dark matter; event-body; horizontal gene transfer; metagenomics; myth-history; biological dark matter
Abstract :
[en] Emergent research in metagenomics has unveiled large quantities of previously unknown and unclassified prokaryotic DNA. As these prokaryotes constitute the vast majority of microbial life in environmental samples, some microbiologists and commentators in scientific media have referred to this expansive unknown as ‘biological dark matter’, translating the rhetorical power of dark matter from the physical to the life sciences. Engaging literatues and approaches from across the philosophy, history, and social studies of science, we explore the cultural significance of the dark matter theory in the physical sciences and examine the implications of its conceptual reworking in biology, through critically engaging the political narratives folded within dark matter’s genealogies. ‘Dark matter’ designates both zones of importance and zones of turbulence, simultaneously emphasizing microbiologists’ creativity whilst constructing new ways of relating to microbiota. Such a situation, we propose, also invites theoretical analysis as it calls for a conceptual reconsideration of the gene and its fundamental role within the life sciences.
Research Center/Unit :
SPIRAL Cité - ULiège
Disciplines :
Philosophy & ethics Political science, public administration & international relations Human geography & demography Law, criminology & political science: Multidisciplinary, general & others
H2020 - 949577 - The BoS - The Body Societal: Unfolding Genomics Infrastructure in Cattle Livestock Selection and Reproduction
Name of the research project :
The Body Societal: Unfolding Genomics Infrastructure in Cattle Livestock Selection and Reproduction
Funders :
ERC - European Research Council European Union
Funding number :
949577
Funding text :
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/ or publication of this article: Primary research was enabled by funding received from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Grant ID: 949577, ‘The Body Societal’), and a Small Research Grant from the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust provided the space to think and write about novel genomic technologies (Grant ID: SRG2324\240881, ‘Contesting Genomic Histories and Museum Futures in an Age of Extinction’).
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