Opening to the Typophyle Film Festival 5 by Brent Barson

P.S. no CG effects.

Stephen Scott - "Entrada" (Performed by the Bowed Piano Ensemble)

The quantum leap

In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore described a business trend that the number of transistors which can feasibly be placed in an integrated circuit has increased at a fixed exponential rate since the invention of the integrated circuit in 1958. To the present day, we have seen processing speeds doubling roughly every 18 months. This trend, which has come to be known as Moore's Law, has seen the inception of personal computing devices in the 80s, their ascent in the 90s, and the widespread networking of them in the 2000s. However, the trend is not without bounds.

It is true that the generally held belief is such that the trend described by Moore's Law will continue for at least another decade; but then what? Physicists allege that Moore's Law will collapse within a few decades due to the limitations of silicon processors. Currently, the smallest chip has a layer of silicon no more than 20 atoms across and before long this number is expected to drop to a mere 5 atoms. At this point, due to the uncertainty principle in such a confined area, the silicon will be unstable and result in short circuits.

Of course this seeming inevitability does not mean the end of computing. Rather, where silicon semiconductors break down, is the operating level of quantum computers. Quantum computing was first proposed in the 1980s by Richard Feynman and Paul Benioff -- a process which exploits the ambiguities of quantum mechanics. That is to say, quantum computers run on mere atoms, utilizing the fundamental principle and superposition which states that the state of a particle such as an electron is ambiguous. Thus, in a quantum computer, the atoms are in an unfixed state and by using probabilities, a simple two quantum bits, or qubits, of information can have four disparate values (00, 01, 10, 11 in binary); five qubits can have twenty-five values and so on. When functioning with sizable chunks, the processing speed will far surpass current digital processors.

The upshot of quantum computing I see as twofold. Human thought operates at a speed of about five-hundred trillion bits per second, a level that would take approximately 50 years to achieve with our conventional methods, a duration which cannot be sustained. It is likely we will see serious and considerable breakthroughs in artificial intelligence only by way of harnessing quantum computing. Although current efforts in the realm of quantum computing have been relegated to qubits in the single digits, many believe it is only a short matter of time the field gains momentum. In addition to implications for artificial intelligence, the revolution of quantum computing will first see the drop in demand for silicon and corresponding drop in price. Before silicon valley becomes the new rust belt, it is likely to have widespread applications and give rise to ubiquitous computing -- putting processors in pretty much anything and everything.

Akira Naito's Yuri I

Recycling

via re-nest

1. Wine corks: Yemm & Hart (www.yemmhart.com), which produces recycled building materials, turns used corks into floor and wall tiles.
2. Foam packaging: Lightweight "peanuts" made from expanded polystyrene (EPS) contain 25 to 100 percent recycled material. The Plastic Loose Fill Council (www.loosefillpackaging.com) has a "Peanut Hotline" (800-828-2214) you can call to find local recycling centers, including chain-store shippers such as Pak Mail and The UPS Store. To recycle large, molded chunks of EPS used to cushion televisions, air conditioners and such, contact the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers (www.epspackaging.org).
3. Potato chip bags and those other foil packaging that often are used to wrap up junk food can be recycled at Terracycle.net.
4. Tyvek envelopes: Quantities less than 25: Send to Shirley Cimburke, Tyvek Recycling Specialist, 5401 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Spot 197, Room 231, Richmond, VA 23234. Quantities larger than 25, call 866/33-TYVEK.
5. CDs, jewel cases, DVDs, audio and video tapes, pagers, rechargeable and single-use batteries, PDAs, and ink/toner cartridges: For $30, GreenDisk will send you a cardboard box in which you can ship them up to 70 pounds of any of the above. Your fee covers the box as well as shipping and recycling fees. 800/305-GREENDISK, www.greendisk.com.
6. CDs/DVDs/Game Disks: Send scratched music or computer CDs, DVDs, and PlayStation or Nintendo video game disks to AuralTech for refinishing, and they’ll work like new: 888/454-3223, www.auraltech.com.
7. Phone Books: If your local recycling center accepts phone books, drop them off there. Otherwise contact the closest Project ReDirectory center. Find your local center with an Internet search or by contacting the company issuing the directories.
8. CFLs: Many people already know that IKEA accepts your old CFLs. So do many hardware and home improvement stores though they may charge if you're not replacing an old bulb with a new one. LampRecycle.org lists businesses and organizations that will recycle these bulbs.
9. Carpets, Rugs, Padding: There are places that will try to recycle used carpets and rugs rather than toss them into landfill. To recycle yours (depending on your area) try checking with the Carpet America Recovery Effort, UGA Carpet Recycling Resource, the California Intergrated Waste Management Board or any other number of organizations geared towards recycling.
10. Old Medicine: Rather than tossing it into the toilet (where it can end up in the water supply) or in the garbage, why not recycle it? Some states have enacted drug recycling programs including: So far, the following states have recycling programs: AK, CO, IL, KS, MA, MN, NE, NM, NY, OK, PA, SC, WV. Check the National Conference of State Legislatures website for updated information.

