Also at the conference, Reid Hoffman, one of the founders of LinkedIn, which recently agreed to be acquired by Microsoft for $26 billion, announced that he planned to offer a $250,000 “Disobedience Prize” aimed at promoting positive social change and opposing injustice.

“It will go to a person or group engaged in what we believe is excellent disobedience for the benefit of society. The disobedience that we would like to call out is the kind that seeks to change society in a positive way, and is consistent with a set of key principles,” wrote Joichi Ito, director of the M.I.T. Media Lab, in a web posting about the prize. The timing of the award has not yet been determined.

In separate panels, biologists and climate scientists explored the risks and rewards of scientific research that might have unexpected consequences.

Kevin Esvelt, a biologist who is director of the Sculpting Evolution research group at the M.I.T. Media Lab, spoke about new, easily accessible genetic engineering technologies that might be used to preserve species that are at risk of extinction, and alternatively to eradicate pests that threaten human populations by spreading disease.

He described a discussion scientists had on Wednesday with residents of Martha’s Vineyard about the use of advanced genetic engineering techniques to introduce a type of mouse that had been modified to be unable to carry Lyme disease. The idea would be to break the transmission of the disease to ticks and then to humans.

He said that before beginning the experiment, the scientists engaged the community to discuss potential risks.

Scientists on several panels acknowledged that it was impossible to be certain about unforeseen effects from new engineering techniques.

“What we’re worried about is something that we do that could be very attractive in the short term but have some triggering mechanism or some slow events that occur far in the future,” said George Church, a Harvard geneticist who is exploring genetic engineering techniques to revive extinct species.