A Lab For Anyone Interested

CCL information booth at a local maker fair.

Can you imagine this? It's an equipped science lab, but not necessarily for industry use. It's for the average person, a place for citizen science. Not only is it a place for experimentation, but it is a place where a visitor can learn more about science. It's a maker space, a place for discovery and creativity, a place where you can meet others of similar mind, citizen scientists, science hackers, tinkerers, biotech innovators, science teachers. Here, at COUNTER CULTURE LABS (CCL), in San Francisco, the equipment is available to take the mystery out of the scientific process.

So, exactly what types of investigations are going on at CCL? Five different projects are happening at the same time, but they each have designated days of the week, so interested participants are sure to find the project that interests them. On Saturdays, a member of the lab offers a one and a half hour class for those interested, who also make a small monetary contribution to offset the cost of supplies. Content usually covers an Intro to the Lab and a 101 Level Synthetic Biology series.



Making Real Vegan Cheese occurs every other Monday and involves utilizing the same proteins that make milk to produce a milk without the animal involvement, then putting that milk through the same cheese-making fermentation process that makes milk-based cheese. Plant Biology takes place on the alternate Mondays involves learning all that plants can teach and investigating what products can be made from plants.

First Tuesday of the Month becomes a day when exploration of inventions and science at the intersection with art is explored, on what is called Art-n-Science. Anything fitting into this category is fair game. Wednesdays and Sundays are Open Insulin days. Anything that leads to a generic form of insulin or research into more improved forms of insulin is explored. The Fermentation Station is open on Wednesdays. Participants get to make herbal mead and other fermentation products, along with already-formulated brews.

Milo Toor, a software engineer, works with equipment that helps sequence DNA.

For those with extra time on their hands, fixing up the lab is an available option. Cleaning and tidying are always needed. Older, used equipment can be sold, and equipment used regularly can be tested and labelled with colored tape to indicate working status. Drawers can be labelled with types of items stored there and items left out and about can be returned to their drawers. Yes, it's the basics of science; it's participatory, and it's available to anyone interested.

Hardware Bio-Hacking session at CCL.

Thanks for information from this Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/pg/CounterCultureLabs/about/?ref=page_internal; this page on CCL: https://www.counterculturelabs.org/about.html; this page on CCL: https://www.counterculturelabs.org/projects.html; and the above link.

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