This week a Brazilian prosecutor asked a judge to nationally ban toys sold with meals in fast-food outlets like McDonald’s and Burger King, because it can lead children to develop bad eating habits. The move comes amid wide-spread concern over the link between some fast food and illnesses such as diabetes, as the U.S. congress considers requiring chain restaurants to disclose calories on their menus to help fight endemic obesity.
Prosecutor Marcio Schusterschitz, a federal prosecutor in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state, said fast-food toy promotions encourage children to buy high-fat meals through “the abusive creation of emotional associations” that turn them into life-long eaters of high-fat foods. Read the full article on uk.reuters.com
Toys are us… Apart from the health-aspect and cases of obesity, this article makes me wondering; how much plastic are we talking about on a yearly basis? According to thebluebrick.net, it takes 34 cents to manufacture and package each Happy Meal toy. At 2.5 million Happy Meals sold annually, $850 thousand is spent on those little wads of plastic a year.
You think that is much? Why no; it is good investment. Children really need some entertainment to go with their meals. It is educational, every toy is played with over and over again and almost never thrown away. And when children play, they burn calories. I guess it is the toys that determine the nature we deserve.
Related: Fake For Real: Image Consumption | Hamburger Sneaker | Million Dollar Burger | They are made out of Meat | Where it came from |
The 150 people watching this Youtube-commercial right now, will copy the source and blog or twitter it forward because it diggs. 40 of them have remorse over the fact that it is an ordinary commercial and not a live search engine to be able to know what’s going on in the Next Nature. 10% of them is thinking; “But this search engine is sure to exist in 5 to 10 years”. 2% will post a comment about it and there’s a 50% chance you are thinking to creatively post something to make me have my facts wrong.
Via: scaryideas.com
Visitors of the British amusement park Alton Towers can have themselves wristbanded and RFID tracked in order to buy a “personalised” DVD at the end of their visit. Precomposed videomaterial is mixed with CCTV footage, featuring the wristband-wearer, friends and family having a great personalized collective experience day out. Watch some video examples here.
Mark the day that the British started paying for their own surveillance camera footage!
via: boingboing.net | related: CCTV Total World Domination | Smart Forests EWAN
It is a home to crawlers, virusses, search engines, gamers, spammers, chatters, twitters, bloggers, worms and spiders. If calling it alive goes too far, it’s still safe to say that the internet forms a nature of its own. Would the new American president have won the elections if he had ignored its tentacles? How many people would be out of a job if it seized to exist? Internet’s garden is blooming like never seen before, yet some people only enjoy gardens without the weeds.
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Article by Michael Bristow, published at news.bbc.co.uk.
China is using an increasing number of paid “internet commentators” in a sophisticated attempt to control public opinion. These commentators are used by government departments to scour the internet for bad news - and then negate it. They post comments on websites and forums that spin bad news into good in an attempt to shape public opinion. Read the rest of this entry »
Article by Jonah Lehrer, published at boston.com
Scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. After spending a few minutes on a crowded city street, the brain is less able to hold things in memory, and suffers from reduced self-control. While it’s long been recognized that city life is exhausting — that’s why Picasso left Paris — this new research suggests that cities actually dull our thinking, sometimes dramatically so. […]
One of the main forces at work is a stark lack of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartment overlooks a grassy courtyard. […]
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Found in my living room. A very familiar sight. But what does it imply?
In the winter season people all over the world bring trees into their house and decorate it; following an ancient Germanic tradition to celebrate the shortest day and the coming of springtime. The Christian Church adopted this habit around the 16th century, since it fell together with another important religious celebration. It is for this reason that tree top decorations were originally star–shaped; symbolic for the light ‘announcing’ the birth of the son of God on earth. But the custom was popularised and the star tree topper evolved into a multitude of shapes, representing: Unsurpassed beauty and human dominance over nature (notice the pre–cut branches).
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Starting next spring, a complete human-genome sequence can be ordered the Californian startup Complete Genomics for just $5,000, Techreview reports.
Currently sequencing still costs about $100,000. The price drop is expected to allow pharmaceutical companies to make genome sequencing a routine part of clinical drug testing. A $5,000 genome would open up new possibilities in creating personalized medicine.
As prices are expected to drop further over the next decade, we foresee non-clinical applications will emerge as well. How about a human-genome sequence chip on your cellphone? Should be handy to check if your pick up at the party is also a suitable marriage-partner (you can just filter the father/mother or your kids right just out!?). Calculate your chances regarding that horrible disease in your family. Or determine whether that friend-of-a-friend should be accepted to your genetic-social-network. Playing doctor at the kindergarten will not be quite what it used to be.
See also: Social networking down to the genetic level, Genetic map of Europe, Google DNA search, Surrogate Sushi unmasked with DNA test, Poetry of Genetics.
Copy and paste the successful and your shop will survive. That’s what these Indian entrepreneurs must have figured in the city of Mumbai. Peculiar detail: a trademark on that logo!? 
Gola is a kind of Indian Slush Puppie - crushed ice with flavoured syrup on top.
Via BoingBoing and creativereview.co.uk
This Honeycomb vase was made from a vase-shaped hive that 40.000 bees colonized for one week, building a hexagonal comb to encompass the existing form.
Created by Studio Libertiny, who describe their production process as “slow prototyping”, a more time-consuming, yet much more poetic alternative to rapid prototyping.
Creativity for all! Design used to be predestined to a select group of qualified brand–owning designers. That model is made redundant. At least, if it is up to Studio Ludens in Eindhoven (The Netherlands). Today you can sculpt and buy your lamp or coaster on the internet; tomorrow it’s your house, car and mother–in–law. In the Next Nature everyone is a designer.
Related: Sexual behaviour totems | Park buildings | Digital Trashcan brought to virtual office
