livingphorm

F.U.N.Y. (Floating Underwater Nails Yard)

2009-07-01T02:32:00.004+01:00

The concept of taking natural environment as a ‘ready-made laboratory’ with unlimited supply of ‘raw materials’ was the vigor behind F.U.N.Y. that cultivates diatom onto the artificial intelligent fingernails in an open water– where diatoms exist naturally. The idea then inspired the latest generation of diatom incubator that will be placed into a canal in London. A set of apparatuses sunk into the canal and turned the site into a diatom cultivating centre then activated the artificial nails manufacturing process right away.

The F.U.N.Y is a system that could easily setup by minimum a unit of floating incubator that contained a set of biodegradable S.L.A.N. scaffolds. A canal junction known as Little Venice by locals at Maide Vale where two major canals in London meet was spotted for this mission. Regent’s Canal that provides a link from the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal to the Limehouse Basin and the River Thames in east London conjunctions with Grand Junction Canal that forms the southern half of the Grand Union Main Line from London to Birmingham creates a very unique geographical landscape which also serves a roundabout for boats. A roundabout island in the middle of the junction that is currently inhabited by swans and ducks is almost like a reserved wild life island in the city of London.

The prototype was being designed as homage to David Greene’s Rockplug/Logplug project where connection for local networks were being installed into natural elements found in around the suburbs. To address general public over-reacted awareness towards any biological related projects, F.U.N.Y. tends to update Greene’s project in the notion of biotech, where the natural element was used as to camouflage rather than to blend into nature as Greene’s proposed in the Rokplug/Logplug project. Nevertheless, it seems like the Rokplug/Logplug project has inspired inventions more of a camouflaged high tech device for example the bluetooth enabled, data transmitting rock used by British spies in Moscow that enables communication with it via their PDAs or mobile phones. As a side note, the F.U.N.Y. prototype was illegally placed in the canal and successfully camouflaged itself with the floater made of tree branch.

S.L.A.N. (Semi-living Artificial Nails)

2009-07-01T00:30:00.013+01:00

Inspired by the 40’s classic sci-fi novel written by A. E. van Vogt, where the Homo superior (evolved human) that could communicate through telepath and higher intelligence among themselves, and recent research by Michael Sussman in using diatoms as the material for microchips triggered the creation of artificial nails which dedicated to the ‘low-tech experiments’ with diatoms earlier on.

While we are so attached to the cyber technologies that is less than forty years in geological history, will future human evolution being shaped by human desire to stay connected? If there was an immediate mutation reacted to current cyber technologies, fingers are probably the closest anthropological contact with the cyber world. That is maybe why replacing a missing finger with an USB flash drive came into Jerry Jalava’s mind when he lost one of his fingers. S.L.A.N. project was meant to accommodate this immediate human need for microchips embedded fingernails in near future. Ultimately, genetic mortified or synthetic diatoms could be grown in underneath fingernails and structured themselves to perform certain intelligent functions. S.L.A.N. incubator was again being setup with domestic glassware in a low-tech way to demonstrate how domesticating diatoms could be. The scaffolds made of Nitrate, Phosphate, Silica, Vitamin B12, Biotin, Thiamine HCl and zinc create an environment that attracts diatoms to grow on them. However, the aqueous medium was purposely prepared with seawater sample from Brighton, UK hopefully the seawater diatoms would be cultivated. The distribution of nutrient on a scaffold shall be designed into certain pathway that eventually forms a circuit of a microchip or RFID which later on will be ‘implanted’ onto human fingers to allow one plugs into cyber world remotely which could be better illustrated in William Gibson’s Neuromancer.

from Anthropocene to Parallel ecology...

2009-06-21T00:04:00.001+01:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More post human

Pachube

2009-06-01T20:44:00.000+01:00

Pachube is a web service available at http://www.pachube.com that enables you to connect, tag and share real time sensor data from objects, devices, buildings and environments around the world.

Brighton decay...

2009-05-25T20:32:00.006+01:00

Interesting after life of one of the burnt down Brighton Piers that was built in 1866 in front of Hilton Hotel at Brighton beach. I am glad that it was left as it was after it caught on a frightening fire about 5 years ago which the origin of fire still unknown, however in my eyes, it is now more "lively" than the restored theme-park pier 5 minutes away. The burnt skeletons have eroded, collapsed and re-occupied by new lives. Seagulls rest and nest on them, algae and shells grow on them, millions of sea lives benefit from the decomposed iron, the eroding steels by the fire as well as natural courses have chosen some beautiful texture and colors from a rotting pallette, they blend in perfectly with the rocky beach of Brighton and live happily with the spirits that once enjoyed the pier... the bare skeletal structures that ghosted the memory of mystery flames look especially stunning when the sun sets, by drawing strong profile lines on the summer sky of golden hour with brushes and splashes of melancholy. The structures that once made a pier stands still on the sea are now supporting each other in an balancing act, but if your stand quietly in front of them, you might hear the whispers of the ruins and dead, and maybe the weak cranking sounds from the slow-moving joints of the skeletons that are still trying so hard to defeat the waves hitting on them and the tragedy happened years ago...

Smart underwater factory Amsterdam

2009-05-19T15:17:00.007+01:00

Hard-rocking artsy diatoms

2009-05-16T13:44:00.004+01:00

Haekel Swarm from Simon Jenkins

I first heard of Jenkins from his articles in Guardians, and I remember his cynical statement criticizing a few modernist architects as ‘the worst offenders because they became the most powerful’ in the article responded to the 2006 exhibition on modernist art at the V&A. Surprisingly he is fascinated by diatoms, too. That's probably why he hates modernists so much?

