Grow by Ginkgo

08/04/2024

Relationships — among molecules, cells, creatures — tend to be described in terms of how one controls. Are there better alternatives to this “control language” used so ubiquitously across molecular biology?

Our writers think so. We kick off The Networks Issue with Erika Szymanski, Josh Evans, and Emma Frow, who offer three alternatives to control that emerge in their respective research: participation, interest, and care. Read now at the link in bio.

Images from ’s exhibition: Cometabolise: A Holobiont Dinner (2021). Counterbalancing reductionist scientific practices, Cometabolise explores how interactive encounters between humans, microbes and food might open up new forms of symbiotic relationality built on care and reciprocity. The participatory work suggests how new dynamic representations are needed to understand and treat our bodies as ecosystems.

01/04/2024

Relationships—among molecules, cells, creatures—tend to be described in terms of how one 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙𝑠 another.

Are there better alternatives to this "control language" used so ubiquitously across molecular biology?

We kick off The Networks Issue with Colorado State University's Erika Szymanski, Technical University of Denmark's Joshua Evans, and Arizona State University's Emma Frow, who offer three alternatives to control that emerge in their respective research: participation, interest, and care.

Read it here:

The language of molecular biology says that the goal of bioengineering is achieving control over biological processes and other creatures. Maybe there are better alternatives.

11/03/2024

It's Monday. Time to put the FUN in fungi 🍄

Grow's Christina Agapakis speaks with Eben Bayer about scaling his mycelium company.

How does he, after over a decade of running Ecovative, think about the tension between scale and growth, capitalism and sustainability?

Eben Bayer is a pioneer of mycelium-based materials. His upstate New York based company Ecovative finds new applications for these fungal root structures, which in the future could change the composition of the things we use. Ecovative turns mycelium into packaging materials, leather alternatives, m...

26/02/2024

Networks makes us think of communities and creativity, roots and rhizomes, AI and actor-network theory. A biological network is writing these words right now and an electronic network is bringing them to you.

Pitch us for The Networks Issue now! Read our pitch guide at the link in bio, and then email us with your pitch.

🖼️: from The Ecological Relation of Roots by John E. Weaver (1919)

14/02/2024

You’ve worked hard this week. You deserve a story about cats.
Niranjana Rajalakshmi writes about a new possibility for animal control: non-invasive neutering based on gene therapy. Complemented by purrfect photos from Jackie Russo. Check it out at our link in bio!

09/02/2024

You've worked hard this week. You deserve a story about cats.

https://www.growbyginkgo.com/2024/02/09/one-shot/

Niranjana Rajalakshmi writes about a new possibility for animal control: non-invasive neutering based on gene therapy. Complemented by purrfect photos from Jackie Russo.

01/11/2023

Artificial intelligence has matured in parallel with biology for decades.

If you ask Profluent Bio's Ali Madani and Enveda Biosciences' Viswa Colluru, the two fields will transform how we discover drugs and treat disease.

Find out more in our latest story!

AI is helping us create languages out of proteins and other molecules. Grow’s Christina Agapakis speaks with two founders about how that will shape the medicine of the future.

26/10/2023

AI is helping us create languages out of proteins and other molecules.

Our very own Christina Agapakis speaks with Profluent Bio's Ali Madani and Enveda Biosciences' Viswa Colluru about how this will shape the medicine of the future.

Read it here:

AI is helping us create languages out of proteins and other molecules. Grow’s Christina Agapakis speaks with two founders about how that will shape the medicine of the future.

10/10/2023

Our latest Scale Issue piece by Tatyana Woodall, "Terraforming Earth", reflects on existing research which explores the possibility of using extremophiles, atypical microorganisms that have evolved to survive the most extreme conditions on Earth, to help "terraform" other planets, transforming them from barren wastelands to environments that complex organisms, like humans, could prosper in.

The move to Mars may be far off, but perhaps the power of microbes could just as easily be used to address agricultural issues here on Earth. Find out more at our link in bio, you'll definitely want to check out the surreal digital collages by

02/10/2023

Scientists seek solutions for turning strange worlds, like Mars, into places where future explorers could confidently settle.

Could the solution lie with microbes sent to distant destinations in preparation for our arrival?

Our latest, by Tatyana Woodall:

Synthetic biology could help terraform Mars. Could it do the same for Earth?

20/09/2023

Colorado potato beetles — perhaps the most notorious agricultural pest on the planet — may soon meet their match.

Read our latest:

Colorado potato beetles have resisted every pesticide. Will they overcome RNA as well?

14/09/2023

"[The word "Equity"] has two seemingly contradictory meanings: On the one hand, this ideal of eliminating systemic barriers to creating a fairer society; on the other, ownership shares in a corporation. Are its two meanings reconcilable?"⁠
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How do we build equitable companies? In "Mother Nature, Shareholder" we explore this question via a conversation between Nathan Schneider, who looks at history and the wide range of cooperative movements for inspiration, and Phoebe Tickell, who looks to nature, and how novel ecosystems can inspire new ways of organizing. Check out our link in bio to learn more about the inequitable ways that corporate equity is currently distributed, and how to change that in the future.⁠
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Illustration by

06/09/2023

🪲🥔 Colorado potato beetles are perhaps the most notorious agricultural pest on the planet. And nothing we do seems to stop them for long.

Could we ditch chemical pesticides and fend them off with a rain of RNA, instead?

Read our latest piece:

Colorado potato beetles have resisted every pesticide. Will they overcome RNA as well?

16/08/2023

Xenografts inspired hopes of more individualized cancer therapies. Three experts weigh in on how that future may—and may not—manifest.

Read the latest Grow story, written by Emilia Hojel and illustrated by Joanne Joo:
https://www.growbyginkgo.com/2023/08/16/personalized-medicine-cant-scale-without-ai/

10/08/2023

An experiment in China turns bloodsucking leeches into a microcosm of ecosystem health.

Read our latest story:
https://www.growbyginkgo.com/2023/08/02/leeches-with-jobs/

02/08/2023

Leeches suck everyone's blood. They contain a microcosm of the ecosystem they live in. This, writes Zhengyang Wang, makes them a crucial ally in monitoring biodiversity in the age of the sixth extinction.

Read our latest story:

An experiment in China turns these bloodsuckers into a microcosm of ecosystem health.

27/07/2023

Four years of Grow!🥳

Read our latest newsletter in which our Creative Director looks back at Grow's origins and recaps how far the magazine has come:

11/07/2023

Phage therapy has been touted as the replacement to antibiotics. But what if that comparison is holding it back?