Hay Baling Fun
It is a widespread belief that, contrary to people living in urban areas, farmers have a strong connection with ‘nature’. One seriously starts to doubt that after watching this peculiar video. Thanks Roel Wouters.
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.
Archive for the ‘Nature becomes culture’ Category
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ISEA 2010: Artists addressing NextNature
At ISEA 2010, the International Symposium on Electronic Arts, media artists and media researchers from all over the world present their work in Dortmund (Germany). This year, many projects focus on the relationship between man and nature and man and technology. An overview of contemporary artistic practices of NextNature at ISEA 2010.
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Whether or not we should engineer the Weather
“Owning the Weather” is a documentary about geo-engineering by Robert Greene. It’s about whether or not we should engineer the weather and the different impacts that this has. And not only because we can, but also because actually we are already doing so.
“There are more than fifty active weather modification programs in the United States alone. Through the eyes of key individuals on the front lines of a crucial but largely unknown debate, the film introduces the cloud seeders struggling for mainstream recognition, the ‘legitimate’ scientists who doubt them, and the activists who decry any attempts to mess with Mother Nature.”
-Source: www.owningtheweather.com -
Climate Craze in Russia
Climate change is often thought to have its winners and losers, with Canada, Nordic countries and Russia being portrayed as among the lucky few chilly nations where moderate climate change could mean net benefits such as lower winter heating bills, more forest, longer crop growth and perhaps more summer tourism.
Russia’s two-month heat wave, which wrecked a quarter of Russia’s grain crop and may cut $14 billion from gross domestic product, is dimming prospects that northern countries will “win” from climate change.
While Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in 2002 joked that less icy weather would enable Russians to buy fewer fur coats, President Dmitry Medvedev now blamed the heat wave on global warming – even though most experts say it is impossible to link individual weather events to climate change.
People in Nordic nations and Canada are becoming aware that climate change will not be a simple blessing for them. Possible damaging side-effects of less chill weather, including the risk to forests and crops of insect pests normally kept in check by winter frosts.
Via Reuters, Thanks to the Canary Project. Image via English Russia.
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Nanoparticles in Sunscreen Damage Microbes
Nanotechnology has been hailed for its benefits because of the potential ability to create drugs that could cure cancer and radiation poisoning, make miniature pollutant filters resulting in healthier air and even produce better tasting food. Excitement over these benefits has led to corporations heavily investing in the technology for their products.
However, the same properties that allow nanotechnology to be valuable give it the potential to cause unforeseen consequences for ecological and human health. To date, it’s unclear whether the benefits of nanotech outweigh the risks associated with environmental release and exposure to nanoparticles.
Environmental Health News reports that nanoparticles in sunscreens, cosmetics and hundreds of other consumer products may pose risks to the environment by damaging beneficial microbes.
Researchers Cyndee Gruden and Olga Mileyeva-Biebesheimer from the University of Toledo added varying amounts of nanoparticles to water containing bacteria. The bacteria were grown in a lab and stained with a green fluorescent. It turned out the nano-titanium dioxide – also used in personal care products – reduced biological roles of bacteria after less than an hour of exposure. The findings suggest that these particles, which end up at municipal sewage treatment plants after being washed off in showers, could eliminate microbes that play vital roles in ecosystems and help treat wastewater. Oops!
Nanotechnology is yet another example of mankind playing with fire: It requires enormous care and restraint, yet on the other hand, playing with fire is perhaps one of the very special abilities that defines us as humans.
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Sea Breacher
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.
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1962 Oil Company Advertisement boasts about ability to Melt Glaciers
If this gasoline advertisement would be submitted to our infotizement contest, we would probably dismiss it for being too cynical and far fetched. Nonetheless, this ad was actually published in Life magazine in 1962. It shows pretty much the exact opposite image of what oil companies are trying to communicated today. If the letters are too small for you – and they are – here is the transcript:
EACH DAY HUMBLE SUPPLIES ENOUGH ENERGY TO MELT 7 MILLION TONS OF GLACIER!
“This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet, the petroleum energy Humble supplies- if converted into heat- could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second! To meet the nation’s growing needs for energy, Humble has applied science to nature’s resources to become America’s Leading Energy Company. Working wonders with oil through research, Humble provides energy in many forms- to help heat our homes, power our transportation, and to furnish industry with a great variety of versatile chemicals. Stop at a Humble station for new Enco Extra gasoline, and see why the “Happy Motoring” sign is the World’s First Choice!”
Despite the ignorance of global warming and the environmental impact of oil drilling, they apparently were in 1962 already quite aware of the benefits of a biomimicmarketing strategy.
Via Boingboing, via Sociological Images, via MsMarx.
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Don’t feed the Tourists
We could have decided to domesticate pigs into pets, instead of dogs and cats. Then this would be a totally normal picture. And it wouldn’t be featured here as peculiar image.
© All rights reserved by Photo Houston on Flickr.
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Join the Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Award
So, you are well aware that biotech will drive our evolution, you took the crash course on synthetic genomics, you’ve got your map of the DNA world in your backpack and are now eager to redesign some microbes that turn waste into energy, eat plastic, detect flu, or build a better being altogether? You have a brilliant project plan already, but only need some – let say– euro 25.000 and a bit of help from a genomic center to turn your vision into reality? We have cake for you.
The Designers & Artists 4 Genomics Award (DA4GA) aims to explore the hybrid practice between design, art and genomics on contemporary society. If you are graduated no longer than five years ago you are eligible to submit a project plan and take a chance on winning a euro 25.000,- to realize you project in collaboration with one of the participating Genomic centers.
If we are going to mutate the made & the born, let us at least do this creatively. The application deadline is September 8th 2010.
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Twitwee Clock
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”.
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Bread-in-a-Can
This morning I woke up early and started the day with a cup of coffee and some slices of wholewheat bread and dutch cheese. I realised that bread is one of these few products that I use on a daily base, that still have some kind of ‘artisan’ mythology around it because of its appearance. Even if you buy factory bread instead of the organic bread from the bakery on the corner, you can kind of relate to what a bread is: processed grains. Made digestible in a form that resembles the process of making: flour and water, made into a ball of dough and baked in an oven. Associations with warmth, fire. The yeast making the doug rise.
This japanese bread-in-a-can (Japanese: スズの甘いパンすることができます) , photographed by designer Michele Champagne in Tokyo, is something different for breakfast. It comes in a colourful can, tastes sweet, comes in different flavours and is for sale in a vending machine. At the same time it feels futuristic and old fashioned in a 50’s way, when buying canned goods in a supermarket was still some kind of novelty. This is a good example why I love to go to supermarkets abroad, especially the ones in Asia: the supermarket itself is such a mundane phenomenon that sometimes you need a foreign perspective on your daily groceries to realize that you’re already living in the future.
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Crops Running Wild.
Only for the title already I wanted to post this as soon as I read it on Nature.com. The newsarticle is entitled “GM crop escapes into the American wild.” Brilliant! Let’s walk into the world of escaped crop populations and from there cross our paths with patented broccoli, shall we? Follow me.
