Alan Goldstein is a biomaterials engineer. He says he’s going to convince us that xenobiology is an oxymoron, he says. Biology will not get out of the 21st century alive, he says. (He hasn’t explained what xenobiology is. It’s got something to do with alien life forms. Here’s the wikipedia on it.)

I’m not actually understanding much of this. The main points seems to be that the life we find or make (not sure which) will not be carbon based and that we should be worried about unrestrained scientific adventurism in this (which?) field. Ah, at the end he says:”The take home message? Nanotechnology trumps biotechnology.”

Ok.

A questioner asks what the problem is. Alan says that the question is whether bioengineering ought to go ahead as it is with no questions being asked.

Allow me to give myself a big fat D’oh! When I first posted this, I thought the speaker was Michael Braungart because that was the name in the schedule. But Braungart had to cancel, and Goldstein subbed for him. (Thanks to Jessie Scanlon for the correction.)

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