View allAll Photos Tagged biohacking
These are old h&e-stained samples.
I rescued them from the bin when one of the histology labs in the hospital I used to work in relocated.
The staining on a lot of the slides has faded quite badly, but this one's ok.
L'Expérience Tiers-Lieux Fork The World. Biennale Internationale Design 2017. Par Quitterie Largeteau, Biohacking Safari.
Prepared section of mature pine wood which came with the microscope.
It's about 3mm wide at its widest point. This image is composed of several images taken with the lowest magnification (4x) objective autostitched together.
The 'Biohacking: Do It Yourself!' lab installation at Medical Museion followed the principle of using what you have to hand - from discarded University lab furniture and items from the museum stores, to instruments from local hackerspace Labitat and Rüdiger Trojok's homelab in Germany, and cheap purchases from IKEA, Amazon, and local stores. Luggage labels in the exhibition reveal these diverse origins. Photograph to be credited to Martin Malthe Borch. Originally uploaded to MaltheBorch's flickr stream.
When I met Eric Topol at Scripps Research, he greeted me with an easy calm, the sort of quiet steadiness that settles a room without ever trying to command it. There is no theatricality about him. No hint of the celebrity doctor, even though he easily could play that role. His curiosity comes first. You feel it immediately. He listens closely, as if the next idea might arrive from anywhere.
Topol has spent decades at the frontier of cardiovascular medicine, genomics, and digital health. He trained as a cardiologist at a time when heart attacks were often a sudden, devastating surprise. Much of his early work focused on clot-busting therapies and transforming acute cardiac care. That alone would have secured a distinguished career. But he did not stop there. He moved into genetics and then into the rapidly evolving intersection of medicine and data, asking how sequencing, wearable sensors, and artificial intelligence might change how we prevent disease rather than simply react to it.
He founded and directs the Scripps Research Translational Institute, where the emphasis is clear: translate discovery into real human benefit. Not hype. Not products. Not a quick fix. In a landscape crowded with longevity influencers and supplement stacks, Topol stands apart. He does not take sponsorships to push powders or pills. He is not interested in monetizing fear. If anything, he seems slightly allergic to the noise.
His focus is more austere and, in many ways, more radical. Diet. Sleep. Exercise. Social connection. The fundamentals. He talks about “super agers,” people who reach their eighties with the physiology of someone decades younger, and he does so with data in hand. What patterns do they share? What biomarkers remain resilient? How does inflammation behave across time? For Topol, longevity is not about chasing immortality. It is about compressing morbidity, extending healthspan, and preserving function.
In his recent writing, particularly in his book Super Agers, he leans into the evidence that aging is not a single uniform decline but a mosaic. Some systems falter early. Others remain robust. With genomic insight and longitudinal data, medicine can begin to map this mosaic and intervene earlier. But he is careful. He does not promise magic. He points instead to measurable behaviors: regular aerobic activity, resistance training, high-quality sleep, nutrient-dense food, minimizing ultra-processed diets. He is skeptical of supplement culture because most of it runs ahead of the evidence. If a molecule works, he believes, it should prove itself in rigorous trials.
There is also a democratizing instinct in his work. He has been outspoken about the need to make genomic testing and advanced diagnostics more accessible. He sees a future where medicine is individualized, where a person’s risk for atrial fibrillation or Alzheimer’s disease can be flagged early, and where prevention is not reserved for the affluent. He is equally vocal about the ethical tensions of AI in healthcare. Algorithms must augment clinicians, not replace empathy. Data must serve patients, not corporations.
When I photographed him, I was struck by the absence of cynicism. He has seen enough of the system to justify it. Yet he still believes that medicine can be reoriented toward prevention and personalization without losing its human core. There is a steadiness in him that mirrors his message. No flashy claims. No performative biohacking. Just the disciplined accumulation of evidence and a commitment to follow it wherever it leads.
In the end, Eric Topol represents a particular kind of authority that feels increasingly rare. Not the authority of charisma, but of rigor. Not the seduction of miracle cures, but the persistence of science. In a culture that wants shortcuts, he keeps returning to first principles. Move your body. Sleep deeply. Eat real food. Stay connected. Let the data guide you. And above all, protect the integrity of medicine from the distortions of commerce.
Standing in that quiet room at Scripps, you sense that his project is larger than longevity. It is about restoring trust in the idea that health is built, patiently and measurably, over time.
The 'Biohacking: Do It Yourself!' lab installation at Medical Museion - you can see hacked instruments, film of the scientists at work, and texts and graphics explaining the connection between biohacking and the tools of synthetic biology. Photograph to be credited to Martin Malthe Borch. Originally uploaded to MaltheBorch's flickr stream.
Unlike flies, which only have one pair of wings, bees and wasps have two pairs. The hindwing is small, and usually attached to the forewing by hooks called hamuli, so it often looks as though there is only one pair.
These are the hamuli on the hindwing of a Bombus hypnorum or tree bee, Britain's newest species of bumblebee.
What happens when you add a drop of warm water to a basil seed.
This was incredibly fast - I have speeded up the video to fit into the flickr time allowance, but the whole thing only took 10 minutes in real time.
Music from Calikokat at 4shared dot com
The 'Biohacking: Do It Yourself!' lab installation at Medical Museion will host hands-on events and open days when visitors can try out some of the tools on show, and discuss the goals and possibilities of open science and synthetic biology. When the scientists go home, film projection of their work leaves traces of action in the space. Photograph to be credited to Martin Malthe Borch. Originally uploaded to MaltheBorch's flickr stream.
Juanita Agudelo en el papel de una biohacker y Vivi Trujillo grabando la escena en 3D.
Foto: Daniel Jurado
Oficina de Biohacking "Genômica: Extraindo DNA da banana" ocorreu no Cantagalo em parceria com o Viva Rio no dia 25 de outubro de 2016. As crianças puderam visualizar o DNA da banana a partir de materiais do cotidiano.
Foto: Amaury Alves
Low on time and budget, the exhibition team makes a stencil to direct museum visitors toward the 'Biohacking: Do It Yourself!' lab installation at Medical Museion. Photograph to be credited to Louise Whiteley.
Visitors to the opening of the 'Biohacking: Do It Yourself!' lab installation at Medical Museion handle Rüdiger Trojok's gene gun prototype. The gene gun was invented in 1983-1986, and is a simple device that is key to many synthetic biology experiments, delivering gold particles coated with DNA into plants or other organisms - but it cannot be used outside authorized labs. Photograph to be credited to Martin Malthe Borch. Originally uploaded to MaltheBorch's flickr stream.
Prepared section of cotton stem which came with the microscope.
It's about 4mm wide at its widest point. This image is composed of several images taken with the lowest magnification (4x) objective autostitched together.
Collage board outside the 'Biohacking: Do It Yourself!' lab installation at Medical Museion, giving a glimpse into the DIY biology movement and its connections to synthetic biology. Photograph to be credited to Martin Malthe Borch. Originally uploaded to MaltheBorch's flickr stream.
Interaction designer Sara Krugman and Project Manager at University of Copenhagen's Center for Synthetic Biology assemble the openPCR machine acquired for the 'Biohacking: Do It Yourself!' lab installation at Medical Museion. The machine will join the museum collection when no longer in use by the biohackers and event participants. Photo to be credited to Martin Malthe Borch.