Simon Jenkins is a journalist and author. He writes a column twice weekly for the Guardian and weekly for the Sunday Times, as well as broadcasting for the BBC. Previously he wrote columns for the Times and the London Evening Standard, both of which newspapers he edited.

His career began on Country Life magazine and continued on the Times Educational Supplement, the Economist (political editor) and the Sunday Times (books editor). He served on the board of British Rail and London Transport in the 80s and was deputy chairman of English Heritage and a Millennium commissioner. He was Journalist of the Year in 1988 and Columnist of the Year in 1993.

His books include works on London architecture, the press and politics and, more recently, England's Thousand Best Churches (1999) and Thousand Best Houses (2003).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2008/apr/22/simon.jenkins

Algae Farms at Sea

2009-05-14T13:55:00.008+01:00

http://www.jmu.edu/news/madisonscholar/bachmann-1.shtml
In addition to using the bioreactor, Bachmann and his students are experimenting with growing algae in a saltwater fish tank.

"One of the things that we want to look at is whether or not these algae could be cultivated offshore, to save valuable land area needed for housing and current food production practices," Bachmann said. "But, in order to do this, you must ensure you can do it in a contained manner, so that the algae do not disrupt the environment.

"Offshore algae farms have the potential to absorb significant amounts of CO2 and produce substantial amounts of bio-oil. But algae plumes could alter entire ecosystems if they cannot be properly contained, and you do not want that happening."

The Chesapeake Bay is a testament to this, Bachmann said. The bay has struggled with algae problems in the past, and felt strains on the fishing industry there. In certain conditions, fertilizer runoff can lead to large-scale algae plumes so thick, they block sunlight from getting through to organisms below the surface that need it. In severe conditions, those organisms die off, thus disrupting the food chain.

"These algae plumes can be quite large, some more than 400 miles in length," Bachmann said. "Right now, no one wants to clean them up. But if companies could harvest these microalgae and process them into fuel, then they just might just be motivated enough to help cleanup this environmental problem."

The deep ocean, far offshore, could prove to be an ideal place for cultivating algae without disrupting the environment.

"A lot of the ocean — 95 percent of it or so — is really like a barren desert and it doesn't have anything growing in it," Bachmann said. "As you travel into the open ocean, the surface of the sea is too far away from the nutrients that are found in the soil. These nutrients are essential for plant growth. If you're at the shore, the nutrients are here, the sunlight's here, everything grows. If you go into the deeper ocean, the sunlight is still present, but the nutrients are far below the surface and nothing will grow."

The fish tank trials will provide answers to a couple of questions: Are there algae that will grow there and can it be contained? In an attempt to keep the algae from spreading, it will be grown in clear dialysis tubing. "So if we could load up a tube, bright green, filled with algae, put it in there, have it keep growing and not have our tank get overrun with it, then we're looking pretty good," Bachmann said.

As for the nutrient source, poultry litter might do quite nicely, he said.

Gas, Diesel, Biofuel production from algae

Award-winning microscope photography 2008

2009-04-30T00:01:00.002+01:00

1st Place 2008 : Marine diatoms, Pleurosigma (200x) taken by Michael Stringer, Westcliff-on-Sea, UK. Stringer is not a microscopist by profession, but has been interested in diatoms for over 60 years, collecting them on Two Tree Island in the Thames Estuary, UK.

source: http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/dn14971-small-world-gallery

self-assembly casa diatom

2009-04-29T00:05:00.009+01:00

The scenario: The casa diatom is evolving from a grow-your-own-diatoms aquarium to an adaptable system that made of bio-degradable material. The part-machine part-living-creature is self-assembly and once it is matured, it will be hosting the existing or new born diatoms and acts as a underwater cultivating medium, be it in a lake, ocean, reservoir, pond, pool or any aqueous environment. It is a self-sustaining 'housing project' for diatoms, where they experience life and death. Like any other living creatures on earth, in an eco-chain, the dead always contributes to the spring of new life. In this case, frustule (diatom's skeleton) will be 'fertilizing' the new microchips or solar panels. The medium that nurtures diatoms becomes a factory for intelligent technologies, by transfering dead diatoms from the 'morgue' and 'reincarnating' them into part of the new forms, gives birth to a new 'life form', by accepting the fact that future microchips or solar panels could be manufactured naturally with certain controlled systems in place.

Archigram movement in the 60's was truly inspiring but apparently human race did not move on from industrial age since then. It is a shame that we are too arogant to blend into nature law and ignored the wisdoms that being showcased by nature. David Greene's utopian concept of a cybernetic forest sounds more convincing than any other futuristic robotic cities ever proposed.

"I like to think (right now please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electonica where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms."
-David Greene, Gardener's Notebook (Archigram)

Through their projects and proposals, they predicted a blurring of boundaries and a convergence of technologies. They realized that these technologies would begin shaping and altering the world in ways that they could only begin to imagine. Undoubtedly, the invention of internet has blurred the virtual-actual phenomenon, with the breakthroughs in genetic and biotech, perplexing situation between nature and technologies is expanding its territory from GM foods to superhuman. It is time to back to basic and rethink the harmonious relationships between man-made technologies and nature, where everything seems a little more sensible...

Decayed life v.s. New life.

2009-04-27T13:42:00.007+01:00

30 days after collected sample being migrated to a observation tank.

