Last week a BBC reporter showed up to film Genspace. Imagine our surprise when he emailed us to say the finished product was now online, only a scant six days later. You can watch it here:

Oliver and Ellen were invited to speak at this year’s Digital Life Design conference in Munich, Germany. What an experience! They were treated like royalty and got to hobnob with such diverse characters as Freeman Dyson, Yoko Ono, Jimmy Wales, and the Princess of Norway. All the talks were great, and Munich is a beautiful city with wonderful beer halls

Sausage and Beer!

Here’s a photo from a “space breakfast” that Ellen attended featuring Esther Dyson, Eric Anderson (Space Adventures), Peter Diamandis (X Prize), and George Whitesides (Virgin Galactic).

The Speakers Lounge, sponsored by Lufthansa, was the place to hang out. Not only great coffee and electrical outlets, but the company was not too shabby either.

DJ Spooky, Jimmy Wales and Peter Diamandis in the Speakers Lounge

Oliver spoke on Synthetic Biology, and Ellen on citizen science and Genspace.

Oliver's talk

Ellen's talk

We made the New York Times  again, this time in the Science Section where we belong 

The article was very positive and called Genspace a “rallying point” for DIYbio. It also mentioned the safety protocols we have in place- that’s a welcome change from a couple of years ago, when it seemed like the press was more interested in stirring up people’s fears than reporting accurately what was going on in the DIYbio world. The section featured several articles pertaining to open-source science, which is near and dear to our hearts at Genspace. You can read the full story here.

We’ve got a great lineup this January. We kick off the month with Oliver’s 1-day Personal Genomics Workshop on Saturday Jan 7th, followed by the first session of Ellen’s Biotech Crash Course on Sunday Jan 8th. Then it’s our free PCR & Pizza Night on Monday Jan 9th. There are more 1-day workshops on the 14th & 28th, and a weeknight version of the Biotech crash course that starts Jan 16th.  What are you waiting for? Come on over to Brooklyn and have some fun in the lab!

Ellen Jorgensen and Oliver Medvedik in the Genspace Lab

We were included in 2 related articles in the November issue- one with this great photo of the lab. You can read the articles at http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20111115/collaborations-welcome-bacteria-at-work

and

http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20111115/collaborations-welcome