Trine Freiesleben and Jean-Claude discussing the fingerprints and where to take OSL samples. Credit: Kristina Thomsen, CC-BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.

In this lecture, “The Quick and the Dead,” Sophia Roosth asks: At what pace must life proceed in order to count as life? How do qualities such as speed, slowness, time, and temperature actually shape the ways in which we think about life as form, pattern, or process? What is the place of latency in the life sciences and allied disciplines? Roosth interrogates these questions historically and anthropologically by attending to a variety of scientific communities, among them geobiologists and micropaleontologists seeking ancient microbial life-forms fossilized in stone; polar scientists excavating organic substances frozen in Antarctic riverbeds; resurrection scientists seeking to insert ancient proteins into living cells; and researchers at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which stores samples of the world’s seeds for post-apocalyptic renewal.Cast: The American Academy in BerlinTags: sophia roosth, harvard university and american academy in berlin

"BiteLabs grows meat from celebrity tissue samples and uses it to make artisanal salami." So proclaims the copy on BiteLabs.org, right under an all-caps call to action: EAT CELEBRITY MEAT.

Kelly Jazvac, “Plastiglomerate Samples” (2013), plastic and beach sediment, including sand, basalt rock, wood and coral. All of these found-object artworks are the results of a collaboration between Jazvac, geologist Patricia Corcoran, and oceanographer Charles Moore.

Deep in the arctic, inside over 400 feet of rock, a huge cache of seeds is stored in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, in case of some global emergency. Today, the first of the seeds from that supply have arrived to replenish a collection sent away for safe keeping during Syria’s Civil War.

illucia.com twitter.com/paperkettle illucia dtr is a patchbay controller for connecting computer programs. Life Sequencer is a game in the illucia suite - it uses falling blocks to build step sequencer patterns (it is also remixable by Conway's Game of Life). Also, it doesn't actually make any sound - it just makes data using OSC. You can then take that data and send it to any computer programs... like Ableton Live or Max. Behind the scenes (not shown in the video), Ableton and Max have some audio samplers running. As I play Life Sequencer, it builds step sequencer patterns. I then patch the data from the step sequencer into the music samplers (so that the sample playhead moves around based on the block patterns in the game). I use cables to select and layer samples, and then I speed up the playback and audio pitch with illucia's knobs. Eventually I patch in some sample rate reduction (and a special glitchy mode on Life Sequencer) right as I trigger the Conway's Game of Life pattern remixer. The Conway algorithm eats through most of the existing blocks, and then I start placing more blocks to build a new pattern. The illucia patchbay then becomes a physical controller for exploring these strange connections & reconsidering the inner lives of computer programs.Cast: paperkettleTags:

The 5th Mercy Podcast for Liverpool Biennial, 2012 is a work written, performed and edited by the wondrous poet Holly Pester and myself (Daniel Rourke)

Featuring Original Work by: George Major : http://www.georgemajor.com Claire Potter : http://clairelouisepotter.blogspot.co.uk

Featuring Audio Samples From: Bo Didley, I’m a Man The Yardbirds, I’m a man Jacques Dutronc, La Fille Du Père Noël Davie Bowie, The Jean Genie The Winstons, Amen, Brother Danger Mouse, Interlude Die Hard Original Soundtrack (inc. Let it Snow, by Dean Martin) Featuring Textual Samples From: Roger Ebert, Die Hard, July 15, 1988 : http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19880715/REVIEWS/807150301/1023 Scientific American, Shakespeare to Blame for Introduction of European Starlings to U.S. : http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=call-of-the-reviled Wired Magazine, Cue the Scream : http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/15-10/st_scream BBC 1Xtra, The Story of the ‘Amen Break’ with Crissy Criss : http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011cjqd New York Times, 1877, American Acclimatization Society : http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50912F73B5B137B93C7A8178AD95F438784F9

If Neanderthals ever walk the earth again, the primordial ooze from which they will rise is an emulsion of oil, water, and DNA capture beads engineered in the laboratory of 454 Life Sciences in Branford, Connecticut. Over the past 4 years those beads have been gathering tiny fragments of DNA from samples of dissolved organic materials, including pieces of Neanderthal bone. Genetic sequences have given paleoanthropologists a new line of evidence for testing ideas about the biology of our closest extinct relative.

The first studies of Neanderthal DNA focused on the genetic sequences of mitochondria, the microscopic organelles that convert food to energy within cells. In 2005, however, 454 began a collaborative project with the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, to sequence the full genetic code of a Neanderthal woman who died in Croatia’s Vindija cave 30,000 years ago. As the Neanderthal genome is painstakingly sequenced, the archaeologists and biologists who study it will be faced with an opportunity that seemed like science fiction just 10 years ago. They will be able to look at the genetic blueprint of humankind’s nearest relative and understand its biology as intimately as our own.

If Neanderthals ever walk the earth again, the primordial ooze from which they will rise is an emulsion of oil, water, and DNA capture beads engineered in the laboratory of 454 Life Sciences in Branford, Connecticut. Over the past 4 years those beads have been gathering tiny fragments of DNA from samples of dissolved organic materials, including pieces of Neanderthal bone. Genetic sequences have given paleoanthropologists a new line of evidence for testing ideas about the biology of our closest extinct relative.

The first studies of Neanderthal DNA focused on the genetic sequences of mitochondria, the microscopic organelles that convert food to energy within cells. In 2005, however, 454 began a collaborative project with the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany, to sequence the full genetic code of a Neanderthal woman who died in Croatia's Vindija cave 30,000 years ago. As the Neanderthal genome is painstakingly sequenced, the archaeologists and biologists who study it will be fac