Top layer from the decayed life forms was removed to a different salt water tank with natural sunlight and limited oxigen. No sign of new life form after 20 days.

Seawater, seaweed, life rocks, sand, living shell and snail collected from Portmouth beach. The shell and snail died after 7 days due to lack of foods and dehydration, but dead bodies were left in the tank for decaying. The decayed dead shell and snail supplied nutrients for new air born bacteria and diatom.

Existence of diatom colonial after 14 days. Declining water level due to evaporation left some dead diatom colonials on the wall.

Unknown sesame-like-creatures found on the life stone.

Most of the seaweed did not survive but some do. The tank condition is now very bad for new life form but perfect for some micro-organism such as algae or diatom.

decay continues...
new life in production...

Suicidal Textiles

2009-04-21T17:18:00.004+01:00

The design concept is inspired by the process of programmed cell death; deliberate cell suicide, which enables organs and limbs to develop. This process is crucial to the shape and function of every organism. Carole chose to echo this principle in her collection of garden furniture and textiles that will evolve with time; the final forms only to be revealed at the end of the ‘apoptosis’ process. Using biodegradable (natural) and durable (synthetic) materials. Portions of the furniture and textiles will slowly biodegrade to reveal different final forms. The process of biodegradation will also support C. elegans, which feeds on the bacteria that live in soil and compost.

Suicidal Textiles is a collection of sustainable garden textiles and outdoor textile furniture inspired by the process of apoptosis in C.elegans and the research of Sir John Sulston,

Nobel Prize winner in 2002.

Key inspirations:

“Programmed Cell Death or Apoptosis” inspired the collection of suicidal poufs, parts of which slowly biodegrade over time to reveal a final form.

“Ubiquitous and Overlooked” inspired a collection of garden textiles which pays tribute to C.elegans.

“Common Threads” inspired the range of materials used in the production of the collection.

“Aperiodic repeat” inspired the design of a Toile de C.elegans with an aperiodic repeat, which plays with the historical icon of the Toile de Jouy but references DNA maps, and the C.elegans genome.

Source

Brandon Ballengée

2009-04-09T12:16:00.001+01:00

Brandon Ballengée's work bridges the gap between biology and art. He combines a fascination with amphibians, fish and insects with techniques of fine art imaging. For the past ten years, Ballengée's primary field of study has been amphibian declines and deformities.

During 2007 and 2008, artist Brandon Ballengée has been leading a UK study into declining amphibian species, through participatory lab and field-based research investigations, working with the public as well as collaborating scientists. Ballengée's investigations are being enabled by residencies at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Gunpowder Park, Essex, and SPACE, London.

Neri Oxman

2009-04-06T13:22:00.007+01:00

Neri Oxman is an architect and researcher currently based at MIT where she is a Presidential Fellow working towards her PhD in Design and Computation. She is a graduate of the AA School of Architecture and previously a medical scholar at the Hebrew University and the Technion Institute of Technology. Her work has recently been displayed at MoMA, now part of its collection.

Oxman's first-generation rapid manufacturing technology for depositing material with gradually varying physical properties has won her The Earth Awards, watch the interview on at a gala held at The Four Seasons Restaurant in New York on January 12, 2009.

Source:
http://materialecology.blogspot.com/
http://materialecology.com/

How to grow a crystal chair

2009-03-02T01:27:00.020Z

I have been waiting for this show since Tokujin Yoshioka's Venus Chair was revealed last year. It somehow reminds me of the installation by Roger Hiorns end of last year in London - Seizure, that "cystallized" the spaces in an abandoned social housing with "blue crystal" (copper sulfate).

Tokujin shows us how his Venus Chair was being grown from a water tank for his Second Nature Exhibition in Tokyo.

According to Tokujin,

"...a design is not something that is completed through being given a form, but rather something that is completed by the human heart. I also feel that incorporating the principles and movements of nature into ideas will become something important in future design..."

Tokujin used some spongy like fiber structure to control the crystallization process into the chair.

"...In the face of serious global issues, including disruption of nature, I think that each individual today has higher consciousness on the waste and environmental problems... As a designer, I have pondered what design can do in this time of change. I believe that to realize a beauty of the earth is one of the ways to look at such environmental issues. I would be pleased if this exhibition will somewhat become an opportunity to increase awareness of the earth."

all images © tokujin yoshioka

This somehow makes me relate to how can I create my bio-architecture that symbiosis with diatoms as Silica ("crystal") and Sulfate (that being used by Hiorns) are two main nutrients consumed by diatoms. Manipulating crystallization in form-making process with diatom's foods (nitrate, sulfate and silica) enables me to control the diatom cultivation in an architectured condition. In another words, crystallization could be used as a methodology in making the form-work for future diatoms growth that will eventually form a layer of silicon-based skin on the outer layer or fill up spaces within the crystal, which dedicates colours, architectural services (as electronic circuits, oxygen provider/CO2 digestor and etc) and cybernetic functions to the design. A matured system will eventually become a self-sustaining micro-ecology system where 'crystal' plays a role that similar to earth that provides foods and space for diatoms, then frustule (skeleton) of dead diatoms that made of silica will deposit and 'fertilize' the ecological system.

casa diatom

2009-02-27T15:06:00.006Z

Technical considerations referred to:

