Korean rights

I'm delighted to report that Atlantic have accepted an offer for the Korean rights to Genesis Machines. The book will be published by Forest of Knowledge, a division of Nexus Press.

Stupidity and the War on Terror

A ridiculous story about a post office in the US that was shut down and visited by agents in hazmat suits, just because a woman reported receiving a letter from India.

I loved this comment in the ensuing Fark discussion thread:

Shortly after 9/11 I filed a police report for a guy who found a "suspicious white powder" in a textbook sent to him by the publisher. As it turns out the "suspicious white powder" is something commonly known as printer's dust. It's harmless.

I'm not sure why this guy thought McGraw-Hill was trying to kill him, but seeing as he works in the Math Department I'm sure he has plenty of enemies.

George Church and constructive biology

There's a nice article by George Church in the latest issue of The Edge.

Genesis Machines preview

As you may know, my popular science book Genesis Machines: The New Science of Biocomputing will be published by Atlantic Books on November 9. I've placed a short sampler excerpt on the book website. It's in PDF, so you'll need a suitable application, such as Adobe Reader.

Blog down-time

The blog will not be updated until after I have moved office to Manchester Met (on June 26). Please check back then for the latest news on the move, as well as other updates.

Synthetic biology - follow-up discussion

Apologies for the lack of recent posts - we've been househunting up north in preparation for my move to Manchester Met.

Anyway, I thought I would point you towards an interesting post on Soft Machines, Richard Jones' always-excellent blog. His most recent post concerns synthetic biology (see below), and a discussion thread has also developed.