With our attempts to cultivate nature, humankind causes the rising of a next nature, which is wild and unpredictable as ever. Wild systems, genetic surprises, autonomous machinery and splendidly beautiful black flowers. Nature changes along with us.
A relatively new kind of marine species is called “Seabreacher”.
These watercraft vessels started appearing from 1997 and have been evolving at a rapid pace. Seabreachers enable their controllers to maneuver swiftly through the water: diving, jumping, rolling, porpoising… all within the safety and comfort of a dry, sealed cockpit.
Haroon Baig from Germany has figured out a way to key up the amount of 50+ Twitter addicts.
This progressive nostalgic cuckoo device displays new tweets from any twitter stream or search on the built-in display, “accompanied by the charming yet obtrusive call of a mechanical cuckoo popping out of the clock”.
Designer Bob de Graaf takes pleasure in collecting and combining objects from old nature & next nature in search for similarities. Surely a traditional biologist would not create a collection like this anytime soon, but then again, an extraterrestrial alien scientists who’s observations wouldn’t be burdened by established notions of nature and culture, might have. Peculiar image of the week.
In the 70’s we had the pet rocks that have gotten lost over the years in drawers and attics. The 90’s gave us Tamagotchi’s to look after, which we could reset if all else failed. But now SWAMP & Tiago Rorke present the Tardigotchi. “An artwork featuring two pets: a living organism (ed. a tardigrade) and an alive avatar (ed. gotchi).”
We can feed the avatar virtually with a push on the button which in turn will feed the organism. All this while we connect online and send our love and praise through Facebook or by email, which actually triggers a brief signal of warmth to the tardigrade and virtual rays of sun to the avatar. As the makers say on the website: “A Tardigotchi owner tends to a real and a virtual creature simultaneously.” The question that is asked at the same time is whether this makes a difference.
Let’s slightly move back to the NextNature theme with an amusing video by Cyriak.
This time no technological enhanced roosters, dogs, cats or wood lice, but sheep! The famous viral Extreme Shepherding by The Baaa-Studs.
From our reliable source – who wishes to remain anonymous – we know that this is exactly the same rooster that was used in the Philips WakeUp Light test, but only one year later. Of course, this never made it into the test results that where handed to the Philips CEO.
A cat that had its back feet severed by a combine harvester has been given two prosthetic limbs in a pioneering operation by a UK vet. The custom-made implants that “peg” the ankle to the foot are bio-engineered to mimic the way deer antler bone grows through the skin.
The ground breaking operation was carried out by veterinary surgeon Noel Fitzpatrick. The cat, named Oscar, was struck by the combine harvester whilst dozing in the sun.
The prosthetic pegs, called intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (Itaps) were developed by a team from University College London led by Professor Gordon Blunn, who is head of UCL’s Centre for Biomedical Engineering.
Professor Blunn and his team have worked in partnership with Mr Fitzpatrick to develop these weight-bearing implants, combining engineering mechanics with biology. Mr Fitzpatrick explained: “The real revolution with Oscar is that we have put a piece of metal and a flange into which skin grows into an extremely tight bone.”
“We have managed to get the bone and skin to grow into the implant and we have developed an ‘exoprosthesis’ that allows this implant to work as a see-saw on the bottom of an animal’s limbs to give him effectively normal gait.”
Professor Blunn told BBC News the idea was initially developed for patients with amputations who have a stump socket. “This means they fix their artificial limb with a sock, which fits over the stump. In a lot of cases this is successful, but you [often] get rubbing and pressure sores.”
It remains to be seen what the psychological ramifications of having bambi-style prosthetics will be for Oscar.
Via: BBC News.
In Holland people go crazy for soccer, especially now that the national team has reached the World Cup final. We gather everything that’s orange – our shirt color – as the ultimate solidarity to our players. Companies know this, and start handing out all kinds of stupid gifts to draw attention to the customers. Cause if it’s orange, we wanna have it, how useless or dumb, orange at soccer days is like gold.
Dutch Supermarket Albert Heijn is one of the main players in the field of funny orange trumpery. For every 15 euro you spend at the store you receive a ‘Beessie’ mascotte (see photo). But nothing you could do with it till now. Anglers found out it’s very usefull to catch fish. On several websites people are showing their catch with the ‘Beessies’ from the supermarket. There are competitions to catch the biggest, the most. And more important it’s addictive! Everybody wants to try cathing fish with Beessies.
Techno-artists love insects. Especially their unpredictable behaviour. Eindhoven (NL) based design studio Ehdv used tracking software and connected some camera’to a bunch of wood lice, to create graphic design and even chairs.
Insects can also become living pixels. Austrian artist Gordan Savicic re-creates a famous Aracade-video game, using a new ‘organic algorithm’: the AI of his BioPong is performed by a cockroach which carries a neon-green pixel on its shoulder. Players can control their sticks but are not able to foresee the movement of the CI (cockroach intelligence). Feeding the pixel is not allowed!
The US Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal rate.
The salmon was developed by a company called AquaBounty Technologies. It is an Atlantic salmon that contains a growth hormone gene from a Chinook salmon as well as a genetic on-switch from the ocean pout, a distant relative of the salmon.
Normally salmon do not make growth hormone in cold climate. But the pout’s on-switch keeps production of the hormone going year round. The result is salmon that can grow to market size in 16 to 18 months instead of three years.
The F.D.A. needs to analyze whether the salmon are safe to eat, nutritionally equivalent to other salmon and safe for the environment, according to government and biotechnology industry officials. Furthermore, they must decide on the environmental risks from the salmon. Some experts have speculated that fast-growing fish could out-compete wild fish for food or mates.
Nowadays the vast majority all Atlantic salmon now comes from fish farms, not the wild. According to its promoters the genetically modified salmon would be grown only in inland tanks or other contained facilities, not in ocean pens where they might escape into the wild. And the fish would all be female and sterile, making it impossible for them to mate – similar to bananas.
AquaBounty Technologies submitted data to the F.D.A. showing that its salmon was indistinguishable from non-engineered Atlantic salmon in terms of taste, color, vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, proteins and other nutrients.
A public meeting to discuss the salmon may be held as early as this fall.
Via NYTimes.
How could you ever be an anthropomorphobic after you’ve seen this peculiar image of the week. Thanks Maze.