The End of Food

Thomas Pawlick attempts to expose the agenda behind corporate agribusinesses in The End of Food. Surely, it doesn't even cross the minds of most consumers that through the corporatization of foodstuffs, produce is grown in strains that will withstand transportation and handling, meat will be treated with additives to maintain freshness, and countless other procedures will be conducted to present appealing grocery options. The problem is that these choices made for shelf-life and appearance come at a cost; nutritional value is sacrificed.

The basic underlying principle is a good one to raise, nonetheless, Pawlick is a little too ambitious with his thesis. The large-scale trend in declining food quality Pawlick backs up with data from US Department of Agriculture Food Tables as well as Canadian Nutrient Data from 1963 to the present. Pawlick claims that the downward trend has been so significant that at the rate his data indicates, within a few decades, food will no longer have any nutritional value -- we will have to rely on suppliments -- it will be "the end of food." His unabashed use of inductive reasoning is abhorrent. Just because my alarm clock goes off every morning without fail, doesn't mean the batteries won't simply crap out one day. Clearly, if we can attribute the decline in a tomato's nutritional value to opting for a more hardy strain that has less vitamin content, it isn't the case that the tomato inherently has a disease withering its nutrients. Rather, it has been substituted with a different kind of tomato and it is absurd to think that the future of the tomato is such that it will be systematically substituted for strains of asymptotically decreasing nutritional value.

Further, Pawlick's data is presented in such a manner that it is misleading. He cites data that ranges from 1963 to the present. It isn't clear whether data was collected at any intervals in-between. Also, he always quantifies data as percentages, for example, suggesting that the potato lost 100% of its vitamin A between 1963 and 2005. The initial amount of vitamin A may have just as well been a minute trace amount and maybe even a fluke at that. Needless to say, I did not even make it halfway through the book -- waste of paper.

Man Bites Dog by Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel (1993)

Destino by Salvador Dali, Walt Disney (1949)

Free rice

Freerice.com is a website which not only works as an effective learning tool, it also serves a charitable humanitarian function. The website prompts multiple choice questions in topics ranging from identifying famous paintings to geography, vocabulary in five languages, chemical element symbols, and mathematics. Questions ascend in difficulty as the user selects the correct answers and level of difficulty is determined as the system tracks the number of correct responses. You would be hard pressed to find someone that is unable to find a challenge somewhere on the website. Even incorrect responses pop back up after a few turns so the user has another chance.

Each correct answer donates ten grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. The rice is paid for by the site sponsors. Further, where and when possible the donations are used to buy rice from sources domestic to the beneficiaries so as to stimulate their economies. Unwittingly, many humanitarian efforts send foodstuffs and other goods from external sources, incurring both transportation costs and competition. This program is conscientious enough to take measures in evading the problem.

Tenth dimension

Here is an elegant 11 min. animation depicting the proposed 10 dimensions of the multiverse.

