Month: June 2019

Enlarge / Artist's impression of a vaccine printer. (credit: Getty / Aurich Lawson)

We're running a series of companion posts this week to accompany our special edition Ars Lunch Break podcast. This is the third of three guest posts centered around Rob Reid's TED talk from Tuesday. Today, microbiologist Andrew Hessel weighs in with his opinions and recommendations about the future of biomanufacturing.

The US government doesn’t skimp on bio-preparedness. Vaccines and other countermeasures are carefully developed in anticipation of disease outbreaks or bioterrorist attacks. The Strategic National Stockpile maintains a hefty inventory of medicines, supplies, and equipment, which can be shipped almost anywhere within 12 hours. In situations ranging from the 2001 anthrax attacks to 2016’s Zika scare, Americans have been lucky to have strong biodefenses.

But as anti-vaccine hysteria allows measles to regain long-lost beachheads, we’re reminded that human folly is a dynamic element of the disease landscape. Meanwhile, the number of human actors and actions in a position to stir the pot is set to explode. Tremendous improvements in core bioengineering technologies are tearing down the technical and economic barriers that once prevented the development of "designer" viruses and bacteria. Those entrusted with our defense will inevitably face an even more chaotic battlefield than exists today.

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  Finally: a way to play classic Sega CD games without worrying about a failing disc drive produced in the early '90s.

It's a great time to play old video games on modern TVs. Fan-favorite companies are taking emulation seriously with products like the NES Classic and the Sega Genesis Mini, while enthusiasts are filling in the gaps to either upgrade original consoles' connectors or rebuild them as "hardware-emulated" FPGA systems.

Last year, however, we saw arguably the first big product to fill in one major under-served niche: the early '90s CD add-on adapter. Specifically, the Sega CD has received new life in the form of the MegaSD. This combination flash drive and FPGA board plugs into original Genesis and Mega Drive consoles (and the newer Analogue Mega Sg). It replicates the original Sega CD's functions without requiring a laser-driven disc drive while also remaining compatible with that add-on's peculiar system-communication style.

I was originally hesitant to write up the MegaSD's announcement—especially since it comes from relatively unknown flash card manufacturer TerraOnion as opposed to Sega, and it costs a whopping €232 (roughly $261 USD). But my tune changed upon seeing its first hands-on review from YouTube channel RetroRGB (embedded at the end of this article). In short: It appears to work exactly as advertised, complete with reduced CD-based loading times, identical gameplay, nearly identical CD-based audio, and some other nice-to-have features. [Update, March 28, 2020: Now we've updated this article with our own hands-on impressions, as tested on original Genesis hardware. Long story short, it's great.]

Enlarge / If this image seems irrelevant to the story, may I suggest you need to catch up on your "Spaceship Surprise" viewing. (credit: YouTube / Sesame Street)

Representatives from EA and Epic Games spoke in front of a UK parliamentary panel Wednesday (transcript). They were there to defend the game industry against charges of addictive game mechanics and encouragement of gambling via loot boxes. But at least one of those representatives took issue with the basic premise that randomized item purchases should be labeled as "loot boxes" in the first place.

"That is what we look at as 'surprise mechanics,'" EA Legal and Government Affairs VP Kerry Hopkins told the panel when asked about the ethics of loot boxes. "It is important to look at this. If you go to—I don’t know what your version of Target is—a store that sells a lot of toys and you do a search for surprise toys, you will find that this is something people enjoy. They enjoy surprises. It is something that has been part of toys for years, whether it is Kinder eggs or Hatchimals or LOL Surprise!"

As implemented in a game like FIFA, Hopkins went on to argue that these surprise mechanics are "quite ethical and fun [and] enjoyable to people... We think it is like many other products that people enjoy in a very healthy way. They like the element of surprise.

Enlarge / This robot doesn't want to murder you or give you weaponized SARSbola! It just wants to vaccinate you! (Probably!) (credit: Donald Iain Smith / Getty)

Today we’re presenting the fourth and final installment of my conversation with Naval Ravikant about existential risks. This interview first appeared in March as two back-to-back episodes of the After On Podcast (which features fifty unhurried conversations with world-class thinkers, founders, and scientists). Ravikant is one of tech’s most successful angel investors and the founder of multiple startups—including seed-stage investment platform AngelList. Please check out parts one, two, and three of this conversation if you missed them. Otherwise, you can press play on the embedded audio player or pull up the transcript—both of which are below.

The theme of today’s installment: there’s hope. Yes, really! If there’s one thing that any religious, national, or political mindset should agree on, it’s that we don't want some maniac wiping us all out. This creates an extreme good-guy-to-bad-guy ratio, which itself could be decisive—even if lone destructive actors become massively empowered.

Ravikant and I devote this part of our conversation to sketching the outlines of a global “immune system,” which could help fend off countless synbio threats. Some may dismiss this idea as the ranting of two hopeless optimists (although parts 1-3 tend to rebut this). The good news is that I’ve run variations of our arguments by some of the top minds in synthetic biology, and so far, they’ve passed muster.