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.

Designer Daan van den Berg made a 3D scan of the IKEA lamp LAMPAN and then infected the document with a digital version of the Elephantiasis virus. The infected file was then converted into a physical product again using a 3D printer. As the virus causes a different deformation every time, each lamp made in this way is unique.

Photo and words via nextnature.net

Mangus Larsson wants to change the world.

Specificaly, he wants to grow a wall, 6,000km long stretching east to west across the Sahara Desert.  The wall would be multipurpose; providing shelter for refugees as well as slowing the desert’s own outward spread.  And yes, he wants to grow it, not build it.

Larsson’s project deservedly won first prize last fall at the Holcim Foundation’s Awards for Sustainable Construction held in Marrakech, Morocco.
One of the most interesting aspects of the project, I think, is that this solidified dunescape is created through a particularly novel form of “sustainable construction” – that is, through a kind of infection of the earth.
In other words, Larsson has proposed using bacillus pasteurii, a “microorganism, readily available in marshes and wetlands, [that] solidifies loose sand into sandstone,” he explains.

…

Clarifying the biochemical process through which his project could be realized, Larsson explained in a series of emails that his “structure is made straight from the dunescape by flushing a particular bacteria through the loose sand… which causes a biological reaction whereby the sand turns into sandstone; the initial reactions are finished within 24 hours, though it would take about a week to saturate the sand enough to make the structure habitable.”
The project – a kind of bio-architectural test-landscape – would thus “go from a balloon-like pneumatic structure filled with bacillus pasteurii, which would then be released into the sand and allowed to solidify the same into a permacultural architecture.”

While there are many potential pitfalls to this kind of world-hacking, any archtectural project that requires you to infect the Earth is pretty sexy in my book.

Head to BLDGBLOG for more details and more sexy pictures.

Or: Eine swine Nachtmusik

An artist by the name of Stephan Zielinski has used code to transform parts of the Swine Flue amino acid sequence into ambient music – the “Swine Flu Hemagglutnin”.

The algorithm I used is a bit complicated, but just in case you’re curious: since the gene is expressed as a surface protein antibodies can sense, it’s considered as a string of amino acids.  Each beat corresponds to one amino acid, and the piece is in 3/4 time, so each six measures would correspond to five turns around the alpha structure.  (I’m weaseling because I haven’t the foggiest idea how the protein actually gets folded.)  Amino acids with side chains that are neither aromatic not aliphatic control the piano and organ: the nine non-hydrophobics the piano, and the four hydrophobics the organ. The three amino acids with aliphatic side chains control the low synthesizer, while the four with aromatics control the percussion.

Head to the original posting here to listen to the MP3.

Designed by David Foox to encourage people to become organ donors:

Link via telegraph.co.uk.

Shapeways is offering some new things and some free things. First up is color! Instead of the the plain white, how about Terracotta, Limestone & Blue Jeans? A little color can change a design completely. Also, the Make Faire is going on soon, and Shapeways is offering a contest to coincide with the event:

To inspire people we would like to show off the best models that you can possibly make. Something that will make people go wow! Something that explains how 3D printing will change things. Something that someone will look at, hold in their hand and go..you can make this?

The Maker Faire contest is your chance to have your most amazing design made. Anything you want, anything that you think will inspire and amaze is game. The top 3 models will be 3D printed, exhibited at Maker Faire and then sent to the lucky winners. The winning designer gets an additional $300 in 3D printing from us.

The fine print: The contest closes the 15th of May. Enter by adding the tag: makerfaire to your upload. Your model has to be less expensive than $200.

Excellent. If you haven’t tried their service yet, here’s a chance to get your design printed completely free!

Via imgfave.com.

Warren Ellis linked to this article a few days ago, and while I realize that means half of the known world has now read it, I had to repost it over here due to the extreme relevance.  While yes, it’s a story of the strange places the space race played out in, it’s also the story of how a few hobbiests turned a garage into a hub of international activity and secret intelligence with just their passions and the tech they could find and repourpose.

Suddenly, an angry voice rang out; the man who lived on the floor below leant out of the window and screamed: “Will you stop that racket, I’m trying to sleep!”