Dead Aid

With estimates of world human population to reach 9 billion by 2050, even the most generous appraisals from experts suggest a sustainable level to be a mere half of where we are today (6-7 billion). Unstable growth in human population has far reaching repercussions from the amount of strain placed on resources. Sure, with the proliferation of the "green" movement, the effectiveness of our resources may be increased, but that will only take us so far. The emerging Asian countries that have dominated world population growth have shown clear signs of a plateau as successful development has taken hold in their economies. The gap between geographic regions with rapid and slow population growth is undeniably linked to disparities in wealth. However, as reported by the World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa alone is at a rate of increase that will constitute 20% of the world population by 2050. So then, if we effect the economic circumstances in Africa, in-so-doing perhaps we can bring more stability to world population growth.

In Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa, Dambisa Moyo provides a no holds barred attack on the economic situation of the African continent, suggesting that foreign aid monies counterintuitively hinder economic growth rather than catalyze it. She provides a detailed critique, yet more importantly, provides alternative economic models for climbing out of the ditch that has been dug.

In the wake of a WWII, in 1947 George C. Marshall, US Secretary of State, outlined how a war ravaged Europe would receive US$13 billion (US$100 billion today, adjusted for inflation) from the USA for reconstruction. The success of the Marshall Plan served as the paradigm for raising the foundering economies of Africa. Over US$1 trillion has poured into Africa from richer countries since the 1940s. What no body has bothered to address is that post WWII Europe was on a reconstruction mission and was not so dependent upon aid, marking only 5% of GDP at most for any recipient country for the five year life of the program. African countries on the other hand are still developing, lacking the infrastructure and political stability to effectively use the foreign aid as one would with investment capital. Foreign aid to African countries has continued for well over 50 years and averages 15% of GDP across the continent today. It's a substantial amount of money, but how is it hurting Africa?

Systematic aid (monies from government-to-government or from organizations such as the IMF, to be contrasted with humanitarian aid) has consequences that have largely crippled the African continent. In the context of Africa, the legal borders carved across the continent from colonial powers with no regard for tribal homelands has led to great political instability and stalemates in their democratic politics. Eventhough aid is lent at interest rates far below the market, underdeveloped countries riddled with kleptocracy and cronyism, feed the pockets of corrupt officials and force the country into further aid-dependency to pay back the interest. In an underdeveloped economic climate, the influx of aid monies cannot be absorbed quick enough into the economy due to the lacking industry; there are often use-it-or-lose-it conditionalities and thus countries are too hard-pressed to find ways of investing wisely. This reduction in savings and investment means more money chasing consumer goods. Whether the consumer goods are produced locally or imported, the industry will have to keep up with demand, otherwise the scarcity of goods inflates prices. The inflationary consequences can choke off exports of domestic goods as prices are no longer competitive on the international market.

It's not just a slippery slope argument, these events have spiraled out of control for decades upon decades across the majority of the African continent due to the foreign aid economic growth model -- however, Moyo proposes several alternative approaches to raise the economies of African nations, approaches which have been tried and tested successfully in South Africa and Botswana.

Between Foreign Direct Investment and trade, there is great potential to get Africa on the right track. Yet, the tendency of developed nations to support domestic agro-business with government subsidies coupled with strict intra-African trade tariffs has left little ground for any economic growth from trade programs in Africa. That is with one exception; the ascent of the economic powerhouse of China has already positioned itself as a major player for the region. As China has seen unprecendented growth levels, Africa's resources pose a mutually beneficial relationship. Abundant natural resources and cheaper labor than in the developing Southeast Asia can mean big dollars for China. As of now only baby steps are being taken, but this comes along with the promise of a full-fledged China-Africa alliance.

Innovations in banking also hold the key to financial success in Africa. How can small businesses begin without loans? And how can loans be obtained when people have next to nothing for collateral? Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi national was rewarded for his revolutionary approach to finance structuring with a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Yunus' approach was to revaluate the lacking quantitative assets of the poorest, most rural people with their qualitative assets; the opportunity to receive loans based on a community of interdependency and trust. The way it works is that a group of individuals form a coalition in order to receive the loans they desire. Person A receives a loan and if and only if person A repays the loan with interest does person B get their loan, and so on. Thus, a community is implicitly liable, willing to help a potential defaulting individual in order to get loans for the rest of the community. This banking procedure has popped up across dozens of countries already. Further banking reforms include the global decentralization of banking loans. Suppose a Burundian man wants US$3,000 on loan. (Though it presupposes internet infrastructure) through an online interface, the risk can be divied up by individuals the world over by loaning with a predetermined interest rate in denominations of their choosing until the Burundian man has his desired loan.

