The Blind, Taiheiyo Evergreen Forests, 2008. Institute of Critical Zoologists.
Behold the Institute of Critical Zoologists! The ICZ aims to develop a critical approach to the zoological gaze, or how humans view animals.
They say:
“Urban societies live in relative isolation from animals; however, our demand and gaze upon them have grown significantly over the last century. It is undeniable that looking at animals is considered both desirable and pleasurable in societies. Animals convey meaning and values that are culture-specific, and in viewing the animal, we cannot escape the cultural context, political climate and social values in which that observation takes place. We seek to develop a Critical Zoological Gaze that pursues creative, interdisciplinary research that includes perspectives typically ignored by animal studies, such as aesthetics; and to advance unconventional, even radical, means of understanding human and animal relations.”
Simulation of mountain top, The Real World development laboratory, Mr Toyo, 2008.
The white whale swimming in the ocean depths off the coast of Omishima, circa 1985.
Human egg in two-cell stage. This egg from a 31-year-old woman, shows the spermatozoa fertilization of the ovum from the 11th day of the subject’s menstrual cycle after a 45 hour incubation period. Magnified at x300, 1944. From the John Rock Papers.
Source HERE
This series of veins from the human vascular system have been plastinated using a method developed by Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the scientist behind the often controversial Body Worlds exhibits. A liquid plastic gets injected into the blood stream. When it hardens, scientists can study the system as it is in the human body.
‘Corynactis viridis’ (Natural History Episode 6) ‘Oyster Vision’ (Natural History Episode 13) ‘Preener’ (Natural History Episode 4) ‘Cleaner’ Pt. 2 (Natural History Episode 2) ‘The Florist’ (Natural History Episode 15)
MORPHOLOGIC is a scientific art endeavor led by marine biologist Colin Foord and musician Jared McKay. With the aquarium as our primary medium, we explore the artistic possibilities of living coral reef organisms via HD videography and site-specific artworks.
Their laboratory/studio is a state certified aquaculture facility perpetuating marine life within the confines of downtown Miami. Working in conjunction with biologists from the Université de Provence in Marseille, France, they are developing a living genetic database, aquaculture techniques, and biological assays of coral species.
“The brainchild of longtime friends Colin Foord and Jared McKay, MORPHOLOGIC concocts installations that combine sound and light to transform the minute creatures that inhabit our coral reefs into strange, abstract works of surreal art. In the process, they bridge the gap that has long divided science and art. But don’t let appearances fool you; their work also captures a world that speaks volumes about the social interactions in the concrete spaces we create far above the ocean’s surface.” - Jorge Casuso, Miami New Times
Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems — wouldn’t it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes, finds Janet Fang.
Every day, Jittawadee Murphy unlocks a hot, padlocked room at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, to a swarm of malaria-carrying mosquitoes (Anopheles stephensi). She gives millions of larvae a diet of ground-up fish food, and offers the gravid females blood to suck from the bellies of unconscious mice — they drain 24 of the rodents a month. Murphy has been studying mosquitoes for 20 years, working on ways to limit the spread of the parasites they carry. Still, she says, she would rather they were wiped off the Earth.
That sentiment is widely shared. Malaria infects some 247 million people worldwide each year, and kills nearly one million. Mosquitoes cause a huge further medical and financial burden by spreading yellow fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya virus and West Nile virus. Then there’s the pest factor: they form swarms thick enough to asphyxiate caribou in Alaska and now, as their numbers reach a seasonal peak, their proboscises are plunged into human flesh across the Northern Hemisphere.
So what would happen if there were none? Would anyone or anything miss them? Nature put this question to scientists who explore aspects of mosquito biology and ecology, and unearthed some surprising answers.
Suzanne Lee creates clothing out of yeast, a pinch of bacteria, and several cups of sweetened green tea. She is a senior research fellow at the School of Fashion & Textiles at Central Saint Martins in London, and the brains behind BioCouture, an experiment in growing garments from the same microbes that ferment the tasty caffeinated beverage.
