Manufactured Animals « NextNature.net

Posts Tagged ‘Manufactured Animals’

System Animals

What animal is so naive to come into this world as a naked and crying infant, completely vulnerable, helpless, and an easy prey for any predator? Newborn lamb or giraffe’s babies can walk within a few hours, but it takes humans years and years to learn to take care of themselves. Yet, despite our physical vulnerability, we’ve proven not only able to survive, but even to dominate the planet. How come?

Unlike other animals, which have specific organs, skills and reflexes that enable them to survive in their proper environment, humans have never been placed in an environment for which we are specifically equipped. The human physique implies that there is no such thing as a ‘purely’ natural environment for us. We are system animals: technological beings by nature.

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Van Mensvoort
on 10/04/11 2 Comments »
Tags
- Co-Evolution | Designed-by-Evolution | Intimate Technology | Manufactured Animals | System Animals | Technorhetoric
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Is it a Plane? Is it a Bird?

The zoomorphic designers of Festo, whom you might know from the robot penguins and a robotic elephant trunk, now managed to decipher the flight of birds. Their prototype is modeled on the herring gull and can take off, fly and land while its flight is controlled remotely from the ground in real time.

We are unsure whether these robotic birds will be participating in the enforcement of the no-flight zone in Libya. Anyhow, next time you see a bird flying overhead, look closer.

Thanks Wouter Walmink & Iñaki Merino Albaina.
Van Mensvoort
on 08/04/11 Comments »
Tags
- Biomimicmarketing | Manufactured Animals | Sentient Spaces
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Would you care more if I was a Panda?

A smart campaign by Ogilvy Paris for WNF shows that also the ‘non-cute’ animals need our help.

via Fubiz Read more »
Erik Swaagstra
on 04/04/11 Comments »
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- Biomimicmarketing | Manufactured Animals
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Is that a hamster in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

Mobile phones may be the most affective technology we own but researchers at the Design Research Lab in Berlin have taken this notion to its most outlandish limit. Their cellular prototype is more hamster than phone with a mechanical “breath” and a “heartbeat”. Both can become accelerated in response to emotion: like when a new lover calls (faster heart rate creates a kind of handset humping action) and agitation when the user misses calls (erratic breath equals more humping). How do you calm it down? This little tech hamster responds to patting and loving strokes. The researchers rationale? To make mobile phones more intuitive, organic and ultimately more human…

See the original TED talk.
Natalie Dixon
on 31/03/11 Comments »
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- Manufactured Animals
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Breeding QR codes

You look at the great dane and wonder what information the QR codes on its pelt might contain. You point your smart phone camera at the dog and realize you’ve been hit by a boomeranged metaphor.

Our peculiar image of the week was taken by Adriaan Wormgoor.
Van Mensvoort
on 13/03/11 Comments »
Tags
- Boomeranged Metaphors | Image-Consumption | Manufactured Animals | Officegarden | Sentient Spaces
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Robots Love Animals Too

Someday robots may lead fish to safety. At least, that’s the hope of Dr. Maurizio Porfiri, an Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and expert on the dynamics of schooling fish. His knowledge has lead him to develop robotic leaders for groups of fish. To our eyes they look distinctly un-fishy, but in the water, they are surprisingly lifelike swimmers. It’s their action, not their appearance, that convinces living fish to accept the robots as one of their own. Porfiri hopes that his biomimetic robots may one day lead fish away from environmental hazards such as oil spills or underwater turbines. Robots have long borrowed from nature- Maybe it’s time they return the favor.
Allison Guy
on 07/03/11 Comments »
Tags
- Bionics | Designed-by-Evolution | Manufactured Animals
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Timon and Pumbaa

More real than you think. Peculiar image of the week. Via. Thanks Ton.
Van Mensvoort
on 04/03/11 Comments »
Tags
- Image-Consumption | Manufactured Animals | Symbolic-Overdrive | virtual-for-real
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Fly Paper Clock

Bionic horror by designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau, who have created a clock that traps insects on flypaper before depositing them into a vat of bacteria. The resulting chemical reaction – a form of digestion – results into electric power that keeps the roller rolling and the clock ticking.

At first sight the Fly Paper Clock seems odious and prosperous, however, we must applaud its self-sustaining quality. Will we one day have our houses crowded of insect catching domestic robots? NPR has an article on more meat eating furniture, including a table that consumes mice.

Thanks Roy van den Heuvel.
Van Mensvoort
on 25/02/11 1 Comment »
Tags
- Bionics | Calm-technology | Manufactured Animals | Sentient Spaces | Wild-systems
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The Cat Parasite that Sells Motorcycles

The protozoa Toxoplasma gondii makes an unobtrusive home in nearly every warm-blooded species, but it’s prolific life is limited: Toxo can only reproduce in cat stomachs. The parasite, which causes mild to nonexistant flu-like symptoms, has a clever trick to make sure it winds up where it wants to be. Toxo-infected rats are completely healthy but abnormally attracted to cat urine, and more active than normal. A more outgoing, less fearful rat makes an easy snack for a cat. So far, so good for the parasite’s survival strategy, but there’s a catch for us. Toxoplasma messes with human brain chemistry in much the same way as it does with rodents.

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Allison Guy
on 09/02/11 Comments »
Tags
- Manufactured Animals | On-the-Road | Wild-systems
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Playing with Microbes – Biotic Games

Stanford researchers are developing ‘biotic games’ involving paramecia and other living organisms. So far, they have created three games that mimic classic video games.