There is no question that the private sector is the means to raise up African economies. The unconditional giving of aid to African governments has fueled corruption; when there is accountability to foreign monies, the stealing will only happen once before the country is cut off. (In contrast, the World Bank and IMF is essentially part of an industry of foreign aid with many jobs involved in the giving of aid. Insofar as the aid is being distributed, jobs are secure and there is no accountability for how the aid funds are used). If we can bring more economic security to the developing world, we can bring more stability to the world as a whole. However, it is imperative that in building up from ground zero, we heed to a conscientious approach to social and environmental factors.

The missing link?

Today a press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in New York with Dr. Jørn Hurum of the University of Oslo revealed that a fossil excavated 25 years ago is much more than it first appeared to be. After 2 years of study at the Oslo Natural History Museum, the cat-sized Eocene fossil named Ida, after Hurum's daughter, has been claimed to be a "missing link." However, Darwinius masillae is not quite what the media has hyped it up to be in calling it a "missing link" which would suggests an evolutionary step in the divergence of anthropoids from prosimians. Rather, it is a "missing link" in that it was a link we didn't know was there - part of a larger group Adapoidea, from which humans, great apes, and lemurs have all descended. In other words, it's not a missing link at all since it is in no way a homonid. Perhaps the fossil's greatest significance resides in that, barring human burial, never before have any primate remains been so incredibly preserved.

The remarkably intact fossil was found preserved in oil shale in the Messel Pit in Germany. The Messel Pit is known as a treasure trove of fossils today due to the formation of the pit. What was once a volcanic crater about a half-billion years ago, over time became filled with groundwater, forming a deep, still lake. Very little microbial life could survive at the depths of the lake. Surrounded by rich, diverse rainforest at the time, the accumulation of noxious gases coupled with the rainforest downpours, many helpless animals were swept into the lake (Ida appeared to have a broken wrist) to settle upon the bottom undisturbed while falling sediment covered and compressed to form the fossils that now fill the dry quarry.

Visit RevealingTheLink.com for the bizarre made-for-tv hype
Visit PLoS one for the full journal article on the findings

The Machine

Uploaded today to youtube, the below video from last Friday captures accomplished Los Angeles-based artist Llyn Foulkes performing on his "Machine" - a homemade instrument inspired by his childhood idol, Spike Jones, comprised of car and bicycle horns. Meanwhile, his feet control drums and basslines, yet he often throws in xylophone and cowbell for good measure. While the Machine may look like an invocation of Italian futurist Luigi Russolo's intonarumori, and anyone that attempts to create a whole self-sufficient ensemble out of piecemeal horns would be assumed to have a penchant for the avantgarde, indeed Foulkes dabbles in some abstract sound on occasion. Nonetheless, by and large Foulkes plays a fairly straightforward combo jazz (albeit as a soloist). He created the Machine in 1980 and now at the age of 74, has grown to focus on music and performing the Machine moreso than his visual art career. Foulkes plays his Machine on a live webcast from the Church of Art every Tuesday at 1am EST.

Wave-particle duality and the photoelectric effect

The wave-particle duality in light is a particularly mystifying problem in physics. One determining factor to demonstrate light to have particle characteristics is the photoelectric effect. The photoelectric effect is manifest as photons of a light beam with a given frequency are absorbed by a given material. When the energy of one photon is absorbed by the material, provided the net energy is greater than the electron binding force, the incoming photon will cause an electron in the outer level of an atom in the absorbing material to be ejected.