The website says:
Imagine if we could grow clothing…
BioCouture aims to address ecological and sustainability issues around fashion.
The BioCouture research project is harnessing nature to propose a radical future fashion vision.
We are investigating the use of bacterial-cellulose, grown in a laboratory, to produce clothing.
Our ultimate goal is to literally grow a dress in a vat of liquid… http://www.biocouture.co.uk/ http://biocouture.posterous.com/
A cat that had its back feet severed by a combine harvester has been given two prosthetic limbs in a pioneering operation by a UK vet.
The new feet are custom-made implants that “peg” the ankle to the foot. They are bioengineered to mimic the way deer antler bone grows through the skin.
The operation – a world first – was carried out by Noel Fitzpatrick, a veterinary surgeon based in Surrey.
His work is explored in a BBC documentary called The Bionic Vet.
The cat, named Oscar, was referred to Mr Fitzpatrick by his local vet in Jersey, following the accident last October. Oscar was struck by the combine harvester whilst dozing in the sun.
The prosthetic pegs, called intraosseous transcutaneous amputation prosthetics (Itaps) were developed by a team from University College London led by Professor Gordon Blunn, who is head of UCL’s Centre for Biomedical Engineering.
A gene-engineered fish, top, and a natural one of the same age.
“The Food and Drug Administration is seriously considering whether to approve the first genetically engineered animal that people would eat — salmon that can grow at twice the normal rate.
The developer of the salmon, AquaBounty Technologies, has been trying to get approval for a decade. But the company now seems to have submitted most or all of the data the F.D.A. needs to analyze whether the salmon are safe to eat, nutritionally equivalent to other salmon and safe for the environment, according to government and biotechnology industry officials. A public meeting to discuss the salmon may be held as early as this fall.” Text by NYTimes
“Natural fuse” is a micro-scale carbon dioxide overload protection framework that works locally and globally, harnessing the carbon-sinking capabilities of plants. Generating electricity to power the electronic products that populate our lives has consequences on the amount of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, which in turn has detrimental environmental effects. The carbon footprint of the power used to run these devices can be offset by the natural carbon-capturing processes that occur as plants absorb carbon dioxide and grow. “Natural Fuse” units take advantage of this phenomena. They are now distributed in households in London, New York and San Sebastian.
Each Natural Fuse unit consists of a houseplant and a power socket. The amount of power available to the socket is limited by the capacity of the plant to offset the carbon footprint of the energy expended: if the appliance you plug in draws so much power that it requires more carbon-offsetting than available then the unit will not power.
The problem is that even low-power light bulbs draw more power than can be comfortably offset by a single plant. Therefore, all the units are connected together via the internet so that they can communicate and determine how much excess capacity of carbon-offsetting is available within the community of units as a whole. (text by Haque::design+research)
Urban Dolls is the project of designer Vilma Jaruseviciute presented as a critical stance on plastic surgery when at the DMY international design festival held at Berlin Tempelhof Airport. TUrban Dolls consists of a series of wearable to prosthetics (perhaps influenced by Dunne & Raby, Jaruseviciute’s teachers). In her own words, the designer says:
‘It is getting more and more difficult to define a concept of contemporary beauty. In urban society, where the hunt for perfection begins at an early age and modified ‘plastic beauties’ wave from the covers of glossy magazines, humanity’s struggle for perfection appears almost limitless. This project is an explorative journey in search of alternatives that could replace plastic or aesthetic surgery. Design becomes a mediator between humans and existing body modification processes; static, permanent procedures are transformed into flexible, temporary prosthetics.’
[1] THE TERM HAS BECOME so widely used that it is in danger of meaning nothing. It has been applied to all manner of activities in an effort to give those activities the gloss of moral imperative, the cachet of environmental enlightenment. “Sustainable” has been used variously to mean “politically feasible,” “economically feasible,” “not part of a pyramid or bubble,” “socially enlightened,” “consistent with neoconservative small-government dogma,” “consistent with liberal principles of justice and fairness,” “morally desirable,” and, at its most diffuse, “sensibly far-sighted.”
