Resources
Glossary
Bioengineering
Biological engineering (also biosystems engineering and bioengineering) deals with engineering biological processes in general. It is a broad-based engineering discipline that also may involve product design, sustainability and analysis of biological systems. Generally, bioengineering may deal with either the medical (see biomedical engineering) or the agricultural fields (see agricultural engineering).
Bioethics
Bioethics are the ethics of biological science and medicine. They are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, philosophy, and theology.
Bionics
Bionics (also known as biomimetics, biognosis, biomimicry, or bionical creativity engineering) is the application of methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology. The origin of the word 'bionic' is a matter of dispute. One origin asserts that it is formed from the Greek word "ß???", pronounced "bion", meaning "unit of life") and the suffix -ic, meaning "like" or "in the manner of", hence "like life". Some dictionaries, however, explain the word as being formed from "biology" + "electronics"
Biotechnology
Biological technology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity has come up with one of many definitions of biotechnology: "Biotechnology means any technological application that uses biological systems, living organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific use."
Critical design
Critical Design, popularized by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, uses designed artifacts as an embodied critique or commentary on consumer culture. Both the designed artifact (and subsequent use) and the process of designing such an artifact causes reflection on existing values, mores, and practices in a culture. A critical design will often challenge its audience's preconceptions and expectations thereby provoking new ways of thinking about the object, its use, and the surrounding environment. The term Critical Design was first used in Anthony Dunne’s book Hertzian Tales (1999). Its opposite is affirmative design: design that reinforces the status quo. It is more of an attitude than style or movement; a position rather than a method. There are many people doing this kind of work who have never heard of the term critical design who have their own way of describing what they do. Naming it Critical Design is simply a useful way of making this activity more visible and emphasising that design has other possibilities beyond solving problems. Critical Designers generally believe design that provokes, inspires, makes us think, and questions fundamental assumptions can make a valuable contribution to debates about the role technology plays in everyday life. Design as critique is not a new idea. For example, Italian Radical Design of the 1960s and 70s was highly critical of prevailing social values and design ideologies. Critical design builds on this tradition.
Critical thinking
Critical Thinking consists of mental processes of discernment, analysis and evaluation. It includes possible processes of reflecting upon a tangible or intangible item in order to form a solid judgment that reconciles scientific evidence with common sense. In contemporary usage "critical" has a certain negative connotation that does not apply in the present case. Though the term "analytical thinking" may seem to convey the idea more accurately, critical thinking clearly involves synthesis, evaluation, and reconstruction of thinking, in addition to analysis.
Design research
Design research investigates the process of designing in all its many fields. It is thus related to Design methods in general or for particular disciplines. A primary interpretation of design research is that it is concerned with undertaking research into the design process. Secondary interpretations would refer to undertaking research within the process of design. The overall intention is to better understand and to improve the design process.
Emerging technologies
Emerging technologies and converging technologies are terms used interchangeably to cover the emergence and convergence of new and potentially disruptive technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, cognitive science, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
Eugenics
Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention.[1] The goals of various groups advocating eugenics have included the creation of healthier, more intelligent people, to save society's resources, and lessen human suffering, as well desires to breed for other specific qualities, such as fighting abilities.
Future energy
Future energy development faces great challenges due to an increasing world population, demands for higher standards of living, a need for less pollution, a need to avert global warming, and a possible end to fossil fuels (see Hubbert peak theory). Without energy, the world's entire industrialized infrastructure would collapse; agriculture, transportation, waste collection, information technology, communications and much of the prerequisites that a developed nation takes for granted. A shortage of the energy needed to sustain this infrastructure could lead to a Malthusian catastrophe.
Futures studies
Futures studies reflects on how today's changes (or the lack thereof) become tomorrow's reality. It includes attempts to analyze the sources, patterns, and causes of change and stability in order to develop foresight and to map alternative futures. The subjects and methods of futures studies include possible, probable, and desirable variations or alternative transformations of the present, both social and "natural" (i.e. independent of human impact). A broad field of inquiry, futures studies explores and represents what the present could become from multiple interdisciplinary perspectives.
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, recombinant DNA technology, genetic modification (GM) and gene splicing are terms that are applied to the manipulation of genes, generally implying that the process is outside the organism's natural reproductive process. It involves the isolation, manipulation and reintroduction of DNA into cells or model organisms, usually to express a protein. The aim is to introduce new characteristics or attributes physiologically or physically, such as making a crop resistant to herbicide, introducing a novel trait or enhancing existing ones, or producing a new protein or enzyme. Successful endeavours include the manufacture of human insulin by bacteria, the manufacture of erythropoietin in Chinese hamster ovary cells, and the production of new types of experimental mice such as the OncoMouse (cancer mouse) for research.
Human enhancement
Human enhancement refers to any attempt, whether temporary or permanent, to overcome the current limitations of the human body, whether through natural or artificial means. The term is sometimes applied to the use of technological means to select or alter human aptitudes and other phenotypical characteristics, whether or not the alteration results in characteristics that lie beyond the existing human range. Here, the test is whether the technology is used for non-therapeutic purposes. Some bioethicists restrict the term to the non-therapeutic application of specific technologies - neuro-, cyber-, gene-, and nano-technologies - to human biology.
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is a field of applied science and technology covering a broad range of topics. The main unifying theme is the control of matter on a scale smaller than 1 micrometre, normally between 1-100 nanometers, as well as the fabrication of devices on this same length scale. It is a highly multidisciplinary field, drawing from fields such as colloidal science, device physics, and supramolecular chemistry. Much speculation exists as to what new science and technology might result from these lines of research. Some view nanotechnology as a marketing term that describes pre-existing lines of research applied to the sub-micron size scale.
Parahuman
The term "parahuman" refers to a human-animal hybrid. Technically such hybrids already exist; for example, faulty human heart valves are routinely replaced with ones taken from cows and pigs. This surgery effectively makes the recipient a human-animal chimera, though there is no visible effect. Scientists have also done extensive research into the combination of genes from different species. e.g. adding human (and other animal) genes to bacteria and farm animals to mass-produce insulin and spider silk proteins. Note that individual genes can be transplanted between species without the transplantation of whole cells.
Synthetic biology
Synthetic biology has long been used to describe an approach to biology that attempts to integrate different areas of research in order to create a more holistic understanding of life. More recently the term has been used in a different way, signaling a new area of research that combines science and engineering in order to design and build novel biological functions and systems.
Tissue engineering
Tissue engineering is the use of a combination of cells, engineering and materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physio-chemical factors to improve or replace biological functions. While most definitions of tissue engineering cover a broad range of applications, in practice the term is closely associated with applications that repair or replace portions of or whole tissues (i.e., bone, cartilage, blood vessels, bladder, etc...). Often, the tissues involved require certain mechanical and structural properties for proper function. The term has also been applied to efforts to perform specific biochemical functions using cells within an artificially-created support system (e.g. an artificial pancreas, or a bioartificial liver). The term regenerative medicine is often used synonymously with tissue engineering, although those involved in regenerative medicine place more emphasis on the use of stem cells to produce tissues.
Transhumanism
Transhumanism (sometimes abbreviated >H or H+) is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes, and ameliorate what it regards as undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human condition, such as stupidity, suffering, disease, ageing and involuntary death. Transhumanist thinkers study the possibilities and consequences of developing and using human enhancement techniques and other emerging technologies for these purposes. Possible dangers, as well as benefits, of powerful new technologies that might radically change the conditions of human life are also of concern to the transhumanist movement.