One of the most challenging problems in microbiology today is predicting the structure of operation of a cell and serve numerous critical functions such as breaking down starches in food for energy our blood. Inside a living cell, protein functions (be they enzymes, antibodies, or code RNA) are determined largely by their structural arrangements: their size, shape, and the reactivity of molecules on the outside of the structures. Single proteins, however, can contain thousands of individual amino acids in different combinations and configurations. The entire field of structural microbiology is dedicated to discovering structures and their related functions. And the field has recently grown branches, one of which concerns protein design. Rather scientists design protein structures with amino acids. Protein design depends mostly on (1) the amino acid sequence of a protein and (2) the way that the chain is "folded" into itself and connected to other proteins. While researchers understand the importance of these elements, no easy way to predict a structure currently exists. Protein designers often use computer visualization tools to manipulate virtual proteins. probabilistically fold proteins into as many variations as possible, but the automated approach is unwieldy because of the multiplicity of moving parts and possible combinations. Moreover, it is difficult

This article explores the intersection of Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT). These two traditions are particularly important in the Canadian research context. We examine genre and ANT to uncover what we believe is a complementary relationship that promises much to the study of science, especially in the age of the internet. Specifically, we see RGS as a way to account for how objects come to “be” as complex wholes and so act across/among levels of network configurations. Moreover, the nature of these objects’ (instruments’) action is such that we may attribute them to a kind of rhetorical agency. We look to the InFORM Network’s grassroots, citizen science-oriented response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster as a case that exemplifies how a combined RGS and ANT perspective can articulate the complex wholes of material/rhetorical networks.Cet article examine Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) et Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Ces deux modes d’étude sont importants dans les contextes de la recherche Canadienne. Nous prennons genre et ANT, pour retrouver une perspective que nous croyons puisse contribuer beaucoup aux études de la science dans l’âge de l’internet. On comprend les genres de textes comme une moyenne de rendre compte de la façon dont les objets deviennent des ensembles complexes et donc agir entre les différents niveaux de configuration réseau. En plus, la nature des actions de ces objets (ou instruments scientifique) est telle qu’on puisse attribuer a eux une sorte d’agence rhétorique. Nous voyons le citizen science reponse de l’InFORM Network a la disastre au Fukushima Daiichi comme une example de la puissance d’un perspectif RGS/ANT pour articuler les “entieres-complexes” des networks qui sont material/rhetorical au meme temps.

This article considers the use of flag telegraphy by the US Signal Corps during the Civil War as it functioned as a proto-technical medium that preceded wire telegraphy as a military communications technology. Not only was flag telegraphy a historical step towards contemporary technical media, it was also an early iteration of the digitization of communication. Our treatment ties together three main theoretical threads as a way of seeing ‘the digital’ in material communication practices: (1) Friedrich Kittler’s concept of technical media as a remediation between the 19th and 20th centuries, (2) Foucault’s docile bodies as means of reproducing culture, and (3) James Carey’s argument that the telegraph reconfigured communication. The Signal Corps is a rich historical moment in terms of media history and history of technology because it illustrates the convergence of historical exigencies at work in the war machine: mobility, secrecy, precision, and speed. Each contributes, we argue, to a digital telos that privileges digital ways of knowing and being.

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