From ~EvidencE~’s photostream.

Black and white photos, taken only using natural morning light.

Link via mocoloco.com, photo from photofusion.org.

Via ~EvidencE~’s photostream.

Performers Katelyn Clark and Xenia Pestova will play multiple toy pianos and portable percussion instruments, placed strategically throughout the cave’s winding passages. Canadian Music Centre Associate Composer Erik Ross will provide an electroacoustic soundscape, which will be played back by loudspeakers, creating an intricate sonic tapestry. According to the composer, the audio material will be based upon Canadian environmental themes and use sounds directly inspired by the cave setting, such as running water, as well as spoken text.”

Photo via Veronika von Volkova’s photostream, from the Cave Music project.

A rare textile made from the silk of more than a million wild spiders goes on display today at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

To produce this unique golden cloth, 70 people spent four years collecting golden orb spiders from telephone poles in Madagascar, while another dozen workers carefully extracted about 80 feet of silk filament from each of the arachnids. The resulting 11-foot by 4-foot textile is the only large piece of cloth made from natural spider silk existing in the world today.

“Spider silk is very elastic, and it has a tensile strength that is incredibly strong compared to steel or Kevlar,” said textile expert Simon Peers, who co-led the project. “There’s scientific research going on all over the world right now trying to replicate the tensile properties of spider silk and apply it to all sorts of areas in medicine and industry, but no one up until now has succeeded in replicating 100 percent of the properties of natural spider silk.”

Via wired.com.

One of Winy Maas’s too-cool-to-come-true projects.

via Ledger Germane | megan may

Via nationalgeographic.com, a shot of the Trifid Nebula taken by the La Silla Paranal Observatory in Chile.

We touched on the same program in March of 2008, and now they are back with a new one this month, via we-make-money-not-art.com:

You might remember that back in May i was throwing seedballs all over Amsterdam along with Adam Zaretsky, the Waag society and other eco-enthusiast.

The VivoArts School for Transgenic Aesthetics Ltd. comes back to town in September and this time the focus will be biology and bacterial transformation. VASTAL is a temporary research and education institute that Zaretsky has created in Amsterdam following an invitation by the Waag Society. The lectures and workshops aim to show the public what it means to work both artistically and scientifically with living organisms and materials. VASTAL also aims to make this form of art-science accessible for a broader audience and invite them to discuss the ethical and aesthetic issues at stake.

Topics include:

• Alt-Biology: Solar Transgenics, Synthetic Biology, Nanotech Biomimicry, Post-Natural History and Green Biofuel

• Tissue Culture Lab

• Growing Politics: Tissue Culture and Art meets Urbanibalism

• (De)Mystified DNA: Sequencing Lab

Designed by Fabio Novembre, the trees act as an oasis in the middle of the city Milan:

Link and photo via mocoloco.com.

Via imgfave.com

From Furryscaly’s photostream, via environmentalgraffiti.com.

Soon to be invading Japan, again. Via nationalgeographic.com.

The following speech by Karl Schroeder is an excellent summation of the future we’ve been documenting here, the world that lies just around the corner:

His thoughts on, well I guess you have to call it Nature 2.0, are a nice progression on some of Kevin Kelly’s ideas in his book Out of Control.

via BoingBoing | Futurismic

Norbert Eisenreich, a senior researcher and deputy of directors at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology (ICT) in Pfinztal, Germany, said his team of scientists have come up with a substance that could replace plastic: Arboform — basically, liquid wood.

It is derived from wood pulp-based lignin and can be mixed with a number of other materials to create a strong, non-toxic alternative to petroleum-based plastics, Eisenreich said, as reported by DPA news agency.

Car parts and other durable items made of this bio-plastic already exist, but the chemical hadn’t been suitable for household use until now, due to the high content of sulphurous substances used in separating the lignin from the cell fibers.

The German researchers were able to reduce the sulphur content in Arborform by about 90 percent, making it much safer for use in everyday items.

Bolstering Arboform’s environmental credentials, Eisenreich’s team also discovered that the substance was highly recyclable.

“To find that out, we produced components, broke them up into small pieces, and re-processed the broken pieces — 10 times in all. We did not detect any change in the material properties of the low-sulphur bio-plastic, so that means it can be recycled,” said Inone-Kauffmann.

From dw-world.de, via core77.com.

Recent research seems to have poinpointed exactly how birds can detect magnetic fields to guide themselves on long journeys.  It’s been theorized for a while that a protein called Cryptochrome was the source of their magnetic sensitivity, but until now it was unknown how Cryptochrome actually created the “magnetic sight” effect.