Diatom cultivation and biotechnologically relevant products. Part I: Cultivation at various scales
http://www.springerlink.com/content/aujxnrf8u7kfjvl9/
Publisher: Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
Issue: Volume 60, Number 6 / February, 2003
ISSN: 0175-7598 (Print) 1432-0614 (Online)

casa diatom visualization

2009-02-27T14:35:00.014Z

Trigger of bio-architecture in Post-Darwinian Age

2009-02-26T08:56:00.004Z

Recognizing the mistakes we, as one of the dominant species on earth have made since industrial revolution by encouraging carbon-based technologies is a painful contrition. We are now officially living in Anthropocene epoch that leaves a relevantly significant footprint on geological scale. Homo sapiens are drastically changing the planet they are living on by progressively magnifying the technologies invented 20 decades ago. Human’s desire exaggerated the damaging progress and it is showing on spreading carbon footprints and rising sea level. It is obvious that the science and technology we are living on since then might be leading us to a major catastrophe in near future.

Human has created such a huge archive of technologies which are arguably a trigger for Anthopocene epoch. However, without breakthroughs in nanotechnology and biotech which again initiated by military and astronomical purposes, we are not able realize the dogmatic solution that nature has been providing us. Architects and inventors are constantly looking for morphological solution from the nature. We could now manipulate biotech at nano level and trigger a series of events that might create vast changes in every aspect of life. Understanding how nature works at complexity science level as described by Rachel Armstrong is promising enough to ensure our creations blend into the whole ecosystem without creating rejection by nature. By taking the environment as a body system, putting up any man-made creation should be taking as transplanting a new organ to a body. We desperately need a paradigm shift from the current technological ambience.

The arrival of Anthropocene epoch also means the end of Darwinian Age as described by Freeman Dyson. Genomic breakthrough of Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomic Institution by creating an organism out of four basic chemicals in his laboratory marked a significant footstep on Post-Darwinian Age where life is no longer being created by nature or evolution but could be created artificially by human being. Biomimicry movements in robotic, computer science as well as architecture show that human is finally accepting rules and picking up wisdoms by nature that has been ignored. Therefore, applying biological understanding or mimicking behaviors from nature is not a trend but a necessity to create a more sustainable environment with the principles that have been forgotten. It is an act of atonement.

The project is being developed in the Post-Darwinian atmosphere where artificial evolution is possible and cybernetic principles as its ground. Choosing a potential biological material out of the ‘toolbox’ provided by nature that could be manipulated it in architectural context is the first stage of the methodology. Understanding its behaviors and giving it a right task to achieve desired result is the next. The research on a particular type of phytoplankton called diatom as an architectural material was inspired by its natural behaviors and biological characteristics. It is the only creature on earth that uses silicon to build its silica skeleton (frustules), the primary constituent of glass. Silicon is also found in human connective tissues, bones, teeth, skin, eyes, glands and organs. Therefore it is not surprising that the initial studies on creating artificial human bones as structural material leads to the studies on diatom. Apart from the fact that diatoms around the world carry out photosynthesis and produce 23% of oxygen in the atmosphere, it has approximately 40% of genetic structure that is shared by bacteria, which makes diatoms highly compatible and exists in almost all the aqueous mediums on earth. Not to mentioned their beautiful and complicated structural morphology at nano-scale that has been adored by artists and architects. German biologist, Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) had produced large amount of illustrations on different kind of diatoms through his microscope. However, the existence of diatoms as suggested by fossil diatoms dates from the early Jurassic period.

Casa diatom which acts as a ‘diatomarium’ demonstrates and simplifies the methodology to grow diatoms thus manipulates its biological behaviors to find out the potential and limitation for architectural application. It is as straight forward as experimenting the hybridization of raw materials like limestone, calcium, silicon, iron and aluminum in creating a man-made binder called cement, then with right mixture of sand, gravel and water it becomes concrete that provides certain characteristics that could be manipulated in construction. Similarly, it is just the matter of time to domesticate this organism as a material that might be acting like living circuits which could be “grew” into different forms of appearance in architecture.

However, the project was not intended to create a perfect model or system but rather in searching of right ingredients from the nature palette and putting them into relevant positions to generate sustainable role in architectural environment. It is a very small step towards how architecture should be responding in the context of Post-Darwinian Age. The project is being positioned within presumably ethical parameters where the material is born out of nature with cybernetic hybridization or artificial evolution, then symbiosis into a controlled architectural environment, even though the realization might be limited by the scale and growing time of the organism, breakthroughs in genetic technology is constantly providing optimistic motivation in design with the use of living materials as an initial design consideration.

Biojewellery

2009-02-03T00:55:00.003Z

A model of the ring using a combination of cow marrow-bone and etched silver.
The inscription reads Ab Intra, "from within".

Biojewellery (http://www.biojewellery.com/) is a collaborative project involving Tobie Kerridge and Nikki Stott, design researchers at the Royal College of Art, and Ian Thompson, a bioengineer at Kings College London, its aim is to bring the medical and technical processes of bioengineering out of the lab and into the public arena. Funding totaling approximately £60,000 has been awarded by the Engineering and Physical Science Council as a part of their Partnership for Public Awareness initiative.

"Hospitals need to follow strict guidelines when working with human cells and patient consent is a key part of this. It is important to us and our couples that when we design the rings we are using their cells." http://www.biojewellery.com/

There are 2 sources for the cell, 1. Harvesting cells from a biopsy, 2. Collecting chip bone cells from wisdom teeth extraction. Of course, the consent by the volunteered participants is fairly important in this project. To find out more on the process of growing cells into bone, click here.