However, a recent experiment (as reported by Wired Science) conducted with FLASH, an x-ray laser in Hamburg, shot at xenon atoms yielded some interesting results. Apparently, the high frequency laser caused the inner level electrons to move violently and their displacement cascaded into a total of 21 electrons being ejected simultaneously. The common notion of a photon like a cue ball in billiards is now being reconsidered as the experiment suggests the photons working as a wave and not individual particles. Of peculiar interest is the fact that the photons penetrated to inner electron levels and not working from outside-in.

Micro-holographic storage

While it seems the reality of consumer storage devices would seem to go the way of the dodo bird with the advent of broadband internet and opensource media, one might very well be mistaken. Case in point: read the recent article "Do you think bandwidth grows on trees?" Apparently due to operating costs exceeding $700 million for Youtube, Google (as owner) is said to be losing around $470 million dollars this year. Afterall, it seems there may be a niche for storage and General Electric has just upped the ante with the development of a micro-holographic dvd, capable of storing 500 gigabytes of information. Youtube is going down the drain for you, so watch the video below.

Endosymbiosis in doubt

Researchers have provided compelling evidence to discount one of the mainstream views in biology regarding the evolution of eukaryotic cell structure. Eukaryotic cells are those which make up virtually all complex, multicellular life on Earth. They are markedly different from that of prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea); they have a cell nucleus that contains DNA as well as mitochondria and other structures. Bacteria and archaea on the other hand merely have free-floating DNA within the cell membrane. One mainstream theory in biology suggested that the structures in eukaryotes originated as disparate organisms eventually forming a symbiotic relationship, called endosymbiosis.

Temple Smith and Hyman Hartman, from Boston University and MIT respectively, conducted research on a particular structure found in many eukaryotic cells called cilia. Cilia are hairlike projections from a cell which help move and sense the environment. These are one of many structures believed to be originated from endosymbiosis. However, Smith and Hartman, through newly available genomic techniques, were able to determine that genes responsible for the cilia have a uniqueness that could not be present in the simple organisms believed to be part of the endosymbiosis. Therefore, it is suggested that the cilia must have arisen from within via evolutionary forces not yet understood.

While this research can only speak with regard to cilia alone, the notion can be easily extrapolated for the many other structures in eukaryotic cells as well, casting much doubt over the notion of endosymbiosis.














(image shows electron micrograph scan of cilia in human trachea)

The Color of Pomegranates by Sergei Parajanov (1968)

Mi Hombre Paco

Invisible people

Largely inspired by the recent posts on mad daps concerning homlessness, I realized that avanti popolo rarely directly involves pressing social issues. Motivated by a general interest in paradigm shifts of cultural perspectives ushered in by the creative minds behind technological and artistic evolution, the topics at most involve a mere instrumental step toward social transformation. I hope to aggregate notions pertaining to culture properly-so-called and not the passing masquerade of dreams and diversions taken as culturally relevant.

Homelessness is a global issue that has been exacerbated by the current economic crisis. As more enter a state of financial panic, fewer are looking at the circumstances of others. Although little media attention is given to the issue other than an index for our economic zeitgeist, social media has stepped in to fill the void. The availability of cameras and social networking is an impetus toward the decentralization of mass media and at the forefront of this movement are the initiatives of those like Mark Horvath.

Horvath was once a TV executive in Hollywood. Fourteen years ago, a drug addiction, a lost job and a house foreclosure sent him out onto the streets. Sober and off the streets, now equipped with little more than a car, a laptop, and a digital camera, he utilizes social media outlets like twitter to show the realities behind homelessness and the people afflicted with the stigma. Further, he created a website, Invisible People, which is a video blog interface with the shunned voices and unseen faces of homeless individuals from all walks of life. In spite of warnings and threats from government officials and homeless service agencies for Horvath not going through the "proper channels" to expose the issues around homelessness, he has remained committed to his project. While it might not be a solution to put a roof over anyone's head, hopefully it transforms ideas about who these people are.

