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February 26 2012
The future of Assisted Living
Arjen Born, a Dutch Photographer, envisions the future of assisted living through hilarious and moving photographs.
Photography often reside in the realm of the nostalgic past, but Arjen dares to look forward. He does not question if robots will assist us in our daily life, he questions how robots will do this.
Via GUP
February 24 2012
Christien Meindertsma – Visualizing the Pig Farm
Click here to view the embedded video.
Designer Christien Meindertsma, famed for her book ‘PIG 05049′ that provides an astonishing overview of all products made from pigs, was surprised by the unrealistic nostalgic visualizations of farms on children’s coloring pages. She decided to create a more realistic coloring page of the pig farm.
Download her alternative coloring page (48 mb, pdf) and keep your kids busy for the weekend.
February 20 2012
Surviving Progress
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Montreal filmmakers Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks’ documentary feature, Surviving Progress presents the story of human advancement and reveals the risk of running the 21st century’s software — our know-how — on the ancient hardware of our primate brain which hasn’t been upgraded in 50,000 years. It is up to us to prove that making apes smarter was not an evolutionary dead-end.
Thanks Linda.
February 08 2012
Raise Crops on the Moon with Plant-Growing Jelly
In dry areas like the desert, on mountain tops or on the moon it’s impossible to grow anything. Or is it? A rain in the desert sparks extreme plant growth from the moment the raindrops hit the ground. As long as the ground is irrigated and fertilized, plants will grow during the warm periods of the day. For some regions, the nights are another challenge. In the desert, temperatures drop drastically at night. For farmers, its a big challenge to keep the soil “livable” for plants, and to cope with the drastic temperature differences between day and night. Money is another problem. There needs to be a stable environment for plants to grow in, at low costs. That’s what the Plant-Growing Jelly project seeks to solve.
Conceived of by industrial design students Ruud van Reijmersdal, Tom Slijkhuis, Joppe Spaans and Jeroen Rood, this speculative project consists of a gel which serves as an ideal growing environment for food crops. The gel contains all the vital nutrients for a plant to grow, and insulates it from extremes of temperatures. Isolated the plant from the outside world could enable plants to grow anywhere, even on the moon. This enriched environment would attractive for mass-production, as fruits and vegetables could grow faster, earlier, and take up less space than traditional methods.
Want to learn more about the inspiration and specifics for this project? Read the project report.
February 04 2012
Thijs Zonneveld – Let’s build a Mountain
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“God created the world, except for the Netherlands. That the Dutch created themselves”, Voltaire remarked in the eighteenth century already to describe the overly cultivated Dutch landscape. But when the Dutch built the Netherlands, they forgot to add any mountains. Former cyclist and visionary Thijs Zonneveld was annoyed by the lack of cyclable heights and proposed to build a 2000-meter high mountain in the Netherlands. Ridiculous idea or summit of Dutch Design?
Unlike the earlier purely theoretical proposal by Jacob Tigges in Berlin, the people behind Die Berg Komt Er (That Mountain will be There) are taking their landscape-building mandate seriously. Their ‘mountain’ should really be understood as a very large building with all kinds of functions ranging from housing, to recreation, to sustainable energy source.
Watch the presentation Tijs gave at the Next Nature Power Show last fall. If you feel the Dutch Mountain should be realized you can buy a 50 euro certificate to support their feasibility research.
January 29 2012
Medicinal Blueberries
As our scientific knowledge of nutritious food increases, will healthy foods be progressively designed to look like medicines? This blueberry blister packaging created by Chinese designer Daizi Zheng certainly points in that direction.
Although utterly over-designed and unsustainably over-packaged, this might well be a product patients suffering from the healthy eating disease Orthorexia Nervosa would crave for.
January 27 2012
Mark Post – Meet the New Meat
Click here to view the embedded video.
As we are moving towards 9 billion people living on our planet, it seems impossible to continue producing & consuming meat like we do today. Will we soon all be eating rice and beans? Perhaps. Yet professor Mark Post thinks otherwise.
At the Next Nature Power Show, Mark Post presented his plan to create the first lab-grown hamburger. He argues lab-grown meat could become the environmentally friendly alternative for breeding cows and pigs for meat consumption. It is relatively simple to take stem cells from an animal and grow them to produce new muscle tissue. Simply add sugar, proteins and fat and get it into shape with a bit of exercise to created edible meat. The only problem then is to find a new role for our livestock.