[2] NATURE WILL DECIDE what is sustainable; it always has and always will. The reflexive invocation of the term as cover for all manner of human acts and wants shows that sustainability has gained wide acceptance as a longed-for, if imperfectly understood, state of being.
[3] AN ACT, PROCESS, OR STATE of affairs can be said to be economically sustainable, ecologically sustainable, or socially sustainable. To these three some would add a fourth: culturally sustainable.
[4] NATURE IS MALLEABLE and has enormous resilience, a resilience that gives healthy ecosystems a dynamic equilibrium. But the resiliency of nature has limits and to transgress them is to act unsustainably. Thus, the most diffuse usage, “sensibly far-sighted,” is the usage that contains and properly reflects the strict ecological definition of the term: a thing is ecologically sustainable if it doesn’t destroy the environmental preconditions for its own existence.
Viruses are finely tuned to perform their deadly job. Many viruses are highly specific: they infect only a particular animal or plant, and may even only infect a few types of cells within their preferred hosts. However, viruses occasionally cross the line, and gain the ability to infect other hosts. This is often termed viral emergence, and has been sensationalized as a major threat to global health in books such as The Hot Zone. Fortunately, this type of switching occurs only rarely, but when it does, it can be a disaster. For instance, several of the largest historic pandemics of influenza have been caused by emergence of human viruses from bird viruses. An even more recent viral emergence has occurred in the parvoviruses, where a cat virus suddenly mutated and caused a global pandemic disease in dogs.
Distemper
Feline panleukopenia virus, shown here at the top from PDB entry 1fpv, is a tiny virus that causes feline distemper. It often attacks kittens, killing all of their white blood cells and also attacking cells in the intestine. If untreated, the disease is often fatal, either due to dehydration or secondary bacterial infection. Fortunately, an effective vaccine is available which largely protects the domestic cat population from this devastating disease.
Cats and Dogs
In the late 1970s, a pandemic swept the entire globe, infecting dogs with a similar disease. When researchers looked closer, they discovered a small virus, shown here at the bottom from PDB entry 2cas. It is nearly identical to feline panleukopenia virus, with only a few changes in amino acids, and was named canine parvovirus. By careful study of dogs that had died in the preceding years, researchers were able to uncover the emergence and rapid evolution of this canine virus from the feline virus. It appears that a few small mutations suddenly allowed the virus to attack dog cells, and then the virus swept around the world, infecting dog populations.
Changing Hosts
Two mutations on the surface of these two viruses, shown on the bottom structure in blue and green, determine their targets for infection. Both viruses attach to the transferrin receptor on cell surfaces. This receptor normally picks up transferrin, a protein involved in iron transport, out of the blood and transports it inside the cell. The virus catches a ride on this receptor, using it to travel into the cell. The receptors in cat cells and dog cells are slightly different, and the two mutations on the viral surfaces match these differences perfectly.
Skulls was and exhibition about CAS’ extensive collection of bird and mammal skulls and skeletons.
“A cursory glance through the Skulls exhibit may raise the question: Why collect so many skulls? In some cases, tiny fragments of a single skull are enough to make groundbreaking discoveries. However, due to the natural variation that exists among individual animals, large collections allow scientists to address questions about a species or an ecosystem with much greater accuracy. With over 1,800 sea lion skulls alone, the Academy’s skull collection has provided valuable data for scientists around the world.” SKULLS HERE
Plastic chips monitor body functions. (Credit: Image copyright. Fraunhofer IZM)
“Each year, about 80,000 people in Germany become seriously ill from occlusions of veins caused by blood clots. Such thromboses can cause pulmonary embolism or even heart attacks. Even airline passengers at long distance flights can be affected by deep vein thrombosis. But with the new system, a fast and easy test of a risk of travel-related thrombosis will soon be possible.
