Biofact

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Biofact is a term that can refer to:

• Biofact (philosophy), in philosophy, a hybrid between an artefact and a living being.

In philosophy, sociology and the arts, a biofact is a hybrid between artifact and living being, or between concepts of nature and technology. It was introduced as a neologism in 2001 by the German philosopher Nicole C. Karafyllis and fuses the words artifact and bios.

http://www.biofact.com was created by Arthur Kerschen on September 22, 1998 identifying a biofact as a hybrid of nature and technology. Herzyl Toby will star as Dr. Arthur Kerschen in the upcoming short animated film "Subject: 07401" produced by Bryan Robbins.

• Biofact (biology), dead material of a once-living organism.

In 1943, the protozoologist Bruno M. Klein of Vienna (1891-1968) coined the term biofact in his article Biofakt und Artefakt in the microscopy journal Mikrokosmos, though at that time it was not adopted by the scientific community. Klein's concept of biofact stressed the dead materials produced by living organisms as sheaths, e.g. shells.

In 1993, the word "biofact" was used in the Education Department at the New England Aquarium, Boston, to refer to preserved items such as animal bones, skins, molts and eggs.

• Biofact (archaeology) (also; ecofact), an object, found at an archaeological site and carrying archaeological significance, but previously unhanded by humans.

A common type of biofact in the arachaeological sense is a plant seed. A seed can be linked to the species of plant that produced it; if large numbers of seeds of an edible species are found at a site, it may be inferred that that species was being grown for food there. Another type of biofact is an (uncarved) wooden roof beam. Dendrochronological analysis of some wood samples can help to determine the date during which a site was occupied. Yet another example of a biofact is a bone.

Literature

• Nicole C. Karafyllis (ed.): Biofakte - Versuch über den Menschen zwischen Artefakt und Lebewesen. Paderborn, Mentis 2003 (in German).

• Nicole C. Karafyllis: Biofakte - Grundlagen, Probleme, Perspektiven. Discussion Unit in the journal Deliberation Knowledge Ethics / Erwaegen Wissen Ethik, Vol. 17, Nr. 4 (2006). (in German with English abstracts)

• Nicole C. Karafyllis: Growth of Biofacts: the real thing or metaphor?. In: R. Heil, A. Kaminski, M. Stippack, A. Unger and M. Ziegler (Ed.): Tensions and Convergences. Technological and Aesthetic (Trans)Formations of Society. Bielefeld (2007). 141-152. (in English)

• Nicole C. Karafyllis: Endogenous Design of Biofacts. Tissues and Networks in Bio Art and Life Science. In: sk-interfaces. Exploding borders - creating membranes in art, technology and society. Ed. by Jens Hauser. Liverpool: University of Liverpool Press (European Ed.) (2008), 42-58. (in English)

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