January 23 2012
Tiny amounts of Alcohol might extend Life
A new study on the effects of cholesterol on the life span of Caenorhabditiselegans, a tiny worm often used in experimentation, resulted in some surprising finds. The life span of the critters was doubled. Now it turned out it wasn’t the cholesterol after all. The cause of the effect was set in motion by the solvent used to deliver the cholesterol. The solvent used? Alcohol.
Now we all know the detrimental effects of alcohol on the human body. So don’t start drinking just yet! The amount of alcohol administered to Caenorhabditis elegans was only a tiny amount. Equivalent to a tablespoon of ethanol in a bathtub full of water or the alcohol in one beer diluted into a hundred gallons of water. Increasing the amount is not very good for the wiggly creatures.
Although not certain on how tiny amounts of alcohol help the worms live longer. It does open some interesting speculation about the beneficial effects of alcohol on humans. If we cut our consumption of the toxic, to a dose proportional to that of what Caenorhabditiselegans helps to live longer, it might do the same for us. After all, the poison is in the dose.
And if the benefits turn out to be experimentally proven, will we ever succeed to make it our next nature to shrink our – almost ritualistic – consumption of the fire water.
via: UCLA Newsroom
January 21 2012
Rule #7: Respect Social Standards
Part 7 of the 11 part series Golden Rules of Anthropomorphism and Design.
Anthropomorphic products enter the human social space. Humans have the most complex social behavior of any organism on Earth. Anyone or anything trying to join in should be careful to do it right. Although an anthropomorphic product may function perfectly, if it crosses social boundaries it will still tick people off. This can cause the product to become a social reject, which won’t do sales much good. Luckily, it’s not hard to figure out why things go wrong. Imagine a scenario where a person and a product interact, then replace the product with a second person. If the actions of the second person and the product don’t match up, then there’s something off about the product’s design.
Image via Anvari. For other parts in the series, see part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6.
December 15 2011
Effortless Learning
Matrix-style learning sounds like an impossibility, yet new research suggests it might become reality.
Boston University and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto have conducted experiments in which they demonstrated that they could induce brain activity patterns through a person’s visual cortex, thereby improving a subject’s performance on a visual task. The researchers used decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and neurofeedback to make the subject’s brain activity match that of another person who had previously learned the task.
The result, say researchers, is a novel approach to learning sufficient to cause long-lasting improvement in tasks that require visual performance. This research might some day lead to applications that could enable you to learn to shred a guitar like Hendrix while not even thinking about what you want to learn. According to lead author and BU neuroscientist Takeo Watanabe, ”We found that subjects were not aware of what was to be learned while behavioral data obtained before and after the neurofeedback training showed that subjects’ visual performance improved specifically for the target orientation, which was used in the neurofeedback training.”
Video explanation here: Researchers explain Decoded Neurofeedback
Via: www.nsf.gov
December 05 2011
Growing Cement like Coral
Corals are the master builders of the animal kingdom. Powered on plankton and their symbiotic algae, hard corals extract the carbon dissolved in seawater and turn it into their calcium carbonate skeletons. Now a company is trying to replicate this process, not to grow reefs, but to create cement.
Cement, though it may seem like a neutral material, is a massive source of carbon emissions. The cement industry is responsible for 5% of global carbon emissions, with each ton of cement producing a ton of CO2. Biomineralization expert Brent Constantz hopes to green the production of cement by capturing flue gases from factories, running them through a saline solution, and using electricity to convert the gases into solids. For 542 million years, corals have been sequestering carbon dissolved in water. Constantz’s company Calera may have figured out how to do the same on a much shorter time scale.
Story via Fast Company. Image via Jurvetson.
December 01 2011
Robot Guide Dog
Click here to view the embedded video.
Possibly the answer for blind people with cynophobia, the fear of dogs. This robot guide dog is stil a bit slow compared to the old nature version, but as technology advances it will surely compete with the old, trusted, yet expensive guide dogs.
Via diginfo.tv
November 19 2011
Human Nature Forecast
Click here to view the embedded video.
The video team of TEDxAmsterdam caught me mid-production and forced me to sit on a chair to respond to their upcoming conference theme: Human Nature. We discussed how people are technological by nature, yet how we also need humane technology to remain human, or become even more human than we are today.
TEDxAmsterdam is held on the 25th of November in the city theater of Amsterdam.
October 25 2011
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?
Since first being featured on Next Nature, Arne Hendricks’ project The Incredible Shrinking Man has gained a half dozen collaborators and an encyclopedic amount of reporting and speculation. The benefits of downsizing the human species are practical and wonderful: We could fit dozens of people in the average bedroom, use sunflowers as edible tables, and wander through a permanent amusement park of giant objects left over from our time as giants. One chicken could provide meals for 100 people. A single apple could power you for an entire day. The world’s current existing renewable energy facilities would be more than adequate to run our tiny brave new world. Not to mention the health benefits. Short people tend to live longer and have a lower risk of cancer than their lanky friends.