Living Art

2009-02-02T02:55:00.004Z

Specimen of Secrecy About Marvelous Discoveries by EDUARDO KAC

"Specimen of Secrecy about Marvelous Discoveries" is a series of works comprised of what Kac calls "biotopes", that is, living pieces that change during the exhibition in response to internal metabolism and environmental conditions. Each of Kac's biotopes is literally a self-sustaining ecology comprised of thousands of very small living beings in a medium of earth, water, and other materials. The artist orchestrates the metabolism of these organisms in order to produce his constantly-evolving living works.

Odyssey

Theorem

The biotopes are a discrete ecology because within their world the microorganisms interact with and support each other (that is, the activities of one organism enable another to grow, and vice-versa). However, they are not entirely secluded from the outside world : the aerobic organisms within the biotope absorb oxygen from outside (while the anaerobic ones comfortably migrate to regions where air cannot reach). A complex set of relationships emerge as the work unfolds, bringing together the internal dialogical interactions among the microorganisms in the biotope and the interaction of the biotope as a discrete unit with the external world. The biotope is affected by several factors, including the very presence of viewers, which can increase the temperature in the room (warm bodies) and release other microorganisms in the air (breathing, sneezing).

The biotope is what Kac calls a "nomad ecology", that is, an ecological system that interacts with its surroundings as it travels around the world. Every time a biotope migrates from one location to another, the very act of transporting it causes an unpredictable redistribution of the microorganisms inside it (due to the constant physical agitation inherent in the course of a trip). Once in place, the biotope self-regulates with internal migrations, metabolic exchanges, and material settling.

Each of Kac’s “biotopes” has a cycle, which starts when the artist produces the self-contained world by integrating microorganisms and nutrient-rich media. In the next step, Kac controls the amount of energy the microorganisms receive in order to keep some of them active and others in suspended animation. This results in what the viewer may momentarily perceive as a still image. However, even if the image seems "still" the work is constantly evolving and is never physically the same. Only time lapse video can reveal the transformation undergone by a given biotope in the course of its slow change and evolution. Once an exhibition begins, in the third phase of the cycle the artist allows the microorganisms in suspended animation to become active again. The work becomes progressively different, changing every day, every week, every month. This process continuously transforms the image and may, depending of factors such as lighting conditions and exhibition length, result in its effacement — until the cycle begins again.

To find out more about Kac and his projects, click here.

Interesting facts about Diatom

2009-01-28T20:42:00.011Z

The 84th plate from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (1904), depicting diatoms (Bacillariophyceae) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haeckel_Diatomea.jpg

Diatom shell is made of Silica, the primary constituent of glass. (Silicon is in human connective tissues, bones, teeth, skin, eyes, glands and organs. It is a major constituent of collagen which helps keep our skin elastic, and it helps calcium in maintaining bone strength.)
Diatoms are a major group of eukaryotic algae, and are one of the most common types of phytoplankton. Most diatoms are unicellular, although they can exist as colonies in the shape of filaments or ribbons (e.g. Fragillaria), fans (Meridion), zigzags (Tabellaria), or stellate colonies (Asterionella).
When nutrient and light conditions are right, all diatoms are able to bloom - reproduce very quickly into huge numbers. They do this through vegetative or asexual reproduction. http://www.mbari.org/staff/conn/botany/phytoplankton/phytoplankton_diatoms.htm
Diatoms are primary producers, carrying out photosynthesis using a large proportion of a the pigment fucoxanthin. Fucoxanthin is contained in one or several round or star-shaped chromatophores, where photosynthesis takes place.
Diatoms come in two flavors: the round Centrales, and long or pen-shaped Pennales. http://www.mbari.org/staff/conn/botany/diatoms/john/basics/descript.htm
Diatoms account for 23% of the primary productivity of the world. That means that of all the photosynthesis going on at any one time, almost one-quarter of it is happening inside a diatom.
As primary producers, diatoms play a key role in marine food webs. They are an important food item for a larger class of animal plankton (zooplankton) such as copepods, as well as for all kinds of filter and suspension feeders from worms to anemones to mollusks like clams and mussels. http://www.mbari.org/staff/conn/botany/diatoms/john/basics/eco.htm
A diatom must live, on the average, at or above the critical depth, where sunlight is sufficient for photosynthesis. Natural selection has tuned all these factors to let diatoms live above that special depth. http://www.mbari.org/staff/conn/botany/diatoms/john/special/position.htm
Diatoms can be found in both fresh water and marine environments. Generally, diatoms inhabit most bodies of water in all parts of the world (if provided with sufficient amounts of nutrients). http://www.mbari.org/staff/conn/botany/diatoms/jennifer/introa.htm

Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Chromalveolata
Phylum: Heterokontophyta
Class: Bacillariophyceae
Order: Centrales & Pennales

Diatom Quick Facts:

Cell size: 20-200 m m

Cell wall: SiO 2 or glass frustule

Chloroplasts: many/cell, 3-5 thylakoid membranes/stack

Photo-pigments: chlorophyll a & c, carotenoids

Reproduction: most often simple cell division, sexual reproduction

Ecological roles: produce deposits (diatomaceous earth), toxic blooms

Common genera: Chaetoceros, Pseudonitzschia, Skeletonema

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Diatom video

2009-01-23T22:41:00.005Z

New species found in South Australia

2009-01-20T12:11:00.004Z

sources: BBC News Asia-Pacific

Australian scientists have just released data and images from a project investigating undersea life near Tasmania. Among the previously unknown creatures discovered was this species of Ophiacantha brittlestar. Images courtesy of CSIRO.

esteostudio - synthetic osteogenesis

2008-12-14T03:00:00.010Z

Hybridization in biological approach integrates and generates new species that hardly to be categorized in Darwinism. Breakthrough in synthetic DNA in laboratory of Synthetic Genomics that leads by Craig Venter has created opportunity for future generation to basically create new species out of scratch. It means we are coming to an end of Darwinian Age and we are no longer limited to what "God" has "created" (if there is God).