L'Immoretelle by Alain Robbe-Grillet (1963)

BioArtist Eduardo Kac

Viral batteries

Also published in Science, MIT genetic researchers have succeeded in engineering bacteriophage viruses to build both the anode and cathode of rechargeable batteries.
Three years ago, a team of MIT researchers were able to create virus-built anodes, engineering the viruses to coat themselves in cobalt oxide and gold before assembling together into a nanowire. The missing piece was to create the cathode. The problem lay in the fact that most candidate materials were not highly conductive to permit the flow of electrons. The newest MIT group to approach this challenge realized that the viruses engineered to coat themselves in iron phosphate and then attach to a conductive carbon nanotube would solve the problem.

The viruses are non-harmful to humans (bacteriophages only infect bacteria) and the battery manufacturing process uses all non-toxic checmicals. Not only is the process environmentally benign, it is also inexpensive. Further, the batteries permit a great deal of plasticity in their design as the anode and cathodes can be organically constructed to fit the shape of the container.

The next step is the pursuit of materials such as manganese phosphate and nickel phosphate to allow higher voltage and capacitance. The current prototype is only a typical coin-size battery and is limited to the use of about 100 times. Future projects hope to break the use limitations and increase the size. The aims of these researchers are ultimately set for green car batteries.

Autonomous science

I'll assume we are all familiar with the steps of the scientific process. Whether or not scientific research actually follows this canonical procedure, ever since the onset of our digital age, it has not been uncommon for parts of scientific research to be delegated to the realm of robotics and computing. From experiments screening for data to sequencing genomes, software has even been developed to crunch numbers from experimental research to arrive at conclusions. Never before has the human element been removed from the equation until now. British designers from Aberystwyth University in Wales have reaped the benefits of scientific discovery from their autonomous mini laboratory system, dubbed 'Adam.' The artificial intelligence lab-bot hypothesizes, conducts experiments, and formulates conclusions all without any human intervention aside from cleaning any waste product in experimentation.

Adam observed data about baker's yeast to form hypotheses about as of yet uncovered parent genes for enzymes therein. Subsequently, experiments were constructed to test these hypotheses within Adam's fully equipped robotic centrifuges, pipettes, incubators, and growth analyzers. The end result was a conclusion that pointed to three new genes that together coded for a particular enzyme. These findings were published today in Science.

Of particular interest from these discoveries is how these tests that can be run autonomously even on the likes of baker's yeast might relate to our own livelihood. The rise of genomics has given credence to a biological truism that regardless of species, a protein that successfully performs a specific biological function will have that protein structure repeated. Therefore, understanding the biology of other systems can and often will map onto the human genome to help us understand our own biology.

UbuWeb

One of the internet's best resources, UbuWeb encompasses the work of hundreds of artists with an immense library of audio, text, photo, and video all available for free. This post is merely to acknowledge their continued success at making accessible the work of countless minds upon many platforms. Last week they revamped their film & video hosting to now run more smoothly and to permit clip embedding. From their vaults, I offer a BBC program, The South Bank Show, airing in 1985 and consisting in an interview with one of 20th century-painting history's wonderful eccentrics: Francis Bacon. In a series of conversations, Bacon discusses his taste in art, ideas, influences, and fixations with interviewer Melvyn Bragg.

Quiet American

Whether it be for a professional attempt at art or an amateur preservation of memories, it is not uncommon to find the commitment of our memories and imagination to the spatio-visual snare of photography. Neglected has been the capture of strictly audio (beyond musical intentions). I find it interesting to shift the hegemonic means by which we have come to document places and times. Experimentation with field recordings as an art and documentation ought not supplant photo or video, but stand alongside as a deservedly appreciated medium. Quiet American is a website featuring field recordings taken to document the evocative aural textures experienced in one's travels, both foreign and domestic - as near or far as they may be.

Book From The Ground (excerpt) by Xu Bing

"Book from the Ground is a novel written in a 'language of icons' that I have been collecting and organizing over the last few years. Regardless of cultural background, one should be able understand the text as long as one is thoroughly entangled in modern life."
-Xu Bing

Optron

I finally found the photovoltaic cells I've been looking for to finish building an instrument inspired by Atsuhiro Ito's optron.



EDIT 04/02: It works.