Hendricks recognizes the downsides to shrinking the human race. Chief among these concerns are what might happen to our lavish, oversize brains. Homo florensis appears to have had a relatively complex hunter-gather society, despite their hobbit-like proportions, though there’s no guarantee that a significantly smaller brain would function just as well as our existing ones. Scientists would have to figure out a way to decrease the size, but not number, of our neurons.
Our new Lilliputian bodies also lead to more everyday issues. As the pitches of our voices changed, old music and media would sound strangely loud and deep. Hail would be fatal, heavy rain would give us bruises, and house cats would be as threatening as African lions. Of course, given our ingenuity at utilizing resources, it may be that 7 billion tiny humans quickly multiply to 30 billion, and outstrip whatever ecological deliverance Hendricks is hoping for.
Images via k-stalker and seul-le-cinema.
September 24 2011
Jet Powered Barbecue
At first sight it seems plain wrong to roast your burgers on this utterly technological machine: barbecuing is supposed to be a nostalgic low-tech activity that brings us back to nature and sooths our inner caveman.
Yet although we, 21th century people, consider barbecuing a more natural way of cooking food than our everyday microwave, at some point in our human history – most anthropologists estimate around 250,000 years ago – cooking food on fires was a radically new technological achievement: a handy technique to extend our stomach and predigest our food before it would enter our body.
Cooking is perhaps the greatest example of how that what was once a technological achievement may be naturalized over time – up to the level that we don’t recognize it as technology anymore and think of it as part of our nature. Think about it next time you place a burger on the grill, or in the molecular food printer for that matter.
Image source.
September 23 2011
Trading Humans for Trading Algorithms
The economic system and profit motive has been a driving force that steers and even dictates social change. Investors and stockbrokers have been a major influence to these social changes, as they decide where money is allocated to serve a specific function. The reason why money is invested in some rather than other businesses isn’t always related to evidence that any given company will do better than the other. Rumors and trading floor gossip sometimes fuel speculations that reap major profits for some and painful losses for others. Losses that could mean the termination of jobs. Of course investment and successive financial gains can also lead to job losses, mostly due to automation where machines replace human workers.
Now in a strange yet somewhat satisfactory twist of irony, the people who have been making money out of money, have a growing chance of being replaced by faster and cheaper algorithms that can do their jobs better.
“The Foresight Project” by the “Government Office for Science” of the United Kingdom produced a report called “The Future of Computer Trading in Financial Markets” which investigates the trends of computer trading and its effects on financial markets. One of these effects is the replacement of human speculators by algorithms. Thus far about a third of UK trading is done by computers compared to three quarters in the United States.
Another effect created by the speed at which algorithms conduct their business is that interactions take place at a pace where human intervention could not prevent them. Think about it. A wrong calculation, a undesired self-reinforcing feedback loop triggered by a small delay might shock already quite volatile markets.
Should we consider these next nature algorithms and their possible negative effects as unavoidable as we would an earthquake? One thing is for sure, algorithms will take an ever prevalent role in our financial markets. Thank you profit motive.
September 22 2011
Sin free for just €1.59
For just £1.19 ($1.99, €1,59) you can download an app for your iPhone which offers tips and guidelines with the sacrament, “the perfect aid for every penitent” as the description reads. This, on itself, is not so special. There are dozen of apps which help you to confess, though this is the first which is officially approved by the Catholic Church.
The app allows users to keep track of their sins, and guides them through the sacrament (where Catholics admit their wrongdoing through). The app is launched shortly after Pope Benedict XVI gave the advice to embrace digital communication. Although he adds: “It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives.”
Hopefully there will be a ‘Pocket Pope’ app in the near future.
September 20 2011
Holland Gets an Unnatural High
When the Dutch built the Netherlands, they forgot to add any mountains. The highest point in Holland is a measly 323 meters, compared to 2,962 meters for the highest mountain in Germany. Possibly inspired by architect Jacok Tigges’ proposal for Berlin, Dutch journalist Thijs Zonneveld recently suggested that the Netherlands deserves a fake mountain of its own. Unlike Tigges’ purely theoretical proposal, the people behind Die Berg Komt Er (The Mountain Is Coming) are taking their landscape-building mandate seriously. The mountain has turned into a movement.
