Reinventing biological life, reinventing 'the human'

The techno-scientific framework known as biomimicry ‘reverse-engineers’ animal life to develop technologies and tactics that solve social and environmental problems. Its advocates have promised that it will spark a technological, environmental, and even social revolution. By viewing nature as a ‘mentor’ rather than a resource to be extracted, members of the biomimetic movement have also suggested that its practice will also overturn notions of human exceptionalism. This paper explores biomimicry’s ‘revolutionary’ potential by analyzing the work of advocates and supporters of biomimicry in the context of posthuman theory. It further places this potential in conversation with the broader economic conditions of biomimetic production. It ultimately asks how, in spite of its promises, biomimetic productions have thus far only managed to reinvent and reinforce current circuits of economic and geopolitical power. In conclusion, the paper works toward highlighting – and embracing – the ambivalence of both biomimicry and so-called post-humanism as the first step in developing a politics adequate to new forms of technological and biological production

At the Limits of Species Being: Sensing the Anthropocene

Autonomous Marxism has generated a lexicon for responding to transformations in human labor, particularly around the role of technological development. Autonomists have mapped how the conditions of post-Fordism have put elements of the mind, sociability, virtuosity—or “the soul” in Franco Berardi's terms—to work. But that labor, in accordance with capitalist valorization, is nearly always human. At best, it is human labor supplemented with machines. But what are we to make of the lively materials—of human and nonhuman provenance alike—now at “work” alongside us? This essay takes up this question in an analysis of the field of biosensing. It explores Marx's concepts of species being and the general intellect to reconsider what can be said of “living labor” and its potential at a time when nonhuman life is increasingly a central component of production. It suggests that alongside the so-called Anthropocene, biosensing marks a redistribution of both the work and the precarity associated with our mode of production. While the field forges engagements with nonhuman others and a growing awareness of planetary life, it also operates according to an imaginary of planetary management, the possibility of producing for a collective health and the “whole of nature.

Reconsidering Mimesis: Freedom and Acquiescence in the Anthropocene

In 1993 Michael Taussig's Mimesis and Alterity revitalized the power of the mimetic faculty to craft a vision of nature that was neither the alienated subject of modern science nor the passively malleable medium of late twentieth-century social constructivism. Taussig drew explicitly on a tradition of earlier twentieth-century scholarship—Walter Benjamin, Roger Caillois, and Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno—that located in the mimetic faculty a way out of a techno-fetishized social milieu. This essay explores how mimesis has once again been endowed with revolutionary potential in the contemporary moment through the growing field of biomimicry. I show how mimesis promises a way toward a future free from human hubris and ecological catastrophe—and a way out of the conditions that have created the Anthropocene. I explore how this works in biomimetics, with a detailed look at one of the most celebrated examples of the biomimetic paradigm: the gecko's foot. But, I ultimately suggest that what has been so seductive about mimesis throughout history is that it offers a “way out” of political confrontation. In doing so, I argue mimesis too easily serves as a double mirror—rather than transform production, nonhuman life at the level of biology becomes a force for production

Aging, Emotion, Attention, and Binding in the Taboo Stroop Task: Data and Theories.

How does aging impact relations between emotion, memory, and attention? To address this question, young and older adults named the font colors of taboo and neutral words, some of which recurred in the same font color or screen location throughout two color-naming experiments. The results indicated longer color-naming response times (RTs) for taboo than neutral base-words (taboo Stroop interference); better incidental recognition of colors and locations consistently associated with taboo versus neutral words (taboo context-memory enhancement); and greater speed-up in color-naming RTs with repetition of color-consistent than color-inconsistent taboo words, but no analogous speed-up with repetition of location-consistent or location-inconsistent taboo words (the consistency type by repetition interaction for taboo words). All three phenomena remained constant with aging, consistent with the transmission deficit hypothesis and binding theory, where familiar emotional words trigger age-invariant reactions for prioritizing the binding of contextual features to the source of emotion. Binding theory also accurately predicted the interaction between consistency type and repetition for taboo words. However, one or more aspects of these phenomena failed to support the inhibition deficit hypothesis, resource capacity theory, or socio-emotional selectivity theory. We conclude that binding theory warrants further test in a range of paradigms, and that relations between aging and emotion, memory, and attention may depend on whether the task and stimuli trigger fast-reaction, involuntary binding processes, as in the taboo Stroop paradigm

Biomimetic Futures: Life, Death, and the Enclosure of a More-Than-Human Intellect

