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Informationen zum Autor Natasha Myers Klappentext What are living bodies made of? Protein modelers tell us that our cells are composed of millions of proteins, intricately folded molecular structures on the scale of nanoparticles. Proteins twist and wriggle as they carry out the activities that keep cells alive. Figuring out how to make these unruly substances visible, tangible, and workable is a challenging task, one that is not readily automated, even by the fastest computers. Natasha Myers explores what protein modelers must do to render three-dimensional, atomic-resolution models of these lively materials. Rendering Life Molecular shows that protein models are not just informed by scientific data: model building entangles a modeler's entire sensorium, and modelers must learn to feel their way through the data in order to interpret molecular forms. Myers takes us into protein modeling laboratories and classrooms, tracking how gesture, affect, imagination, and intuition shape practices of objectivity. Asking, 'What is life becoming in modelers' hands?' she tunes into the ways they animate molecules through their moving bodies and other media. In the process she amplifies an otherwise muted liveliness inflecting mechanistic accounts of the stuff of life. Zusammenfassung Natasha Myers shows in this ethnography how scientists who build three-dimensional models of proteins use their senses and bodies to create! represent! and evaluate otherwise imperceptible molecules. These modelers often consider matter to be made up of living! moving! and sometimes breathing entities! and Myers' study of them rethinks the objectivity of science. Inhaltsverzeichnis Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction 1 Part One. Laboratory Entanglements 1. Crystallographic Renderings 35 2. Tangible Media 74 3. Molecular Embodiments 99 Part Two. Ontics and Epistemics 4. Rending Representation 121 5. Remodeling Objectivity 136 Part Three. Forms of Life 6. Machinic Life 159 7. Lively Machines 182 8. Molecular Calisthenics 204 Conclusion: What Is Life Becoming? 230 Appendix: A Protein Primer 239 Notes 243 Bibliography 277 Index 299...