One of the young men shouted back “Sorry sir; the Soviets have launched a satellite and we’re trying to intercept it!”

The brothers finished setting up, grabbed their head-sets, twiddled the knobs on their portable receivers, hit the record button and listened…

“Come in… come in… come in… Listen! Come in! Talk to me! I am hot! I am hot! Come in! What? Forty-five? What? Fifty? Yes. Yes, yes, breathing. Oxygen, oxygen… I am hot. This… isn’t this dangerous?”
The brothers looked nervously at one another. They only fully understood the Russian later when their sister translated for them, but the desperation in the woman’s voice was clear.

“Transmission begins now. Forty-one. Yes, I feel hot. I feel hot, it’s all… it’s all hot. I can see a flame! I can see a flame! I can see a flame! Thirty-two… thirty-two. Am I going to crash? Yes, yes I feel hot… I am listening, I feel hot, I will re-enter. I’m hot!”

The signal went dead.

Today, there are do it yourself genetics clubs, you can mail out to have your genome sequenced, open source engeneering labs and all sorts of places that people can come together and test new frontiers outside of an institutional heirachy.  The street still finds its own uses for things, and while the space race has stagnated (a topic of black rage for myself) , there are still many envelopes to push, many mysteries to probe, and many wonders to be found with whatever tools we can scrounge to find them.

Sorry, if I sound like an evangelical Grinder, today, but I find this article to be really inspiring.

[Via Warren Ellis and Fortean Times]

While I live in a country where 40-50 percent of the population thinks that Evolution is a strange and threatening idea in the same vein as Vaccines or Gay Marriage, there’s still iqnuiry within the scientific comunity as to how evolution is effecting our daily lives.   This was apparently the hot-button topic at this month’s meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Chicago.

“For most of the last century, the received wisdom in the social sciences has been that human evolution stopped a long time ago,” Harpending said. “Clearly, received wisdom is wrong, and human evolution has continued.”

Several anthopologists posit a scenario where evolution has not just continued, but is speeeding up due to sheer number of breeding people an an increase in the amount of external pressures placed upon humans.

The massive AIDS epidemic that’s raging in southern Africa , for example, is “almost certainly” causing gene variants that protect against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to accumulate in the African population, Harpending said.

When he was asked how many genes currently are evolving, Harpending replied: “A lot. Several hundred at least, maybe over a thousand.”

Another anthropologist, John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison , said, “Our evolution has recently accelerated by around 100-fold.”

A key reason, Hawks said, is the enormous growth of the world’s population, which multiplies the size of thegene pool available to launch new varieties.

“Today, beneficial mutation must be happening far more than ever before, since there are more than 6 billion of us,” Cochran said.

The changes are so rapid that “we could, in the very near future, compare the genes of old people and young people” to detect newly evolving genes, Cochran said. Skeletons from a few thousand or even a few hundred years ago also might provide evidence of genetic change.

So while it’s doubtful you’ll evolve a mutant healing factor in time to costume as Wolverine for this week’s movie premeire, I am actually pretty fascinated by the idea that there may soon (if there aren’t already) discernable genetic differences between generations.   So while every generation always treats the next as a horrible alien species – monsters with different ideas and  music and goals – what if one day that’s actually true to the point where they couldn’t even successfully interbreed?

[Via Yahoo! News]

From Urban Prankster:

This past Saturday over 120 illegal billboards were white-washed and covered with art in New York City by a team of volunteers and artists. The guerrilla operation was organized by The Public Ad Campaign over the past four months.

via Laughing Squid

One of the last photos taken by The Joy Of The Mundane, RIP.

From imgfave.com.

Link and photo via nationalgeographic.com.

The chip on the back of the ant was designed to track the ant and see where they went and who followed them to start a new colony. Nice. However, ants are everywhere – tiny and inconspicuous. No one pays them any attention. Why can’t they add a listening device to the tiny chip?