The growing field of biomimicry promises to supplant modern industry's energy-intensive models of engineering with a mode of production more sensitively attuned to nonhuman life and matter. This article considers the revolutionary potentials created by biomimicry's more-than-human collectives and their limitations. Although biomimicry gestures toward a radical reontologization of and repoliticization of production, we argue that it remains subject to entrenched onto-political habits of social relations still dominated by capitalism and made part of a “terra economica” in which all is potentially put to profitable use and otherwise left to waste. With reference to Marx's notions of general industriousness and the general intellect, we find that this universalizing tendency renders myriad biological capacities and ways of knowing invisible. Drawing a comparison with the reworkings of life and knowledge explored in Shiebinger's work on nineteenth-century abortifacients, we show how biomimicry's more recent ontological remakings reproduce some forms of knowledge—and life—at the expense of others. Reflecting on biomimicry's inadvertent erasure of nonindustrial ways of knowing, we advance the notion of a pluripotent intellect as a framework that seeks to take responsibility for the cocuration of forms of life and forms of knowledge. We turn to Jackson's Land Institute as a grounded alternative for constructing more-than-human techno-social collaboratives

Extraordinary behavioral entrainment following circadian rhythm bifurcation in mice.

The mammalian circadian timing system uses light to synchronize endogenously generated rhythms with the environmental day. Entrainment to schedules that deviate significantly from 24 h (T24) has been viewed as unlikely because the circadian pacemaker appears capable only of small, incremental responses to brief light exposures. Challenging this view, we demonstrate that simple manipulations of light alone induce extreme plasticity in the circadian system of mice. Firstly, exposure to dim nocturnal illumination (<0.1 lux), rather than completely dark nights, permits expression of an altered circadian waveform wherein mice in light/dark/light/dark (LDLD) cycles "bifurcate" their rhythms into two rest and activity intervals per 24 h. Secondly, this bifurcated state enables mice to adopt stable activity rhythms under 15 or 30 h days (LDLD T15/T30), well beyond conventional limits of entrainment. Continuation of dim light is unnecessary for T15/30 behavioral entrainment following bifurcation. Finally, neither dim light alone nor a shortened night is sufficient for the extraordinary entrainment observed under bifurcation. Thus, we demonstrate in a non-pharmacological, non-genetic manipulation that the circadian system is far more flexible than previously thought. These findings challenge the current conception of entrainment and its underlying principles, and reveal new potential targets for circadian interventions

Haemosporidian parasite diversity in an under-surveyed Australian avifauna

Haemosporidian parasites of birds are geographically widespread, have been detected in a phylogenetically diverse array of hosts, and have been the focus of extensive research due to both their impacts on birds and their similarity to vector-borne diseases of humans. Advances in molecular diagnostic tools have created a greater awareness of the genetic diversity of haemosporidian infections. Yet in spite of their more or less global distribution, comparatively little is known about the haemosporidians affecting birds in Australia. We screened blood from 889 birds (23 species) for haemosporidian blood parasite infections during the 2019 breeding season at Brookfield Conservation Park, South Australia. We examined the genetic (lineage) diversity of haemosporidian infections in this behaviorally and ecologically diverse host assemblage and examined the congruence between parasite and host phylogenies. We identified seven Haemoproteus mitochondrial cytochrome b lineages, five of which were novel. Four birds had simultaneous co-infections by two Haemoproteus lineages each. The Haemoproteus lineages clustered at the host family level. Two Plasmodium lineages were also identified, each of which had been previously detected in different avian host species in Australasia. We did not detect any Leucocytozoon infections in our sample. This study supplies critical baseline data on host–parasite associations in a poorly-surveyed geographic region

The role of religiousness on substance-use disorder treatment outcomes: a comparison of black and white adolescents

This study compares 41 Black and 124 White adolescents at intake and discharge from a residential treatment program for substance-use disorders. Study data were obtained as part of a larger study (N = 195) that sought to assess the relationship of helping behavior and addiction recovery. This post-hoc analysis aims to identify cultural strengths that may be associated with recovery from substance-use disorders among Black adolescents. Using regression analyses and controlling for the severity of substance use and background variables that distinguish racial groups, religious practices and behaviors at intake were examined. Specifically, Black youth and White youth were compared on treatment outcomes, including alcohol or drug use during treatment, drug craving, 12-Step work, and 12-Step helping. The burden of health and socioeconomic disparities at intake did not disproportionately disfavor Black adolescents. Outcomes related to 12-Step measures were similar between Black and White youth. White adolescents reported higher craving scores at discharge, and Black adolescents were more likely to use drugs during treatment. High levels of religiousness at treatment intake were linked to greater 12-Step work and greater 12-Step helping at discharge. High levels of religiousness at intake were not related to drug use during treatment or to craving scores at discharge. The relationship between intake levels of religiousness and treatment-related outcomes did not differ by race.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3437261/Accepted manuscrip