American Boy by Martin Scorsese (1978)

Accelerating evolution

Multiplex-automated genomic engineering, or MAGE, is a revolutionary technique in genome sequencing pioneered by George Church, PhD at Harvard, MIT, Boston University, and University of Cambridge. Rather than step-by-step alterations to a genetic code, MAGE enacts numerous changes throughout the genome simultaneously. The experiments on bacteria thus far have accelerated genome sequencing exponentially, condensing work that would take months into a turnaround of a few days. This innovation holds promise to genetically modify bacteria instrumental in pharmaceuticals and biofuels to be more productive. MIT's Technology Review offers more details.

Reinventing the wheel

Theo Jansen, Dutch artist famed for his kinetic sculptures, has been preoccupied for a period nearing two decades with his concept of creating a new form of "life." He envisions a Dutch coastline inhabited by his "strandbeests" and other structures of yellow piping that move with the power of the wind, outfitted to detect and change direction in the presence of water. In so doing, he engineered a mechanism by which his sculptures would be motile. This mechanism is more efficient than the wheel (i.e. less friction/resistance). Theoretically, the mechanism should be compatible with our current vehicle paradigm as they function on a stationary axle or "hip", all while having a much greater load carrying capacity. Product developers may begin to take notice now that students at the University of Louisiana created what they call the "Cajun Crawler" - a Segwey type of vehicle outfitted with the Jansen mechanism.

Ungulate magnetoreception

Last year, an article appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America suggesting that cattle and deer grazing and at rest are ubiquitously oriented North-South. The initial tip-off came from researchers analyzing Satellite images from Google Earth. Further findings suggest that low-level magnetic field emissions from the likes of power lines show a disruption in cattle herd orientation. While the methods are inconclusive, the findings warrant further research. Though it does not follow that these animals have a sense of magnetoreception (they could merely be exposing their elongated sides to the warmth of the East-West "traveling" Sun), it is an intriguing notion. Of course it wouldn't be too far fetched considering we have the sensory percept apparatuses to detect electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum. However, we have evolved such a mechanism due to its pertinence to our well-being. Being a motile creature, it is useful to navigate the world we live in. Stationary organisms like a sea sponge have no use for eyes; natural selection would not favor the evolution of such a sense organ. So then, a logical question to ask: for what reason might ungulates develop a sensory mechanism by which they detect magnetic fields? Further, what might this mechanism be? I cannot think of any (scientifically acredited) sensory perceptual mechanism that is not manifested anatomically. This leads me to think that either magnetoreception capabilities are in stark contrast to the evolutionary model we have all come to know, certain organs have eluded verterinary sciences, or geomagnetic fields affect certain known sensory mechanisms in a manner we do not yet understand.

New life

Last month, I posted about some ideas that occurred to me; one of those concerned the possibility of more than one biological origin on Earth. This week, a great article in NewScientist discusses this notion (called "shadow life") as well as biochemists on the verge of producing life from scratch in the laboratory.

Read the article here.

I Eye Aye - Rahsaan Roland Kirk live in Montreux (1972)

A statement with which I wholeheartedly agree appearing at the end of this film reads: "He had no precedent or competition. Since his death in 1977, no one has come along to claim his mantle. It should be safe until the end of time. - jd"

Even if you're not one much for jazz, it is difficult not to recognize that Columbus's own Rahsaan Roland Kirk was not only a talented musician, but gifted in the musical innovations he devised to humbly "just recreate the sounds in [his] head." This footage captures him in his inimitable style as not only a multi-instrumentalist, but a mulit-simultaneous instrumentalist. Often playing upward of three saxophones at a time or harmonizing the flute along with a recorder played with his nose, I hope everyone can appreciate one of the oft forgotten greats of music. Also noteworthy of his career are his experimentations with electronic noise music in the 1950s, which he abandoned so as to not be subject to the whims of the electric companies. Highlights in the film aside from his regular bag of tricks include him dishing out bumps of cocaine to the audience and later wandering into the crowd (he was blind) whilst sustaining a single note through circular breathing. Anyhow, enjoy.

