It pleases me no end that Rachel, a fabulous person I have come to know over the last couple of years has had the breakthrough she so deserves for her tireless work.
This presentation as a TED fellow is just a whiff of a mind that would leave you breathless.
This really is her moment. Here's a background piece where Rachel explains why dominant DNA theories are wrong.
Described as "cutting edge science based on experimental evidence", tomorrow I'll be down at SciFi, London at a uniquely stimulating talk before disappearing on a bank hols Monday into my own research.
I'd strongly request you come down to Sci Fi London if you've any interest at peering at the future of the creation of life through artificial and synthetic life forms.
I'm chairing the debate - a fancy way of saying I'll stay the heck away from any dense debate and let them continue uninterrupted. I got a degree in Applied chemistry, not a PHD
So it features some of the most respected figures in their field, two of whom I have come to know as cohorts on my research programme.
Dr Rachel Armstrong talking here about her cytoplasmic manifesto. The nub, gene theory to explain meaning of life is incomplete.
And then Bruce Damer whose work in simulating life through synthetic organisms has seen him work with Nasa, among others, will present his video.
Here's the line up from the sci fi London Page
Profesor GeorgeAttard School of Chemistry, Southampton, whose diverse research activities span the traditional disciplines of physical chemistry/chemical physics, materials science, biochemistry and immunology.
Peter Bentley Popular Science author whose field of interest includes Evolutionary Computation, Engineering Design, Computer Art, and Artificial Life.
Rachel Armstrong SF author and doctor, who has appeared extensively in the media and at international conferences speculating on the future of humankind, non Darwinian techniques of evolution and the challenges of the extra-terrestrial environment.
A late night back home, the penultimate train, after a couple of hours in Soho with Rachel, who called up a friend.
Let me explain; we all have dreams, wild ambitious, sometimes half baked and cooky, but they are our dreams.
We toy with them in our heads, occasionally we allow them out and then put them in their pens again.
At times, after a drink or two ( Orange juice) we splutter and meander what it is in a circuitous way that only friends would entertain the pregnant pauses and 20: 20 stares.
And then when we do, some friends sagely looking into their beers, others shrug their shoulders and then there is the Rachel.
What did that mean? Why did that happen? What will that do? Who is that for?
A litany of questions, non threatening, but interrogative, whose purpose is designed for you to dig deeper, explain simpler, see farther.
Rachel is like that.
She's a colleague of mine, but more than that, an unassuming scholar, a practicing medical doctor who gave up the oath to pursue her own dreams and one of those seems to be how she can help those unlock what they wish they could unhinge.
Everyone needs a Rachel.
By the time I finished up to leave, I was much clearer of several questions I have myself shied away from. Her friend a senior exec in Microsoft agreed Rachel is an extraordinary person.