Different designers have different visions for this god-like task. DHV situates their Bergen in Zee, an exact replica of Mount Fuji, in the ocean near the town of Bergen aan Zee. It would rise 2,000 meters, occupy an area the size of Disney World, and provide sustainable power for the mainland. Hoffers and Kruger place it in the land or the sea, and fill up their hollow structure with everything from aquariums to sport arenas to farms. Regardless of the particulars, the Nederlandse Berg would be the biggest and costliest manmade structure in history. If the mountain is actually realized, it will certainly prove one thing: The Dutch will let nothing stand in the way of a nice weekend of skiing.
Via Pruned.
September 19 2011
Deus Ex: The EyeBorg Documentary
Back in 2009 Rob Spence, a cyborg film maker, worked together with a team of ocularists, inventors, engineering specialists on a prosthetic eye which can capture and stream video. He then started the project: EyeBorg.
Commissioned by the makers of ‘Deus Ex: Human Revolution‘, a game which tells the story of the year 2027 where cyborgs are the norm, he needed to figure out how far we currently are from that future. In his 12 minute documentary he meets leading scientists in biotechnology and fellow cyborgs. It shows we are not far from a future where cyborgs are the norm.
Rob says: “People are going to have the option of having superior arms, superior eyes at some point. People say no one would ever cut off their own arm and replace it, but if the technology gets there – and it looks like it will – people will think about it. They might be early adopters.”
September 16 2011
Drugs are Nuts
Thinking about Next Nature can sometimes result in a feeling of vertigo. Normal standards are eroded and slowly replaced by next natural ones. A bewildering example can be found in a letter the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent to a manufacturer of walnuts.
“Based on claims made on your firm’s website, we have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. The following are examples of the claaims made on your firm’s website under the heading of a web page stating “OMEGA-3s … Every time you munch a few walnuts, you’re doing your body a big favor.”
Diamond Foods Incorporated, who marketed the walnuts, apparently made some health claims the FDA didn’t aprove of:
• “Studies indicate that the omega-3 fatty acids found in walnuts may help lower cholesterol; protect against heart disease, stroke and some cancers; ease arthritis and other inflammatory diseases; and even fight depression and other mental illnesses.”
• “Omega-3 fatty acids inhibit the tumor growth that is promoted by the acids found in other fats … “
• “In treating major depression, for example, omega-3s seem to work by making it easier for brain cell receptors to process mood-related signals from neighboring neurons.”
• “The omega-3s found in fish oil are thought to be responsible for the significantly lower incidence of breast cancer in Japanese women as compared to women in the United States.”
Now here comes the kicker:
Because of these intended uses, your walnut products are drugs within the meaning of section 201 (g)(1)(B) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(g)(B)]. Your walnut products are also new drugs under section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 321(p)] because they are not generally recognized as safe and effective for the above referenced conditions. Therefore, under section 505(a) of the Act [21 U.S.C. § 355(a)], they may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application. Additionally, your walnut products are offered for conditions that are not amenable to self-diagnosis and treatment by individuals who are not medical practitioners; therefore, adequate directions for use cannot be written so that a layperson can use these drugs safely for their intended purposes. Thus, your walnut products are also misbranded under section 502(f)(1) of the Act, in that the labeling for these drugs fails to bear adequate directions for use [21 U.S.C. § 352(f)(1)]...” You can read the full letter here.
Did you feel that? The world just turned upside down, leftside right and inside out. The FDA, which was signed into law in 1906 by Roosevelt, has, in a strange twist of logic, classified walnuts, which have been with us since 7000 B.C. acording to some sources, as an unlicensed drug.
The FDA argues that the health claims that accompany the walnuts brand them as a drug. A drug that isn’t aprroved by the FDA, and thus illegal to sell. Any sane human being knows that a walnut is nothing to fear, except maybe as a chocking hazard. And indeed some studies suggest they have beneficial effects on cognition:
“Diets containing two percent, six percent, or nine percent walnuts, when given to old rats, were found to reverse several parameters of brain aging, as well as age-related motor and cognitive deficits, says James Joseph, PhD, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center at Tufts University in Boston.”
Another article claims:
“Tests showed that both the olive oil and the walnuts helped to reduce the sudden onset of harmful inflammation and oxidation in arteries that follows a meal high in saturated fat… However, unlike olive oil, adding walnuts also helped preserve the elasticity and flexibility of the arteries, regardless of cholesterol level.”
As a child, a friend of mine had a walnut tree in their garden. We used to climb it and play around it. We could spend whole days collecting the fallen nuts. Breaking the hard shells and eating the brainlike structures inside until we were full. I’m still standing, even though I ate a small mountain of the things. Labelling walnuts as a drug is nuts. Next nature can be nuts.
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