marlomeekins:

follow this artist on twitter

(via pleatedjeans)

tateata:

WTF HAPPENED IN STEUBENVILLE? - Laci Green

i’m actually so angry

lustik:

Christian Champin via Les arts plastiques de Sarah Williams

(via conejaloca)

a-bit-of-science:

The Sundew, while not as famous as the Venus Flytrap, is a type of carnivorous plant. Each one of its leaves is covered with miniscule projections, which are tipped with what look like drops of morning dew. These ‘droplets’ are actually sticky secretions. Insects which are attracted to the plant by sweet secretions land on the leaves and become ensnared by the mucilage*, after which the sundew slowly digests the insect.

Mingjun Zhang, a biomedical researcher from the University of Tennessee has demonstrated that the adhesive secretions of the Sundew may be ideal for a range of medical procedures, particularly for the regrowth of damaged tissues. Theoretically, healthy cells can be delivered to the area of injury and they may integrate themselves into the body. However, these cells require a ‘scaffold’ to which they can adhere. These scaffolds provide physical support to the cells as they proliferate and differentiate. Ideally, the scaffold must be biodegradable, such that it will leave no trace.

Clearly, the scaffolds need to be stringently tested. Many engineers have spent a lot of time searching for the ideal scaffold. Zhang believes that the sundew mucilage might be just the thing they’ve been looking for. Not only is it natural and biodegradable, it’s also sticky enough to grip onto cells and elastic enough to “bend and stretch and shift as cells proliferate and tissues grow.”

In 2010, Zhang coated a silicon wafer with the substance and observed it under a microscope, noting that the adhesive was a complicated network of nanofibers forming a porous scaffold, with holes that were just the right size for cell attachment. Then, Zhang applied the mucilage onto glass slides and seeded it with living rat brain cells. A day later, the cells had adhered securely and proliferated wonderfully. 98% of the cells were viable. In 2011, Zhang showed that the adhesive could also be used with bone and skin cells. Zhang believes that with further research, the usage of this Sundew mucilage for wound recovery could be viable. In Zhang’s own words, “Nature does beautiful things. We should definitely learn from that.”
 

To read the article: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121106-insect-eater-heads-for-surgery

Image source: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/australian-sundew/

*Mucilage is the scientific term for the adhesive substance.

(via scinerds)

Why can’t we fix climate change and dependence on fossil fuels? Well, maybe we can, but why have we mostly stuck our heads in the sand, paralyzed?

The problem is the problem, which is to say, people run from bad things. It is difficult to speak about huge ticking time-bombs such as, say, climate change, in a realistic, practical way, because the vision of the potential future allows for terrifying and horrific scenarios. To look away may be no good, but to look at it is also no good! The truth of it is like the sun - it can burn you, blind you, dehydrate you…and yet to hide from it is starve, or at least burn your candle at both ends.

So is a little exposure, the middle path, the answer? This is, of course, where the sun metaphor breaks down. It is work and sacrifice and extra humility to respond positively to shards of bad news in a meaningful way. So when push comes to shove, few will act, because the apparent situation in front of you is what takes priority.

I don’t know what the answer is exactly, but I know that, for me, to simply reach an adequate understanding of the near-term material dangers for humanity was a long process. A process of taking in some sobering facts in the form of difficult-to-deny metrics and mechanics, and then of trying to understand what these material things meant in real, human, and sometimes, philosophical, terms.

The problem with this approach is that this was also emotionally paralyzing and not the least bit inspiring to anyone I knew whom I discussed it with. And with good reason: Tell the average person that we will soon not be able to feed 3 billion people, let alone 7 billion or 9 billion, and it sounds necessarily alarmist. Well, it should sound alarmist anyway - if it’s true, it’s alarming! The problem is that it sounds almost ludicrous - surely it can’t be true, it’s too intractable, how could we have allowed it? How could the people who constructed such a nightmare not have seen it coming, or not have cared to prevent it?

Over time, I have come to see that there are multiple “shockers” in a realization such as this. It’s not just that we’ve mismanaged our economy, our food supply, our population, and our environment - though these alone are hard realizations to swallow. It’s also that we sense an immense moral abdication by large groups of people who perhaps should have known better - in some cases a real, pernicious, self-serving elitism; in others, a focus on immediacy to the exclusion of long-term priorities; but more likely just a complete lack of will to understand the significance of our actions.

And it’s also the unsettling feeling that we must consider the possibility that so much of the success of our modern advances lies in a series of almost uncontrollable indulgences and urges - urges to reproduce, to control more people, to luxuriate in more things, to live longer and better and faster than is really possible for everyone. In short, that we are, much more than we care to consider, not in control of ourselves, and simply growing, like an algae bloom in a pond, or bacteria in a petri dish, at an exponential rate.

And it all comes back home to one’s self and one’s lifestyle, possibly. And this is what I struggle with now. Not whether there is a crisis, nor whether something can be done, nor whether I can be the one to do some of it, but whether I, as an American of economic privilege, can actually feel clean of conscience, ever again.

But perhaps I am too severe.

7knotwind:

bergstudio:

Amazing edit of Kubrick’s one point perspective genius - so many iconic scenes -

It is fantastic to see all of these in relation to one another-
Emphasizing a clear, strong and consistent aesthetic…

I agree, the video’s a pretty cool edit. I am compelled to ask, however: Could we not have found a piece of music from a Kubrick movie as the soundtrack? :)

I think I am not going to run out to the woods and build a log cabin. Instead, I am going to stay nearby my bed as I learn.

Hey, she forgot to mention either the energy or the food production parts! What gives?

(via mehgehd)