Made-to-debate « NextNature.net

Posts Tagged ‘Made-to-debate’

Why It’s Time to Calm Down about “Invasive” GM GloFish

Is the neon green tetra GloFish soon to be the florescent, transgenic terror of America’s waterways? The internet hype machine has repeated ad infinitum the Washington Post’s recent story about the invasive potential of a new breed of GloFish. First sold to the public in 2003, the original GloFish were four brightly colored strains of zebrafish that fluoresced thanks to jellyfish and coral genes.

Last February, the biotech company Yorktown expanded their species range by introducing a transgenic, acid green version of the tetra fish. It’s this Electric Green Tetra (©) that has biologists and wetland conservationists worried. While tropical zebrafish go belly-up in cooler US waters, their argument goes, tetras are better adapted to seasonally cold conditions. Any released GloFish tetras could potentially take over lakes and rivers, their freaky genes compelling them to outcompete native species or breed with their wild cousins.

It’s a catchy argument. It’s also untrue.

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Allison Guy
on 11/09/12 Comments »
Tags
- Genetic-surprises | Hypernature | Made-to-debate | Manufactured Animals
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IKEA Lamp Catches Elephantiasis Virus

Have you heard of Elephantiasis? It is a disease caused by microscopic parasitic worms that cause a thickening of the skin and underlying tissues. The disease typically occurs in tropical regions, however, as it seems it recently transferred to consumer products.

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Van Mensvoort
on 24/06/12 2 Comments »
Tags
- Designed-by-Evolution | Guided Growth | Made-to-debate | Officegarden | Physical-computing | Wild-systems
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Featured Page #03: Tomorrow’s Fossils

During the coming weeks, we will present a selection of our favourite pages from the Next Nature book. This week the thirs one in this series: Tomorrow’s Fossils.

Ode to the car in 40 years’ time? A future Museum of Obsolete Objects? Inspired by Stonehenge while living in England, Jim Reinders, an experimental American artist, originally built Carhenge in Western Nebraska as a memorial to his father. Created in 1987 with the help of his family, it is now a free tourist attraction. It uses 38 vehicles, including a 1962 Cadillac, to mirror the position of the rocks that comprise Stonehenge.

England’s ‘natural’ past, an idealized place of agrarian idyll and legendary deeds, is transported to contemporary America. Reinders argues for the mythological resonance of the automobile, both as a continuation of past traditions, and as a progenitor of myth itself. As much as we live exclusively in next nature, we look to old nature, and old culture, for context. Will vintage gas-guzzlers prove as enduring as Stonehenge’s boulders?

Past Perfect
Certain technologies, already obsolete in our time, may be as inscrutable in the distant future as long-extinct species are to us. When presented as a natural part of the geological record, a cellphone or a Playstation controller becomes a rare oddity. The skeletons of videogame and cartoon characters are just as disorientating, conjuring a life (and death) for the patently fictional. Yet these imagined artifacts recognize the same premise: the fossil record of our species will not be distinguished by our bones, but by our technologies.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Featured here are pages 56-57 from the book Next Nature: Nature Changes Along with Us. More information about the book can be found here.
NextNature.net
on 01/06/12 Comments »
Tags
- Back to the Tribe | Design-for-debate | Image-Consumption | Made-to-debate
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Archaeologist Finds Ruins of ‘Friendster’

Last month internet archaeologist Dr Maxwell Fry stumbled upon the perfectly preserved ruins of an online community called ‘Friendster’. Remember, that predecessor of Facebook, which might share the same fate? Surely, future archaeologists can’t wait to dwell on your ‘timelines’ dear tribe members.

Created by The Onion. Via Beyond the Beyond (repost).
Van Mensvoort
on 07/05/12 Comments »
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- Back to the Tribe | Made-to-debate
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How To Grow Your Own Sneaker

Bioengineer Raymond Ong remixes the beauty & variety of nature into something nature could not have imagined. By transferring the DNA of existing animal patterns on the skin of stingray fishes, his company creates uniquely customized fish leather. This leather is then used to produce highly personalized sneakers.