South Korean researchers have created a genetically modified pig whose organs can be used for transplanting into human patients. The researchers have predicted the mass production of these hybrid pigs capable of producing humanized organs and organ parts, including pancreatic islets of Langerhans, heart valves and entire hearts. But they have yet to prove the organs can be transplanted into human patients without risk to life.

From fareastgizmos.com

Scientists, working for six years with only one piglet to show for it. This seems to be an expensive trial and error experiment in the short term. The pigs could be very profitable in the long term if the organs prove to be truly human compatible.

….in the case of Artificial Muscle (the company), which has developed tech enabling a silicon film to expand or contract when a voltage is applied to it. It’s currently being used to create small pumps and linear actuators and the like, and is now is being pitched as a solution for feedback in touch-sensitive devices. The silicon film is thin enough to be inserted beneath a touchpad or touchscreen, moving the surface appropriately depending on what you’re stroking on-screen as shown in a video demonstration below. Impressively this tech will only cost “a couple dollars” to add to any given device, meaning even cheap netbooks could start coming with fidgity touchpads soon.

Video and words from engadget.com.

Ruppy, aka Ruby Puppy, is one of five beagles born that creates a florescent protein when exposed to red UV light. The florescent red gene was originally located in sea anemones, but was translocated in the dogs using a retro virus containing the sea anemones’ fiberblasts cells. The same research team that created the first cloned dog also created Ruppy.

Link and photo via newscientist.com.

Thanks to LBA for the tip!

From Inhabitat:

To cope with the growing need for green urban space, San Francisco-based designer Joanna Borek-Clement has envisioned these eye-popping Sky-Terra skyscrapers – not just a single building, but a network of interconnected towers that are inspired by the shape of neuron cells. This skyscraper superstructure provides a new city layer – one covered in public parks, amphitheaters, fields, and public pools and bathhouses.

From NewScientist:

Yeast cells feeding on the glucose in human blood might one day power implants such as pacemakers. A living source of power that is able to regenerate itself would eliminate the need for regular operations to replace batteries.

…

The new fuel cell consists of a colony of Saccharomyces cerevisiae – the kind of yeast commonly used in brewing and baking – encapsulated in a fuel cell made of a form of silicone called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The prototype is 15 millimetres square and 1.4 mm thick.

…

The yeast-based fuel cell produces around 40 nanowatts of power, compared to the microwatt a typical wristwatch battery might produce, Chaio says. That might be enough power for some devices if it were coupled with a capacitor to allow energy to be stored. The yeast could also be genetically engineered to boost its power output.

Now, if you think that sounds radical, keep reading!

From Inhabitat:

Developed by a research team headed by Zhong Lin Wang, the technique utilizes zinc oxide piezoelectric nanowires that generate an electric current when subjected to mechanical stress. The wires measure 1/5,000th to 1/25th the diameter of a human hair and are capable of harvesting energy from low-frequency vibrations such as the wind or the flow of currents. Although similar kinetic energy generators have been developed in the past, the miniscule size of nanowires may one day lend them to applications in subdermal implants – imagine biosensors and portable electronics that are powered by simple movements such as walking, or the beating of a heart.

thanks to Vertigo Jones for the tip-off!

or as he subtitles this talk “the past and future of practical city magic”.

A fascinating look at how architects can be be considered software engineers and user interaction designers. And how we’re making cities a close to magical place.

thanks to Cat Vincent for the tip-off!

From NewScientist:

The graceful robotic penguins in the video above were unveiled by German engineering firm Festo this week.

Using their flippers, the mechanical penguins can paddle through water just like real ones, while larger helium-filled designs can “swim” through the air. The penguins are on show at the Hannover Messe Trade Exhibition in Germany.

Each penguin carries 3D sonar developed by EvoLogics in Berlin, Germany, which is used to monitor its surroundings and avoid collisions with walls or other penguins.

Worried about your data if you lose your flash drive? Fujitsu may soon offer a commercial solution:

The company will deny it of course, but the sharp eyes over at GetUSB just released some top-secret info regarding Fujitsu’s prototype USB flash drive that can erase the data it contains after a set amount of time, or if someone attempts to copy or transfer the data to an “unauthorized workstation or server”

Link via technabob.com.