The sensory wristband is a combination of polymer and conventional electronics. Lighting elements, sensors and polymer resistances printed on the foils are connected into one system with integrated circuits made of silicon. A three micrometer-thin resonance circuit with an etched coil — a kind of minute antenna — records the electric smog. An interdigital capacitor attached to a foil and only 30 micrometers thick detects skin moisture. Comb-shaped, narrowly interlaced meanders made of copper bands of a mere 0.5 micrometer thickness, measure the body temperature.” More HERE.
Slime molds are fungus-like organisms that have previously been classified as fungi, and later as Myxomycetes. They are no longer classified as fungi. Depending on the sources, there are now two or three different groups of slime molds, one of which is the myxomycetes. These now fall under the broader category of eukarya.
In general however, slime molds are characterized by the production of relatively large, single-celled, multinucleate bodies called plasmodia (singular = plasmodium). Plasmodia are the feeding stages of slime molds, and they are frequently seen on lawns, small plants, mulch, and decaying wood in late summer. Slime molds are not plant parasites, but they may injure plants by covering and shading them. (text from Cornell University Plantclinic)
From the introduction to Steven Johnson’s 2001 book, Emergence: If you’re reading these words during the summer in a suburban or rural part of the world, chances are somewhere near you a slime mold is growing. Walk through a normally cool, damp section of a forest on a dry and sunny day, or sift through the bark mulch that lies on a garden floor, and you may find a grotesque substance coating a few inches of rotting wood. On first inspection, the reddish orange mass suggests that the neighbor’s dog has eaten something disagreeable, but if you observe the slime mold over several days — or, even better, capture it with time-lapse photography — you’ll discover that it moves, ever so slowly, across the soil. If the weather conditions grow wetter and cooler, you may return to the same spot and find the creature has disappeared altogether. Has it wandered off to some other part of the forest? Or somehow vanished into thin air, like a puddle of water evaporating?
The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface aims to improve the detection and decoding of brain signals acquired by electroencephalogram (EEG). To this end the research focuses on new sensor technology, improved understand of the brain and the analysis of brain waves using modern machine learning methods.
A number of articles has been published about the Berlin Brain-Computer Interface, which can be found in their comprehensive list of publications.
“Located in southeastern Ecuador, near the Peruvian border, the Nangaritza River valley is mountainous, heavily forested and relatively inaccessible to most people. The upper river valley is known for its Tepuyes, or tabletop mountains, which are home to many species that are found nowhere else on earth, as well as other species whose populations are threatened in other locations but remain plentiful here.
Nangaritza’s isolation has not only helped to protect the mountain ecosystem from destruction, it has also long posed a challenge to detailed scientific study. Part of the region is under the protection of the Nangaritza Protected Forest, but wildlife experts believe that more land must be protected for this unique environment to thrive.
The Shuar indigenous association and a local farming organization have been granted management over much of the protected forest, but these groups are proposing that the lands be upgraded to a higher protection status, where they will be more sustainably managed. Before this step can be taken, however, more scientific data is needed.”
Kamal used a prosthetic knee joint, developed by Stanford’s JaipurKnee Project team, during prototype testing last August. The knee joint was on display April 8 at the university’s annual Cool Product Expo.
$20 artificial knee for patients in the developing world:
“I came in to Stanford really hungry to find projects like the JaipurKnee Project,” said Sadler, now a lecturer and d’Arbeloff Fellow in the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. As a mechanical engineer, Sadler has made it his goal to bring technology to those in need. His project is named after the JaipurFoot prosthetics charity, a partner in the effort.
The JaipurKnee was on display recently at Stanford’s annual Cool Product Expo, rubbing elbows with magnetic tool belts and humanoid robots. The event sparked the imaginations of an estimated 1,300 guests at the Arrillaga Alumni Center. Roughly a third of the 51 exhibitors had personal ties to Stanford.
The effects of the global financial crisis were not lost on event organizers. Rather than ignore the crisis, this year’s expo tackled it, with the overarching theme of “Do More with Less.” The sponsors—the Product Design and Manufacturing Club in the Graduate School of Business and the Product Realization Network—sought technology that is economically efficient and environmentally sustainable. (via Physorg)
Power generated from flowing blood, simple body movements or a gentle breeze could one day be converted to electricity to charge iPods, cell phones and other personal electronic devices.