Esteostudio (Skeletal Structural Design Laboratory) takes skeleton and bone structure design in an architectural context. By taking human and other organisms as precedent studies, skeletons and bones are being treated as structural material in both architectural and biological designs to create new possibilities. Biomimicry approach is being treated as a basic for understanding what is the best that nature has to offer. There is no clear boundary between future human and object, nature and artificial, organic and non-organic when comes to designing. With advancement in genetic, nano-technology, synthetic biology, semi-living materials and plasmatic design, designers and architects could take skeletal design as the principle to define the forms and functions of semi-living products. By breaking down the biomimicking process allows us to understand limitations in this material. However, the limitation also meant to be challenged. What nature has created is the harmony in design. Therefore both top-down and bottom-up design methodologies are being tested and executed along with the design process, while the nature rules is playing its part as the guidance for design constrains as well as ethical issues.

Homo-chiroptera

2008-12-14T01:46:00.006Z

The end of the Darwinian interlude?

2008-12-01T20:21:00.002Z

After Rachel Armstrong's Systems Architecture lecture, I looked into biotechnology more deeply and what got me excited in the past few weeks were:

1. What is going in J. Craig Venter Institute, which started with four basic chemicals that form an DNA and the first synthetic bacterial genome "born" in the laboratory this year.

2. Darwin v.s. Venter; the juxtaposition which Darwinian Theory shows that human wasn't made by God and Venter who is aclaimed playing the role of "God" by creating new life form.

3. Bottom up design method where molecular design in nano-scale defines the possible or unknown outcomes.

4. Success of Craig Venter may turn into what Freeman Dyson argued as "the end of the Darwinian interlude" (www.edge.org)

5. Works shown in Design and the Elastic Mind in MoMA New York ended in May even though I missed it but the online exhibition is available.

6. Development of DNA design software that allows anyone to design new species out of scratch, i.e. Gene Designer Software at https://www.dna20.com

7. With genomic technology, new life forms that could be created out of GenBank's database that contained over 65 billion nucleotide bases in more than 61 million sequences (2006).

On the verge of creating synthetic life

2008-11-29T21:43:00.002Z

First GM human embryo created.

2008-11-28T03:03:00.000Z

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article3908516.ece

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/the-first-genet.html

Plants intelligence

2008-11-18T11:11:00.006Z

Recent research from Vidi researcher Josef Stuefer at the Radboud University Nijmegen reveals that plants have their own chat systems that they can use to warn each other. Therefore plants are not boring and passive organisms that just stand there waiting to be cut off or eaten up. Many plants form internal communications networks and are able to exchange information efficiently.

Many herbal plants such as strawberry, clover, reed and ground elder naturally form networks. Individual plants remain connected with each other for a certain period of time by means of runners. These connections enable the plants to share information with each other via internal channels. They are therefore very similar to computer networks. But what do plants want to chat to each other about?

Recently Stuefer and his colleagues were the first to demonstrate that clover plants warn each other via the network links if enemies are nearby. If one of the plants is attacked by caterpillars, the other members of the network are warned via an internal signal. Once warned, the intact plants strengthen their chemical and mechanical resistance so that they are less attractive for advancing caterpillars. Thanks to this early warning system, the plants can stay one step ahead of their attackers. Experimental research has revealed that this significantly limits the damage to the plants.

[source] http://www.physorg.com/news109944832.html

The Pet Project

2008-11-13T21:02:00.017Z

Aristotle divided all living things between plants and animals. However, he never expected one day these living things will merge. In fact, with the breakthrough in genetic and nanotechnology all organic and inorganic creatures are merging. We are now living in a cybernetic world that technologies have made possible marriage between all sorts of odd relationships. There is literally no clear definition for living or non-living things anymore, the best example is the whole living virtual world behind the electronic skin. Traditional structure of classifying living things has collapsed, and being replaced by a more complicated system that no longer identifies individual or creature in a single category. Crossbreeds or hybrids are the new majority and human is facing a great challenge in avoiding creating any irresponsible or careless outcomes that are undesirable. Therefore, the new disciplines and parameters of designing for the new world would be as important as the ethical issue while manipulating these technologies.

However, the hybrid also opens up new possibilities to solving the world crisis that human are facing in Anthropocene age - global warming. In this proposal, I am looking at the extreme accelerating human population growth as one of the pros and cons in global warming after industrial revolution. The thought of "tree for life" is being adopted and a new "tree" has been invented, by turning a plant/tree into a pet/companion for human. By assuming a one to one human:tree ratio as an ideal scenario for reducing CO2 and cleansing the air pollution, it also shows some bright side in tackling the global warming in the next 50 years. Of course, it is only one of the many changes that human need to make in sustaining the human history on earth.
A new pet is being introduced to future kids as their lifetime companion, a genetic mortified plant that shares the childhood memories and grows with a human being, while being shaped and nurtured into a matured furniture (or other object) that takes sunlight and CO2 as its fuel (autotrophic) while also being fed with human love and synthetic nutrient.

