I think this will be my next project.
Walkers, by Donovan Valdes.
A message from Anonymous
haha hello
Halt. Who goes there?
Scientists discover living power cables made from bacteria
If someone told you that the shallow seabeds of Northern Europe were full of buried electrical wiring, you might say “Yeah, internet and phone and stuff. So what?” But what if that person told you that the wiring was alive?
Don’t worry. They aren’t crazy. Danish scientists have described a bacterium that can assemble itself into filaments many centimeters long (which is cool by itself), and use those filaments to conduct electrical currents! One square meter of seabed can have kilometers of bacterial cable beneath it!! So how does it work?
Decomposing materials deep in the mud are digested by all kinds of microorganisms and create “sulphide” compounds. These sulphides transfer electrons to one buried end of the bacterial chain, who then transfer it up to the water-exposed end where those electrons can be used to harvest oxygen for metabolism. Just like we do in our cells!
Only they do it via a way cooler method than we do. I really don’t know what’s more interesting, that these are multicellular bacteria (for all intents and purposes), or that they are basically living electrical wires.
Here’s the paper in Nature, if you have access.
(via io9)
"He is, by any measure, unqualified to make decisions about science, space, and technology."
He’s discussing Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), who is known for two things:
- Asserting that evolution and the Big Bang theory are “all lies straight from the pit of Hell.”
- Serving on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
Can’t change #1, but I think we should change #2.
(via jtotheizzoe)
How a nutcase like Broun got elected, let alone serve on a House Committee, should be looked into. There’s no way you can be that dumb, have a position, and not be backed by someone or something with a few strings to pull. On that note, anyone with any position in this society had to be. -_-
IMG_4659 Whiskered Tree Swift (female) by Albert Tay on Flickr.
more fairies
STOP complaining.
Cyborg Flesh.
Harvard researchers have interwoven nanowires and transistors into tissue, allowing them to interface directly with cells and provide feedback as to the current state of the tissue. Pretty nifty and very (potentially) useful:
Suffice it to say, if you can use a digital computer to read and write data to your body’s cells, there are some awesome applications. If you need a quick jolt of adrenaline, you would simply tap a button on your smartphone, which is directly connected to your sympathetic nervous system. You could augment your existing physiology with patches — a patch of nanoelectric heart cells, for example, that integrates with your heart and reports back if you experience any problems. When we eventually put nanobots into our bloodstream, small pulses of electricity emitted by the cells could be used as guidance to damaged areas. In the case of blood vessels and other organs, the nanoelectric sensor network could detect if there’s inflammation, blockage, or tumors.
Fascinating.
Mexican-American Gothic (2010) by Santiago Forero