Due to a laboratory mishap, scientists have discovered that toxic superoxides may be the previously missed ingredient.

“One of the researchers in our lab noticed that compounds called superoxides would partner very well with reactions associated with cryptochrome,” said study co-author Klaus Schulten, a biophysicist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“However, what he did not realize was that superoxides are toxic to cells,” Schulten explained.

Although their initial reaction was to discard the experiment, the research team realized that low levels of superoxide would work with cryptochrome without damaging birds’ eyes.

So while it’s toxic, it seems that in birds’ “evolution has favored a bit of cellular damage in return for the navigational benefits of magnetic vision”.   Which brings me to the obvious questions:

Superoxides exist in the human body, though in limited quantities because of their toxic nature, and Cryptochromes are responsible in part for maintaining circadian rhythms.   Could this “magnetic vision” effect be duplicated in humans if a balance could be found between sensitivity and toxicity?

And the part of me that reads Fortean Times wonders if anyone has studied the concentrations of magnetic-sensitive compounds in people who claim to be sensitive to various (real or imagined) electromagnetic phenomena such as auras and the like.

[Via National Geographic News]

Every now and then you’ll have a conversation with someone that will actually teach you something new.

This past week’s education came in the form of Travel Sprouting.

Mr T Chia Pet…not so much what I had in mind, but it’s still rather funny

Now, growing sprouts for …”fun” or “profit”, is not a new idea, but what I learnt was that there are people who grow sprouts in their backpacks. They have a couple of ways of doing this:

The ‘Easy Sprout’

Easy Sprout is 3 1/4 inches on the bottom and 4 1/2 inches on the top. It is 7 inches tall. It has a 1 liter/quart capacity. It is made of High Density Polyethylene (Fortiflex® T50-3600 HDP) - which is one of the few non-leaching plastics. The Easy Sprout is also Kosher - we kid you not.

It came to the inventor Gene Monson in a dream in the late 1970’s and he has spent much of his life since spreading the word.

And for those who prefer something more natural:

The Hemp Bag

Just dip and hang! Made from 100% pure hemp and flax fabric for long life and durability. Won’t mold, mildew or shrink. If you can dip a tea bag you can grow sprouts! So easy to use and convenient. Ready in only 3-5 days.

Grows all grains and beans, including: green pea, mung, adzuki, red pea, wheat, rye, soy, peanut, garbanzo, fenugreek, chia, shelled sunflower.

There seems to be a fair few different types of sproutables available for the on-the-go gardener, and all with seemingly quick turn around in growing time. I don’t, however, know how travel-friendly Mr T is. Which is a shame.

Some resources should you be enchanted by the idea of having your own portable salad bar:

-> SproutPeople: awesome for easy to understand and a friendly introduction to the idea. Their quick guide to travel sprouting is a must

-> NaturallyGreen UK: good products (was recommended by the guy who introduced me to the idea)

-> When Technology Fails by Matthew Stein: excerpt on Sprouting here, but damn that book is an interesting read.

Just watch for a moment.

Thank you Keir, for the link to the video!

So the last time I brought up the possible conflict between our ancestors and their Neanderthal contemporaries, I may have done a bit of butchering to the fields of Anthopology and Evolutionary Biology.     (The increasing dischord between those two fields, is a topic for another time.)  But hey, it’s a learning process, right?  However, many of you sent in a link to a recent Guardian article discussing some grisley new findings regarding possible details of the species war.

One of science’s most puzzling mysteries - the disappearance of the Neanderthals - may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert.

The controversial suggestion follows publication of a study in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences about a Neanderthal jawbone apparently butchered by modern humans. Now the leader of the research team says he believes the flesh had been eaten by humans, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.

Fernando Rozzi, of Paris’s Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, said the jawbone had probably been cut into to remove flesh, including the tongue. Crucially, the butchery was similar to that used by humans to cut up deer carcass in the early Stone Age. “Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them,” Rozzi said.

Now the article goes on to point out that this could have been an isolated incident, or that violence could have been but one of many reasons why “we” won and Neanderthal man exists only in museums, Geico ads, and Encino.  However, it’s yet more evidence that not only was there violent conflict, but that whatever cultural paradigm existed in that area, it was one that saw Neanderthals as sufficently “other” to be foodstufs — if perhaps only in a particular set of circumstances.

Photo via nationalgeographic.com.

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