Grow your own ~~fish~~ sneaker at Rayfish.com.
Van Mensvoort
on 04/05/12 Comments »
Tags
- Biomimicmarketing | Hypernature | Made-to-debate | Manufactured Animals | Toys-are-Us
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We’re lecturing in Milan (if you ask us)

From april 17-20, a large deal of the Next Nature crew will be in Milan, Italy. We will bring our lustrous Nano Supermarket to this year’s edition of the Salone Internationale del Mobile and while we’re there we wouldn’t mind giving some rocking lectures slash book presentations. For bookings, please contact us via hendrikjan [at] nextnature [dot] net. We’re looking forward to see you there. Ciao!
Hendrik-Jan Grievink
on 08/03/12 Comments »
Tags
- Made-to-debate | Nextnature Event
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Incredibly Shrinking Humanity

Arne Hendricks will be presenting The Incredible Shrinking Man at the Next Nature Power Show on November 5th.

Social erosion, fisheries depletion, deforestation- for the 7 billion people on earth, we’re not just approaching an era of resource scarcity, we’re already there. Except for the lucky few, food, shelter, and even water can be expensive and in short supply. We have tried to address global problems with bigger technologies and bigger laws, but what if we decided to go small? Really small. How would the world change if every human was only 50 centimeters tall?

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Allison Guy
on 25/10/11 Comments »
Tags
- Augmented-Bodies | Biopolitics | Hyperreality | Made-to-debate | Nextnature Event | Power Show | Technorhetoric
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Unboxing Artificial Intelligence

Did you know that phones were once used for calling up our (human) friends? Researching the beginning of it all, we came accross demo video’s on the cloud called “internet” where people showed off how they tricked the first Siri-AI-devices into saying epic things like: “I don’t do knock knock jokes”. But the reason why this technology took such a leap, has everything to do with human “features” like personality, compassion and trust. From that moment in time, objects made from steel and glass have become our soulmates… our friends… our personal assistents… our pets… our slaves… Or were we theirs? Were we the ones being tricked?

Yes. We came to trust them because they were made to our image. They talked like our mothers and shared our brains and limbs. They could sense it if we were lonely and then played us music or said nice words. They tucked us in at night and woke us up the next morning.
Knock, knock! Species of the world, you are not alone. Matter is alive and there is plenty out there.
Arnoud van den Heuvel
on 12/10/11 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Artificial Intelligence | Feed-Back | Humane-Technology | Made-to-debate
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Ghosts with Shit Jobs

This trailer for the mockumentary Ghost With Shit Jobs shows a could-be-future in which the role of the West and the East is reversed. Very good timing I would say.

More on: ghostswithshitjobs.com. Via NRC Next
Rolf Coppens
on 29/08/11 2 Comments »
Tags
- Back to the Tribe | Design-for-debate | Made-to-debate | Suburban Utopia | The-map-is-the-territory
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Get Vegetarian Teeth and Eat Less Meat

Want to live a greener life? Eat less meat. Recently the UN appealed for a radical shift in diet, to improve individual health and ease conditions affecting the global environment. Reducing meat consumption by 10% reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Unfortunately, humans are omnivores. Our teeth are designed to eat both meat and plants. Susana Soares and her colleagues designers and engineers of the Material Beliefs program propose to alter human teeth structures into those of herbivores, in order to become a better vegetarian.

Teeth are an essential tool for nutrition and their shape is related to diet. Herbivore animals have developed teeth structures suited to the consumption of plant material. Can our teeth structure be replaced to encourage dietary shifts that reflect social concerns?

Soon at a local dentist near you? Perhaps your government will even give you a tax cut for adopting a more sustainable veggy lifestyle? No seriously, this is bio play.

See also: Phone Tooth, Orthorexia Nervosa: the healty eating disorder.
Van Mensvoort
on 28/06/11 8 Comments »
Tags
- Anthropomorphobia | Augmented-Bodies | Biopolitics | Design-for-debate | Designed-by-Evolution | Food Technology | Hypernature | Made-to-debate | Supermarket
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Blue, Belgian and Beefy

The Belgian Blue is a unique cattle breed that was developed quite accidentally in the late 1800s. An chance mutation lead the cattle to develop ‘double muscling,’ which occurs when the body does not produce sufficient myostatin to regulate the growth of muscles. These body-builder animals typically have 40% more muscle mass than the typical cow or bull. Double muscling is an extremely rare occurrence. Outside of carefully selected breeds like the Belgian Blue or the Texel sheep, it has occurred only a handful of other times in animals like dogs and humans.

