Uplink 55: How to Protect a Planet
Join us on Thursday 29th July for Uplink 55. Our guests will be authors Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley, who collaborated on the new title Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine. We’ll be discussing the origin and practices of quarantine to slow the spread of disease and how it’s applied today in space exploration to prevent contamination between life on Earth and possible alien life elsewhere in the solar system. We’ll be live from 8pm (BST) / 9pm (CEST) / 3pm (EDT). You can set yourself a reminder here.
Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley have been researching quarantine since long before the COVID-19 pandemic. Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine is a book as compelling as it is definitive, not only urgent reading for social-distanced times, but also an up-to-the-minute investigation of the interplay of forces – biological, political, technological – that shape our modern world. In the book, Geoff and Nicola meet NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer, tasked with saving Earth from extraterrestrial infections, and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli about how to keep space travellers safe from sickness during their missions. They also introduce us to the corporate tech giants hoping to revolutionise quarantine through surveillance and algorithmic prediction.
Geoff Manaugh is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the author of A Burglar’s Guide to the City, on the relationship between crime and architecture. The book was a New York Times-bestseller for two months, and, in 2016, was optioned for television by CBS Studios. According to Amazon, it was one of their Best Books of 2016. He has been Editor-in-Chief of Gizmodo (2013-2014), a Contributing Editor at Wired UK (2009-2013), and Senior Editor of Dwell (2007-2009).
Nicola Twilley is a regular contributor to The New Yorker. As well as co-authoring Until Proven Safe, she is also working on a book about refrigeration. She is also the co-host of Gastropod, a biweekly podcast that reveals the hidden history and surprising science behind a different food and/or farming-related topic. In her spare time, she makes smog meringues.
Join us on Thursday at 8pm BST / 9pm CEST / 3pm EDT to watch and join in at our Youtube channel. You can also catch past episodes of Uplink and subscribe for news about forthcoming editions. Don’t forget you can also sign up to our new weekly newsletter MISSION UPDATE right here!
