What is Next Nature?
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.
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Inkjet Bio-Printing the Skin
In the series of bio-printer stories this inkjet-like bio-printer seems to be the most convincing product to hit the market soon. It sprays skin cells directly onto burn victims, healing their wounds as an alternative to skin grafts. The printer is developed for military applications at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Currently they are in the ‘pig test phase’. This is one step away from tests on humans.
Such a printer is also interesting for the consumer market, especially for families with little children. The band-aids with colorful prints for children are hard to beat. But isn’t a colorful printed skin much cooler?
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Elephant sends sms messages to rangers
In the Kenyan wildlife conservancy Ol Pejeta elephants are tagged with a GPS-triggered text messaging device. Before the elephants start raiding the nearby villagers’ harvest they send a text message to the rangers. The rangers respond by chasing the elephants off again. The tag also enables online elephant tracking through Google Earth for preservation concerns. How long will it take until the wildlife online identity will walk around in second life for safari tours? And people get killed on the internet by grumpy elephant bulls?
Not only elephants are tagged with GPS coordinates, also other wild animals can be tracked easily. So the safari experience comes with ‘wildlife guarantee’ these days. It seems that even Africa looses its adventurous nature. When will we drive with our landrovers through the stock-market hunting for broke speculators?