A neurologist's notebook

I became acquainted with the writings of Oliver Sacks about five years ago studying cognitive science as part of my degree program. I am presently reading his latest, Musicophilia, and I thought it appropriate to note something about his work.

To anyone unfamiliar, Sacks is a preeminent neurologist and author of many works detailing particularly odd and interesting neurological (or when neurology fails to explain, simply phenomenological conditions) he has found in his patients. He came to notoriety with Awakenings, an autobiographical work chronicling his success in the late 60s at treating the catatonic victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica "sleeping sickness" epidemic. The book was adapted for both the stage as well as an Academy Award-nominated film (starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams) in 1990. He has published several other highly acclaimed works including: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, An Anthropologist on Mars, and The Island of the Color Blind, among others. In addition to his books, he is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker. Some of his articles can be found online:

The Mind's Eye: What The Blind See

The Abyss

J'adore Mimi

Clean energy out of mud

Dutch designer Marieke Staps harnesses the energy of our Earth's soil. The metabolism of microbial life coupled with the conductive metals naturally present in soil have the capacity to convert electrolytes into usable energy. Embedded in the ground, the Soil Lamp runs purely off of the "earth battery" with enough energy to power an LED bulb. It only requires a bit of watering now and then.

Engineering a lettuce, engineering a cure

Type 1 diabetes, the autoimmune disease that destroys the insulin producing cells of the pancreas, is a widespread life-threatening disease that requires daily injections of insulin to maintain the proper levels of blood sugar. A professor at University of Central Florida, Henry Daniell, believes he has found the cure in the form of a GMO.

Using genetically engineered lettuce containing the insulin gene, Daniell believes he is able to train the body to once again produce insulin. Using GMO lettuce freeze-dried, he forms a capsule. When the lettuce cells break down in the intestines exposing the insulin, the immune system responds by producing its own.

Thus far, on the experimental front, Daniell has succeeded in bringing diabetic mice to produce their own insulin after only eight weeks of treatment.

À bout de souffle by Jean Luc Godard (1960)

Сталкер by Andrei Tarkovsky (1979)

Eunoia

Eunoia is a word meaning "beautiful thinking." It also happens to be the shortest word in the English language to use all five vowels. By no coincidence, Canadian poet Christian Bök (pronounced "book") used the word as the title of a remarkable five chapter book that cycles through the vowels of the roman alphabet, devoting each chapter to the limited use of a single vowel to construct all words therein. The project took 7 years to actualize and if his often bizarre and humorous conceptual poetry wasn't enough, this staggering work has secured his place as one of the true innovators in the art of writing. The entire text can be found here.

2 things

On a returning flight from Guatemala last week, taking some time to contemplate some disparate wandering thoughts, I arrived at a couple ideas that might be characterize as scientific propositions.

1. The fundamental particles/fields of physics are not static. If particles are field quanta, energies at given momentum, that which differentiates one energy from another is not fixed. Energy may "flow" albeit not on a human but a cosmic time scale and collapses to some greater uniformity of energy.

2. All life-forms on Earth do not have a common origin. If conditions on Earth supported one biological genesis, then these conditions were such that a genesis could have been supported on multiple occasions.



I do not know (and most likely never will know) enough about physics or biology to go into this further, but hopefully more on this later.

Do you want to live forever?

Moving into the 21st century, the rise of hybrid brain-machine interfaces and other biotechnological breakthroughs are beginning to challenge our notions of personhood. Philosophical arguments often appeal with brain in a vat arguments, but Aubry de Gray wants to actualize some of these ideas. He works on what he calls "strategies for engineered negligible senescence." He thinks a fundamental human right is to live indefinitely insofar as we have the technology to do so. Thus, de Gray is challenging the scientific community to achieve this end. Here is a documentary chronicling the emerging figure and some controversey surrounding him. (Props to whomever decided to use Mahler's "Resurrection" in the film).

Waste = food

If you have not read Cradle to Cradle, this is a 50 minute documentary on Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart, a duo who is essentially the foremost impetus in actualizing the green movement for industrial design, production, architecture, and city planning.