Rockefeller University

Program for the Human Environment

Area of Research: Technology & Human Environment

Leonardo DNA in Science magazine

Science magazine’s Richard Stone publishes a superb survey of the Leonardo da Vinci Project, The Real da Vinci Code, occasioned by the posting to BioRxiv of our big paper, Biological signatures of history: Examination of composite biomes and Y chromosome analysis from da Vinci-associated cultural artifacts.

Media coverage is occurring, a couple of items are linked below. 

The Telegraph Leonardo da Vinci DNA discovery could uncover lost paintings By Sarah Knapton

The Times Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA ‘found on artwork’  By Rhys Blakely

Irish radio program Drivetime interview with Jesse (starts with 2 minutes of patter)

Dubai radio The Agenda with Georgia Talley (starts at 56 minutes)

Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project public website

The purpose of the Leonardo da Vinci DNA Project is to create insights into the life and work of Leonardo da Vinci through application of rapidly advancing tools in biology and anthropology in close association with expertise from history and the arts. The new detective technologies span genetics and genealogy, microbiology, physical anthropology, chemistry, hydraulics, and visualization. A principal means for insight would be a genomic profile of Leonardo. The Project was conceived in 2014 by Brunetto Chiarelli, Cesare Marchetti, and Jesse Ausubel with crucial help from Henry de Lumley…and finally opens a public website.

Jesse on Decouple podcast

Canadian Chris Keefer, an emergency medical physician and president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, hosts Jesse Ausubel for an hour on his Decouple podcast. Jesse discusses his intellectual roots, the environmental trifecta of land-sparing, decarbonization, and dematerialization, and contrasting Catholic and Protestant views of strategy and fate in relation to energy systems.

“Peak Human?” booklet by Ausubel-Curry posted

Based on Jesse’s Nierenberg Prize lecture, Jesse and Alan Curry, who led research on human performance enhancement for the Program for the Human Environment for several years, have created a compact version with about half the visual exhibits in the lecture. We retain the title “Peak Human? Thoughts on the Evolution of the Enhancement of Human Performance.” Thanks to Dale Langford for editorial assistance and the beautiful layout.