Synthetic biology the applied science for creating new biological sub-systems and organisms more and more gets into focus of the public, especially now as US researcher Craig Venter could successfully create a bacterium which has fully artificial genetic codes. "Creating life" now is becoming actual reality. In the articles collected here French scientists are debating the possible use and threats of synthetic biology.

The world-systems analysis theory of Wallerstein can be regarded in fact as an alternative way of thinking to the capitalism theory of Marx or partly of Lenin. This article examines how this type of approach provides a real alternative in understanding the lows of motion and the development of capitalism.

Postmodernism as an epistemological project still reproduces a particular form of coloniality. A decolonial perspective requires a broader canon of thought that would require taking seriously the epistemic insights of critical thinkers from the global South. How can a "critical border thinking" that envisages a "transmodern world" moves us beyond Eurocentrism?

As it also happened at their time, many would like to present Beatles as a group of kindly smiling lads, maybe feather-brained but definitely nice. Just the opposite, this music, including its cultural and social context, is – sometimes indirectly but often openly – about rebellion and protest or even more about creating a better world full of love, not hungry for money and missing exploitation.

The well-known German social scientist examines tendencies in the development of historical research in relation to historiography and other social sciences (economic science, sociology, politology) and concludes that the distance between them increased again in the second half of the 20th century. Nevertheless, a horizon for a new cooperation is emerging now, which is gradually getting into practice. Scientific methodological problems are deeply embedded in the process of fighting for social alternatives.