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An Action Hero Approach to Energy

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



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A few months ago (before the recent batch of scandals), Arnold Schwarzenegger gave the keynote speech at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit that several of my colleagues attended. His perspectives as a bodybuilder ("Stephen, how are your glutes?"), a Republican who believes in global warming and the promise of bipartisan environmental legislation, and an action movie star are important and inspiring, and I highly recommend watching the whole thing. If 24 minutes is too long, the first 6 minutes and the last 2 are especially juicy. Enjoy!

Christina Agapakis is a biologist, designer, and writer with an ecological and evolutionary approach to synthetic biology and biological engineering. Her PhD thesis projects at the Harvard Medical School include design of metabolic pathways in bacteria for hydrogen fuel production, personalized genetic engineering of plants, engineered photosynthetic endosymbiosis, and cheese smell-omics. With Oscillator and Icosahedron Labs she works towards envisioning the future of biological technologies and synthetic biology design.

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