt. Petersburg Times cirkulerer der i øjeblikket et tital udstillinger á la Günther van Hagen’s i USA — og van Hagen’s firma, Plastination Inc., lægger nu sag an mod én af dem, fordi han mener at den bryder imod hans ophavsret. Ikke på kropperne i sig selv, men den måde han udstiller dem på.
(tak til Erik Stattin, som fik den fra http://onthecommons.org/node/652)

Book reviews

By Biomedicine in museums

Here is a blog experiment — putting other people’s published reviews of books of interest for the recent-biomedicine project on the blog (in the password protected area, of course, to avoid breaking copyright). All reviewed book will be ordered to the library. Here are three recent reviews from Nature and one from Science. If you find a relevant review, clip-and-paste it into a blog post (and remember to password protect it; password is “novo” Read More

Call for papers: Special issue (of Journal of the History of the Neurosciences) on the history and aesthetics of visual images and visualization

By Biomedicine in museums

Call for Papers: Special issue on the history and aesthetics of visual images and visualization (for Journal of the History of the Neurosciences):

Physical images and cognitive visualization offer two frames of reference for thinking about the history and development of neuroscience. The images of neurological illustration, for example, constitute a sourcebook on early medical theories. We can also identify a body of images that articulate how cultural beliefs influenced conclusions about behavior and learning as they relate to anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, the brain and our nervous system. Similarly, today’s neuroscientific images are inextricably linked to the idea that neuroscience is a visual science and lead us to seek for intersections among neuroscience, art and the visual brain. Visualization, on the other hand, has fostered mental constructions and cognitive diagrams related to neural operations. Read More

What is biomedicine?

By Biomedicine in museums

The term ‘biomedicine’ is (surprise, surprise) central to this project. But it is somewhat ambiguous, as Alberto Cambrosio and Peter Keating pointed out in their historical review of the term in Chapter 3 of Biomedical Platforms (2003). Viviane Quirke’s recent report from the symposium ‘The era of biomedicine: science, technology and health in France and Great Britain, 1945-1975’ held in Oxford last spring gives a summary of the problem of defining the term ‘biomedicine’. Even more useful in this respect is Quirke’s discussion of Jean-Paul Gaudilliere’s concept of ‘biomedical complex’ in her review in Studies in history and philosophy of science. Part C. Studies in history and philosophy of biological and biomedical sciences, vol. 35, ss. 765-76 (2004) (electronic access through DNLB) of his book Inventer la biomédecine: la France, l’Amérique et la production des savoirs du vivant, 1945–1965 (2002).

Seminar om nanoteknologi og intellectual property, Kbh. torsdag 25. aug.

By Biomedicine in museums

Følgende seminar kan ses i forlængelse af det seminar Arne Hessenbruch holdt på Medicnsk Museion i september 2004 (se også hans artikel i Årsskrift for Medicinsk Museion, 2005). Den generelle problemstilling med udgangspunkt i Nowotny mfl. er i høj grad relevant også for den biomedicinske vidensproduktion

Arne Hessenbruch, Science and Technology Studies Program, MIT (http://arne.hessenbruch.org)
Torsdag, den 25. august 2005, kl. 19.45, auditorium 10, H. C. Ørsted Instituttet, Universitetsparken 5, Kbh
“Nanoteknologi og intellectual property” Read More