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.
Treating mental illness has never been an easy or short task. But what if the process can be controlled entirely by the patient, and is as interesting as playing video games? This idea, call neurofeedback, and was relegated to the realm of pseudoscience for decades. However, new research has set off a revolution in this field.
Ever imagined that your gaming addiction might help cure cancer? A new generation of computer games have been introduced that deal with citizen science. Citizen science games like Phylo, Foldit and Galaxy Zoo are called serious games, since they carry a serious goal: Providing scientific knowledge through play. This can help with research in topics from life-threatening diseases to decoding ancient manuscripts.
After the emergence of a transparent battery, transparent screen and transparent mobile phone now, there is now another thing that has been made transparent: Paper. Paper manufacturer Oji Holdings Corp and chemical giant Mitsubishi Chemical Corp have developed a way to produce the world’s first transparent paper made from plant fibers. Based on a common paper-making process, but at a nanometer-scale, this new technology has succeeded in making paper transparent. The see-through paper is expected to be produced at a commercial scale sometime in 2016. One day soon, we may be wiping with transparent toilet paper.
Nowadays, people know more brands and logos than bird or tree species. What about you? How many brands can you recognize in our Corporate Animal pattern? Today, we’re happy to give to our Next Nature readers the chance to win the Next Nature Appzine. Just identify five corporate “species” from the logos in this image, and write their names in the comments below. The lucky winners will be announced on Friday.
Just what is the Next Nature Appzine? This iPad app presents a fascinating selection of material from our lustrous Next Nature book, wholly re-designed for the iPad and upgraded with interactive specials and audiovisual content. It’s nature, but not as you know it.
Like the biosphere the technosphere is all around us. It contains TV, mobile phone, GPS, Wi-Fi and radio waves. Radio waves are omnipresent, can move through objects and yield a low amount of power. A research team from Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering made significant developments in harvesting this free energy from the technosphere.
Using an ultra-wideband antenna they are able to harvest energy from a broad frequency range, stretching from FM radio to radar (100MHz to 15GHz). With the use of a standard ink-jet printer, equipped with nanoparticle ink, the ultra-wideband antenna can be produced at a very low cost.
These antennas could provide a small but constant flow of electricity which could be used to power RFID tags, environmental monitors, medical sensors, calculators, clocks and other low power devices. Many of these devices are currently powered by batteries that eventually fade away or cannot survive temperature changes.
Via Techweekeurope.
Who better than the king of the jungle could have been testimonial on the Next Nature Appzine for iPad? We were pleased to receive this video from the Lion Man, who passionately defines his idea of Next Nature.
This video by the Guardian shows you how to turn unwanted pork meat into beef in five easy steps. The method is becoming more commonplace in China’s food industry. We’re already anticipating recipes on how to turn pork into dinosaur.
Over at the New York Times Magazine, there’s a fascinating long read about the quest to find the “female Viagra”. Calling it Viagra is a bit disingenuous, as these treatments don’t necessarily address female sexual response, but desire. Contrary to what evolutionary psychologists have been telling us for years, women grow bored more quickly than men in long-term relationships, and may be more inclined to promiscuity than ever expected. Using pills to flip lust on and off, as we now do with erections, depression, and concentration, would have fascinating ramifications:
“Gaining control of their reproduction in the ‘60s affected not just women’s sex lives but also everything from their social standing to economic empowerment. What might it mean for conventional structures if women could control, with a prescription, the most primal urge? So many things, personal and cultural, might need to be recalibrated and renegotiated, explicitly or without acknowledgment. The cumulative effect of all those negotiations could be hugely transformative, in ways either thrilling or threatening, depending on your point of view.”
Read the full story here. Image via She Knows.
After Google Glasses, the electronic ring and the self-driving car, Google just presented this new surprising product in Austin, Texas, during the South by Southwest Interactive conference. The “talking” sneakers, designed by Google in collaboration with the artist Zach Lieberman and the collective YesYesNo, act like a training coach. Fitted with a whole package of electronic devices like a speed detector, pressure sensors in the soles, a gyroscope, a tiny screen and speakers, the shoes also contain a Bluetooth connection. Therefore, they can provide the runner with information and advice about their activity. Like a real coach, they can also motivate or reprehend you if necessary.
The information is then shown on the tiny screen, which is quite inconvenient for those who aren’t able to look only at their feet while running. But Google has thought about everything: the Bluetooth connection also sends the data to a smartphone app and automatically publishes messages on the user’s Google account, so that anybody can check if you’re taking a sneaky break during your jog. This might be worse than an actual coach!
From Future Sciences.
The following essay is from Yes Naturally: How Art Saves the World, available in the Next Nature store. You can visit the Yes Naturally exhibit in the The Hague until August 18.
“I could understand how great the concrete truth was in any plane of life, the truth that in separation is bondage, in union is liberation. Poverty lay in separation and wealth in union.”1 – Rabindranath Tagore
Separatism is at the root of disharmony with nature and violence against nature and people. Today, we need to overcome an eco-apartheid based on the illusion of separateness – the separation of humans from nature in our minds and lives. This eco-apartheid is an illusion because we are part of nature and Earth, not apart from it.
Eco-apartheid refers to the ecological separation of humans from nature in the mechanical, reductionist worldview, which is resulting in the multiplicity of the eco-crisis that is threatening human survival – climate catastrophe, species extinction, water depletion and pollution, desertification of our soils, and acidification and pollution of our oceans. It also refers to the apartheid created between corporations and citizens, between rich and poor on the basis of the appropriation of the Earth’s resources by a few and denial to the rest of their rights to access the Earth’s gifts for sustenance of all life, including human life.
At this year‘s re:publica in Berlin Kate Darling argued about our need to rethink ethics in regards to “thinking” machines. With an increase in quantity and quality of products capitalizing on anthropomorphic characteristics, people are developing clearer feelings and stronger ethical opinions towards robots.
Why do we treat certain animals like gods and slaughter others? Along the same line, why do we use certain machinery just to get things done, whereas other objects are treated and protected as iGods? Could new ethical policies for robots result in new perspectives on human-computer interrelations? Even though it still sounds futuristic, Kate Darling definitely tackles an impending problem. Especially as the boundaries between the artificial and the natural blur, society needs to update its ethical landscape.
Right now, one of the reasons that robots and other artificially intelligent devices cannot qualify as living beings is their inability to self-repair. However, a recent breakthrough from the Caltech High-Speed Integrated Circuits laboratory have brought us one step closer to the reality of machines that can cure themselves after being damaged.
