io9 Contest: Build a Lifeform, Win a Trip to Hong Kong

io9 is running a contest for mad scientists, particularly mad synthetic biologists:

That's because synthetic biologists are the people who are going to build new life forms, like ligers and unicorns and people with claws and glowing eyes. OK, they might build bacteria that can clean up oil spills and repair damaged kidneys too. The point is, building new lifeforms is the science of the future and therefore you can never have too many garage laboratories and mad scientists devoted to it. That's why io9 is sponsoring a contest to find two of the best synthetic life forms you can design for us. The winners in our two categories will get either an all-expenses-paid trip to the kickass Synthetic Biology Conference in Hong Kong this October, or $1000 and a chance to have their creature drawn by a cool comic book artist. Find out more below.

There are two categories. In the first category you must make your creature from BioBricks registry of standard biological parts, describe how it would be made and any hazards it might create. In the second category you can let your imagination run more freely and propose any "scientifically justifiable lifeform". The entries will be judged by MIT synthetic biologist Drew Endy, evolutionary biologist and PLoS co-founder Michael Eisen, Spore game developer Jason Shankel, and biology researcher/io9 "ask a biogeek" columnist Terry Johnson.

The deadline is August 25. Get all the details and rules at io9.

Tags:science fiction, synthetic biology, contest