Researchers reported today they can harvest energy by converting low-frequency vibrations, like simple body movements, the beating of the heart or movement of the wind, into electricity by using zinc oxide nanowires that conduct the electricity. The nanowires are piezoelectric — they generate an electric current when subjected to mechanical stress.
Other schemes have been devised to generate power in a backpack as you hike or from a device attached to the knee. Those are comparatively bulky, however.
Nano devices are tiny. The diameter and length of the wires used in the new technique are 1/5,000th and 1/25th the diameter of a human hair.
“This research will have a major impact on defense technology, environmental monitoring, biomedical sciences and even personal electronics,” said lead researcher Zhong Lin Wang, Regents’ Professor, School of Material Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Wang’s team first announced the nanogenerator in 2006 and refined it to create power from ultrasonic waves in 2007. Today he said the latest incarnation of the device has much broader application.
The nanowires can be grown on metals, ceramics, polymers and clothing. If the resulting nanogenerators can be developed into production, they could run electronic devices used by the military when troops are far in the field, Wang and colleagues suggest. Or they could power biosensors implanted under the skin.
“Quite simply, this technology can be used to generate energy under any circumstances as long as there is movement,” Wang said in a statement. No timetable was given for commercial production.
The work, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, was presented today at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
The Eyeborg Project is the work of Rob Spence, a 36 year old filmmaker residing in Toronto, Canada and Kosta Grammatis – an unemployed engineer from San Francisco, California. Rob’s eye was badly damaged in an accident involving a shotgun at age of 13. Rob had his eye surgically removed and replaced with a prosthetic one after enduring ten years of pain. Now with the help of Kosta and a team of ocularists, inventors, engineering specialists, Rob is building a prosthesis that can capture and transmit video.
Watch out! I let you know that some images are a little too organic.
Ayurvedic Shilajit, ‘conqueror of mountains and destroyer of weakness’ contains humates (humic & fulvic acids).
Fulvic Acid is fragments of DNA from past generations of living organisms, giving life, energy, health, immunity, and renewal to Earth and all of its life forms. It has innate intelligence accumulated in its complex structure (above drawing) to protect and support life and is one of the key factors of enzyme reactions within all living cells supporting longevity, optimum health and all life as we know it. As a natural electrolyte it balances and energizes biological properties inside you (or you can also use it on open pores). This electrical potential enables cell balance, replication and construction which is the main factor for life, health and well being.
Humic Acid increases energy with improvement in morale .. decreased appetite, deeper & higher-quality sleep, less pain from physical injuries.
Humates are over-all healing, allowing more oxygen into the body and blocking the production of stress-causing hormones … (thanx to elenakulikova)
Not to eco-friendly but here we go: Ten tons of cement were poured into this grass-cutters ant colony, revealing a subterranean structure of 8 meters / 26 feet deep. ‘Ant-City’ was built including circulating ventilation shafts and fungi gardens interconnected through pipelines.
Nanotechnology isn’t just protecting your food – it’s in your food. Scientists are manufacturing nano-sized vitamins that are easier for our bodies to absorb. In the future they hope to create ‘interactive’ food – food and drink that could change color, flavor or nutrients on demand.
The Blind, Taiheiyo Evergreen Forests, 2008. Institute of Critical Zoologists.
Simulation of mountain top, The Real World development laboratory, Mr Toyo, 2008.
The white whale swimming in the ocean depths off the coast of Omishima, circa 1985.
Aedes aegypti Credit: CDC
A gene-engineered fish, top, and a natural one of the same age.
Plastic chips monitor body functions. (Credit: Image copyright. Fraunhofer IZM)
Kamal used a prosthetic knee joint, developed by Stanford’s JaipurKnee Project team, during prototype testing last August. The knee joint was on display April 8 at the university’s annual Cool Product Expo.
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