With hydroponics and aeroponics method as its fundamental, a walking plant with controlled size root in a nutrient container that works like a human stomach that provides sufficient nutrition for the plant to grow into a self-sustained creature. As it was nurtured by a master, its senses react particularly to the master's voice, touch, smell, emotions and needs.

Design secrets from nature

2008-11-07T18:18:00.009Z

Inventors, engineers and architects have been referring to nature for inspirations. Architects used to search for structural solution and form possibilities from animal bones, shells or plants. What they have done are rather straight forward and simple, or merely 'copying' from the 'precedent studies'. However the designs from nature do not come in single design paradigm but most of them are well-integrated and interrelated to overcome different design problems in their contexts.

Throughout the years since industrial evolution, mathematicians, physicians, architects, biologists and other different professions have been working independently in their own field and solving problems with their own skill-sets and disciplinary principles. Collaborations between them seemed difficult. However, if we look out into nature, it does not classify its creations into specific categories like we do, yet everything is working in a cycle interfering each other harmonically. Apparently, conventional linear way of problem solving understood by human has created more problems in life instead of improving our world.

In order to discover the real design wisdom from nature, we have to look at our 'case studies' in an overall condition from its evolutionary history as well as the context. As concluded by Robert Full in one of his talks, design secrets are found in:

1. Distributed control to smart part, not all in brain but tuned parts.

2. Use hybrid solutions, integrated & robust.

3. Do not mimic nature, learn from nature and get inspired.

.

LILYPAD, A FLOATING ECOPOLIS FOR CLIMATE REFUGEES

2008-11-06T21:29:00.007Z

2100, a large crowd of ecological refugees
by Vincent Callebaut

Further to the anthropogenic activity, the climate warms up and the ocean level increases. According to the principle of Archimedes and contrary to preconceived notions, the melting of the arctic ice-floe will not change the rising of the water exactly as an ice cube melting in a glass of water does not make its level rise. However, there are two huge ice reservoirs that are not on the water and whose melting will transfer their volume towards the oceans, leading to their rising. It deals with the ice caps of Antarctic and Greenland on the one hand, and the continental glaciers on the other hand. Another reason of the ocean rising, that does not have anything to do with the ice melting is the water dilatation under the effect of the temperature.

The floating structure in "branches" of the Ecopolis is directly inspired of the highly ribbed leave of the great lilypad of Amazonia Victoria Regia increased 250 times. Coming from the family of Nympheas, this aquatic plant with exceptional plasticity was discovered by the German botanist Thaddeaus Haenke and dedicated to the Queen Victoria of England in the 19th Century. The double skin is made of polyester fibres covered by a layer of titanium dioxide (TiO2) like an anatase which by reacting to the ultraviolet rays enable to absorb the atmospheric pollution by photocatalytic effect. Entirely autosufficient, Lilypad takes up the four main challenges launched by the OECD in March 2008: climate, biodiversity, water and health. It reached a positive energetic balance with zero carbone emission by the integration of all the renewable energies (solar, thermal and photovoltaic energies, wind energy, hydraulic, tidal power station, osmotic energies, phytopurification, biomass) producing thus durably more energy that it consumes! True biotope entirely recyclable, this floating Ecopolis tends thus towards the positive eco-accountancy of the building in the oceanic ecosystems by producing and softening itself the oxygen and the electricity, by recycling the CO2 and the waste, by purifying and softening biologically the used waters and by integrating ecological niches, aquaculture fields and biotic corridors on and under its body to meet its own food needs.

It is a true amphibian half aquatic and half terrestrial city, able to accommodate 50,000 inhabitants and inviting the biodiversity to develop its fauna and flora around a central lagoon of soft water collecting and purifying the rain waters. This artificial lagoon is entirely immersed ballasting thus the city. It enables to live in the heart of the subaquatic depths. The multifunctional programming is based on three marinas and three mountains dedicated respectively to the work, the shops and the entertainments. The whole set is covered by a stratum of planted housing in suspended gardens and crossed by a network of streets and alleyways with organic outline. The goal is to create a harmonious coexistence of the couple Human / Nature and to explore new modes of living the sea by building with fluidity collective spaces in proximity, overwhelming spaces of social inclusion suitable to the meeting of all the inhabitants' denizen or foreign-born, recent or old, young or aged people.

(source: http://vincent.callebaut.org)

Dr. Eugene Tsui, “the seminal architect of the 21st century”

2008-11-06T18:40:00.002Z

Yes, I know the first thing captures your eyes in the interview is what Eugene wears. He calls the purple costume a "Solar Suit", which can generate 180 Watts energy out of 12sq feet of mini-disc-shape photophotaic solar panel. Well, don't judge him by his fashion sense.

CTV--Canadian Television Broadcasting Stations: Steve Murphy Interviews Eugene Tsui,
April 16, 2008, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

CTV Interview with Eugene Tsui- Canadian Broadcasting Co from eugene tsui on Vimeo.

Self-replicating machine

2008-11-05T23:32:00.010Z

In cytology, mitosis is a complicated process when a cell splits into two identical sets in two daughter nuclei. The chromosomes line up inside the nucleus of the cell and then each one splits in half. In human body, the DNA splits in half, but it has a way of replicating. After the DNA has made copies of itself, each cell divides and becomes two cells.

What if a man-made device or machine could replicate itself like a cell?