The “biotic games” involve a variety of basic biological processes and some simple single-celled organisms. One game in which players guide paramecia – the single-celled organisms used in countless biology experiments from grade school classes to university research labs – to “gobble up” little balls, a la PacMan, was named PAC-mecium. They’ve also created Biotic Pinball, POND PONG and Ciliaball, named after the tiny hairs, called cilia, that paramecia use in a flipper-like fashion to swim around – and in the game enables kicking a virtual soccer ball.

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Van Mensvoort
on 07/02/11 1 Comment »
Tags
- Bionics | Manufactured Animals | Toys-are-Us
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Hallucinogenic Reindeer Moments

Can art change perceptions more than drugs? An art project which was on show in Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof allowed 12 free-roaming reindeer in the former railway station creating a seemingly bucolic Northern European scene. Except, half of the reindeer had been reportedly fed fly agaric mushrooms which turned their urine hallucinogenic. Add a few mice, flies and canaries and then feed them food sprinkled with this special urine and the scene turns interesting. Add a bed (and mini bar) for curious art fans at € 1000 and access to the bottled urine for consumption and the scene turns bizarre (or as bizarre as your imagination allows). The work, by Belgian artist Carsten Höller, titled Soma has been labeled a science experiment meets art meets let-your-mind-run-free project.

Soma was seen at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin.
Photo credit: David von Becker
Natalie Dixon
on 01/02/11 1 Comment »
Tags
- Hypernature | Manufactured Animals
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The Institute for Digital Biology

“The Institute for Digital Biology researches next steps in the evolution of the internet, where websites and services develop into living creatures.”
This scenario lives in the mind of Walewijn den Boer, graduated from KABK in 2010.

During the exhibition, visitors were able to feed a colony of microscopical pop-up creatures, save Chinese websites from a pageview-shortage, preserve an Amazone tribe from extinction by subscribing to its homepage and view a short documentary on how the living internet established itself.

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Arnoud van den Heuvel
on 24/01/11 Comments »
Tags
- Designed-by-Evolution | Digital-Presence | Manufactured Animals | Physical-computing | Wild-systems
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Progressive Nostalgic Message Service

Digital pigeon post its private, peaceful, none-polluting and secure. Peculiar image of the week.

Via Rising Tensions. Thanks Marco.
Van Mensvoort
on 21/01/11 1 Comment »
Tags
- Manufactured Animals | Officegarden | Progressive Nostalgia
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Why Do We Love Pandas?

They remind us of ourselves
We love their dexterity – thanks partly to that “pseudo thumb”, which functions as a sixth digit.

It’s in the eyes
We love their big eyes because it reminds us of children (‘neoteny’ in scientific terms).

They are shy
The giant panda’s enigmatic nature is in stark contrast to its sheer bulk and striking appearance.

They are cultural symbols
The panda has been made into a symbol since the 1960s. It’s been used by the WWF to convince us about the importance of conservation.

They are rare
Giant Pandas are officially listed on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s list of endangered species. The official population figure is 1,596.

They are peaceful vegetarians
Although giant pandas are classified as a kind of meat-eater, in the wild they eat almost exclusively bamboo.

See full article/source BBC.com.
Image courtesy WWF.
Natalie Dixon
on 16/01/11 3 Comments »
Tags
- Biomimicmarketing | Manufactured Animals
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My Fetal Pony: Neoteny in Girls’ Toys

It’s no secret that Mickey Mouse has evolved in response to consumer pressures. Once a violent river-rat, he became the boy scout of rodents with good looks to match. Steven Jay Gould famously charted Mickey’s pedomorphosis over the years. The mouse reverted to a baby’s bigger skull, bigger eyes, and pudgier snout.

As a child of the 80s and 90s, I’ve noticed the same trend in the toy brands that once littered the floor of my suburban bedroom. Boys toys may be constrained to adult (and therefore masculine) characteristics, but girls’ toys are free to fall under the consumer pressures of the Mickey Effect.

The My Little Pony (MLP) reboot exhibits a classic retention of juvenile characteristics into adulthood, a process known as neoteny. The eyes are bigger, the face is rounder and flatter, and the body size and leg length are reduced. Compared to the more conventional equine outline of the original series, the new MLP appears based on an infant, even fetal stage of development.

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Allison Guy
on 04/01/11 9 Comments »
Tags
- Biomimicmarketing | Image-Consumption | Manufactured Animals | Plastic Planet | Suburban Utopia
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Computer versus Bacteria: Round Two

Last year, scientists managed to use the bacteria Escherichia coli to solve a mathematical problem, described in this research. This year, the building blocks of a computer are made.

Researchers at the UCSF School of Pharmacy’s Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, led by Christopher A. Voigt have just published a paper which promises to get your circuits moving. This team has been working with the same bacteria to build logic gates like the ones found in computers directly into cells, making it possible to rewire and program them. The simple logic gates used in the experiment were built into genes then inserted into E. coli cells. The logic gates then acted as the communicator between the separate strains, allowing them to be connected together. Via engadget.com
Billy Schonenberg
on 14/12/10 Comments »
Tags
- Bionics | Manufactured Animals | Physical-computing
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Robo-fly

Waiter, there’s a robot in my soup! Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, robo-fly’s tiny movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the Harvard researchers say that such small flying machines could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals.

Via: technologyreview.com
Arnoud van den Heuvel
on 13/12/10 1 Comment »
Tags
- Biopolitics | Manufactured Animals | robotics
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Remote Control Mouse

Mind control for beginners: A mouse expressing ChR2 channels in its neurons starts running when it receives blue light in its motor cortex. Unsure what applications the researchers expect to come out of their achievement – if you have any suggestions do share them in the comment box.

The experiment was conducted by Karl Deisseroth and colleagues at Stanford University. Thanks Arjen Boender.
Van Mensvoort
on 10/12/10 3 Comments »
Tags
- Bionics | Manufactured Animals | Technorhetoric
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