May Issue

Within a few short months the world has fixated on one thing: a virus. Covid is not only infecting our bodies, but also our minds and culture. In our inaugural issue, we offer another lens through which to view life during a pandemic.

Artist and biohacker Heather Dewey-Hagborg describes a custom retrovirus she created as an activist intervention to spread affection, and combat alienation, disconnection, and hate. But what does a future look like when humans are infected with love?⟶

From the earliest days of primordial goo through today’s modern world viruses never have and still don’t care. Editor in Chief Daniel Grushkin asks how we can reconcile the evolutionary necessity of viruses with the tragedy they create⟶

Covid has created a new state of affairs, where community biology projects might soon be used on the frontlines of the global public health emergency. But questions about safety still plague the community, writes bioethicist and Biodesigned Editor Alex Pearlman⟶

The next decades of biodesign will transform both what it means to design and what it means to be human with respect to other species, writes Orkan Telhan, an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and researcher at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania⟶

Christina Agapakis, Sarah Spitz, and Jordyn Lee, discuss science communication, the spread of misinformation, and science’s impact on the way people interact during a pandemic⟶

Heather Dewey-Hagborg on the impact she would like to see from her love-inducing retrovirus project Lovesick [Video]⟶

Orkan Telhan on the importance of recognizing and teaching ethics in design [Video]⟶

Issue 1 Masthead