This may or may not be what Forrests Himalayan Fire Rabbit looks like

Things I learned for future talks:

• Be Prepared: If you are nervous about public speaking, maybe you should rehearse the talk more than once.
• Advertise better: We’ve got 5 universities nearby and most of the attendees last night were members of the Lab
• Schedule the event well in advance: Not every DIY Bioer is a student with few responsibilities
• Take advantage of people’s experience: If you have someone in the audience who knows more, see if they’d like to share their experience.
• Projects, Projects, Projects: Some people like the academic side of Biology but others are more interested in the hands on side, so it’ll be a good idea to organize a small build for them.

SUPER INTERESTED IN DIY BIO? DONT KNOW WHERE TO GO? Keep Reading.

If you are located in houston and interested in DIY Bio, feel free to email me @kingjacob “at” gmail.com.  Or stay tuned via twitter(#diybiohou).

Link Dump Prepared for the Presentation: Feel free to add on in the comments.

Organizations
http://Diybio.org
http://groups.google.com/group/diybio/ Mailing List
http://www.open-bio.org/wiki/Main_Page Open Bioinformatics Foundation
http://2010.igem.org/Main_Page IGEM

Suppliers
http://neb.com good prices/ nice catolog/ currently running a promotion
http://www.carolina.com/ one off Bio kits
http://pearlbiotech.com Opensourced Gelbox
http://mrgene.com/ Genesynthesis
http://gingobioworks.com Biobrick assembly kits and services

Databases
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Anydata from any project that’s received public funding is here. Genes, proteins, etc.
http://partsregistry.org/Main_Page Registry of all current standard biological parts
http://www.mendeley.com/ research paper social network

Software
http://biopython.org
http://bioperl.org
http://biojava.org
http://biolib.open-bio.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://nebc.nox.ac.uk/tools/bio-linux/bio-linux-5.0 Dedicated bioinformatics LInux Install
http://www.dnalinux.com/ Virtual Linux install
http://openwetware.org/wiki/Computational_Tools Good compilation of Bioinformatics software

DIY related blogs
http://88proof.com/synthetic_biology/blog/ Jonathon Clines Blog
http://diybionyc.blogspot.com/ DIY Bio New York City’s Blog
http://homebiology.blogspot.com/ Wonderful blog by a mother homeschooling biology
http://diybio4beginners.blogspot.com/ diy bio for beginners, posts a lot of good videos
http://citsci.blogspot.com/ Making a Lab on the cheap
http://blog.ginkgobioworks.com/ gingobioworks blog
http://www.synthesis.cc/ Rob carlsons blog
http://my.biotechlife.net/ Ricardo Vidal, co-founder of the DNA Network
http://thegenesherpa.blogspot.com/ Dr. Murphy, on medical genetics.
http://hackteria.org

Videos
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/363 Synthetic Biology by Professor Endy
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/646 Very good speech on DIY Bio
http://www.ted.com/
http://www.apple.com/education/guidedtours/itunesu.html Greatest collection of University level classes online

I’m pretty excited as I have never been anywhere outside N. America. And I am very interested in doing work in less-developed regions of the world especially related to sustainable design.  Since I had such a great experience using kickstarter to raise money for BBgum Fusion, I decided to give it a shot to help cover some of the travel costs.  Most of the prizes will be gathered either in Nairobi or around the hospital itself so that’s pretty cool.  I always like exploring markets for handmade goodies.

So now starts the fun part of the project. Trying to locate all the necessary parts.  I think most of the parts are going to be pretty easy to locate. The only piece I sense will be a real trouble is the globe.  I’ve emailed 3 precision glass fabricators and not one will give me an estimate of the pressure or voltage their product can withstand. But I am not worried, even if I have to blow my own, I will find a globe that can contain fusion.

Fusion Promo Rough Draft from Jacob Shiach on Vimeo.

What’s to come:

• Biotech (DIY & Pro)
• Third-world Ventures
• Comp. Sci advances
• Math Musings
• BBgum Fusion

Enjoy!

P.s. If you are into that kinda thing, I’ve a twitter. Its JacobShiach.