Animal rights activists contend that the breed is inherently cruel. Calves are usually delivered by cesarean section, as they are too large to be born naturally. Due to its massive size, the breed suffers from heart and joint problems, and can have difficulty even moving around. Both Denmark and Sweden have both attempted to ban Belgian Blues on grounds of cruelty. From turkeys that can only reproduce via artificial insemination and bulldogs that must be born by c-section, we’ve created a catalogue of organisms that could never survive outside of the human environment. Think of it as triumph of co-dependence.
Allison Guy
on 23/06/11 Comments »
Tags
- Food Technology | Genetic-surprises | Hypernature | Made-to-debate | Manufactured Animals
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Vroem

A flock of planes taking off, by Ho-Yeol Ryu. Peculiar image of the week.
Rolf Coppens
on 24/02/11 3 Comments »
Tags
- Made-to-debate | On-the-Road | Suburban Utopia
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<a href="http://www.vimeo.com/11323803">http://www.vimeo.com/11323803</a>
Policing Genes

The genetics of the plants in your garden could become a police matter. Pharmaceutical companies are experimenting with genetically engineering plants to produce useful and valuable drugs. However, the techniques employed to insert genes into plants are within reach of the amateur… and the criminal. Policing Genes speculates that, like other technologies, genetic engineering will also find a use outside the law, with innocent-looking garden plants being modified to produce narcotics and unlicensed pharmaceuticals.

A project by Thomas Thwaites – On show at Wellcome Trust in London until March 29th
Rolf Coppens
on 20/01/11 Comments »
Tags
- Bionics | Biopolitics | Genetic-surprises | Made-to-debate
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Not So Horseless Carriage

Sometimes next nature breaks down and things fall back on an older nature. Luckily, this guy still had a horse around. Peculiar image of the week.

Via Kottke.
Van Mensvoort
on 05/01/11 1 Comment »
Tags
- Feed-Back | Made-to-debate | On-the-Road | Remediation
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Becoming female

A shot of a male body after a sex change by dutch artist and photographer Martin C. de Waal. De Waal tries to make people rethink their opinions by pushing the boundaries of self-alteration. With a fascination for plastic surgery and a strong drive to reinvent himself he underwent an eight and a half hour surgery to alter his face a few years ago. – mcdewaal.com
Rolf Coppens
on 17/12/10 4 Comments »
Tags
- Augmented-Bodies | Fake-nature | Made-to-debate | Plastic Planet
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Drive in Wheel

The Drive in Wheel is an unique and spectacular giant wheel made especially for cars. The wheel is 100 feet high and takes four cars on one trip. City sightseeing has never been easier: you drive into the city center, into the wheel, view the city from above and drive out again – without ever leaving your car.

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Van Mensvoort
on 09/12/10 1 Comment »
Tags
- Made-to-debate | On-the-Road | sexy-machinery | Suburban Utopia | Toys-are-Us
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<a href="http://www.vimeo.com/17131671">http://www.vimeo.com/17131671</a>
Polar ice gone in two days

You have only two days left to purchase your own piece of history at the MyPolarIce store in Amsterdam and express the value the polar caps have for you – in real money. €24,95 to be exactly (approx. $33 for our american readers). Bring the heated debate back home and let your unique chunk of polar ice hybernate in your freezer, to pass it on to future generations.
Hendrik-Jan Grievink
on 04/12/10 1 Comment »
Tags
- Biomimicmarketing | Biopolitics | Global-Image-Economy | Image-Consumption | Made-to-debate
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Self Catching Fish

Researchers at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood’s Hole, Massachusetts, are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by using a sound broadcast to attract them into a net. If it works, the system could eventually allow black sea bass to be released into the open ocean, where they would grow to market size, then swim into an underwater cage to be harvested when they hear the signal.

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Van Mensvoort
on 03/11/10 1 Comment »
Tags
- Food Technology | Hypernature | Made-to-debate | Manufactured Animals | Sentient Spaces | Supermarket | Wild-systems
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