In 1948, a Hungarian-born American mathematician John von Neumann proposed a kinematic self-reproducing automaton model, which he named as "Universal Constructor". A self-replicating machine would need to have the capacity to gather energy and raw materials, process the raw materials into finished components, and then assemble them into a copy of itself.

"Proposed demonstration of simple robot self-replication", NASA Conference Publication 2255 (1982), based on the Advanced Automation for Space Missions NASA/ASEE summer study Held at the University of Santa Clara in Santa Clara, California, from June 23-August 29, 1980.

In 1956 mathematician Edward F. Moore proposed the first known suggestion for a practical real-world self-replicating machine, published in Scientific American. Moore's "artificial living plants" were proposed as machines able to use air, water and soil as sources of raw materials and to draw its energy from sunlight via a solar battery or a steam engine. He chose the seashore as an initial habitat for such machines, giving them easy access to the chemicals in seawater, and suggested that later generations of the machine could be designed to float freely on the ocean's surface as self-replicating factory barges or to be placed in barren desert terrain that was otherwise useless for industrial purposes. The self-replicators would be "harvested" for their component parts, to be used by humanity in other non-replicating machines.

Sustainable or destructable: Self-replicating object with Phylogenomics ability.

Phylogenomics is a method of assigning a function to a gene based on its evolutionary history in a Phylogenetic tree. Phylogenomics uses knowledge on the evolution of a gene to improve function prediction.

Learning from nature

2008-11-05T23:25:00.008Z

"Our planet-mates (plants, animals and microbes) have been patiently perfecting their wares for more than 3.8 billion years ... turning rock and sea into a life-friendly home. What better models could there be?" (Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature" by Janine M. Benyus)

Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a relatively new science that studies nature, its models, systems, processes and elements and then imitates or takes creative inspiration from them to solve human problems sustainably. Biomimetics is the word most frequently used in scientific and engineering literature that is meant to indicate the underlying biological paradigms present keeping each species functioning in its own unique way.

As explained in http://biomimicryinstitute.org:If we want to consciously emulate nature's genius, we need to look at nature differently. In biomimicry, we look at nature as model, measure, and mentor.

Nature as model: Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature’s models and then emulates these forms, process, systems, and strategies to solve human problems – sustainably. The Biomimicry Guild and its collaborators have developed a practical design tool, called the Biomimicry Design Spiral, for using nature as model.
Nature as measure: Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the sustainability of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned what works and what lasts. Nature as measure is captured in Life's Principles and is embedded in the evalute step of the Biomimicry Design Spiral.
Nature as mentor: Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but what we can learn from it.

Get more inspired by Janice's talk at TED where she presented 12 BIG sustainable design ideas from nature:

A new Epoch — the Anthropocene

2008-10-31T21:24:00.009Z

The term Anthropocene, first suggested in 2000 by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul J. Crutzen, explains that humans are now changing the world on a global scale and ushering in the new era in geologic time. [Crutzen, P. J. and E. F. Stoermer (2000). The Anthropocene. Global Change Newsletter (41)]

Anthropocene = Anthropo (man) + cene (new geological age)

As written in IGBP Newsletter 41, May 2000 by Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer, they explained with the importance of marking a new age in geological scale:

"Considering these and many other major and still growing impacts of human activities on earth and atmosphere, and at all, including global, scales, it seems to us more than appropriate to emphasize the central role of mankind in geology and ecology by proposing to use the term 'anthropocene' for the current geological epoch. The impacts of current human activities will continue over long periods."

Theoretically, I believe there are two major historical events that marked a significant cause to the anthropocene age:

1. The result of vast expansion of human populations which increased tenfold since approximately 2-300 years ago.
2. The Industrial Revolution in the 18th and early 19th centuries started in the Britain and then spread throughout Europe, North America, and eventually the world.

Human activities by the wide spread of world population with advancing technologies after the Industrial Revolution created increasing forces that affect the Earth on a planetary scale, which recognized by George Perkins Marsh in 1864 in his book titled 'Man and Nature', more recently reprinted as 'The Earth as Modified by Human Action".

"It is still too early to attempt scientific method in discussing this problem, nor is our present store of the necessary facts by any means complete enough to warrant me in promising any approach to fulness of statement respecting them. Systematic observation in relation to this subject has hardly yet begun, and the scattered data which have chanced to be recorded have never been collected. It has now no place in the general scheme of physical science, and is matter of suggestion and speculation only, not of established and positive conclusion. At present, then, all that I can hope is to excite an interest in a topic of much economical importance, by pointing out the directions and illustrating the modes in which human action has been, or may be, most injurious or most beneficial in its influence upon the physical conditions of the earth we inhabit."

However, the impact on Earth caused by human activities was not as significant and noticeable until recent decades, when "unnatural" catastrophes happened and threatened human lives, in many ways i.e. disasters caused by global warming, new diseases that wiped out human populations like dropping nuclear bomb, unexpected change of climate and living environment in both micro and macro scale. Frightening news and scary forecast of future earth finally caught human attention on the circumstances everyone of us responsible for in making the today and tomorrow's Earth.

Even though it is already a proven fact but it is still hard to swallow that we are now making a new Earth by just living our modern lifestyle. It is shocking that every bit of our activity ties back to the invention of steam engine in the Industrial Revolution and every bit of our action might devote to destructing the future Earth. By accepting that we are living in the age of Anthropocene, all 6.5 billion of human (and counting) are no longer just the most dominant species on the planet Earth but now, the architects for this planet.