futurist-foresight:

The recycling implications are superb! I wonder if they are edible.

futurescope:

Plastic eating Mushrooms

wildcat2030:

Yale researchers have discovered a type of mushroom that can eat plastic. During an expedition to the jungles of Ecuador, Professor Scott Strobel and his team of researchers have found a new fungus that eats polyurethane (plastic). The fungi, called “Pestalotiopsis microspore”, is able to survive on eating plastic alone—while without the need for air or light. Students Jonathan Russell and Pria Anand have written in the journal ‘Applied and Environmental Microbiology’, that the enzyme the fungus uses to decompose plastic has been isolated. Scientists hope to use the extracted chemical to solve the plastic trash and help bioremediation projects. If successful, this could change the way we get rid of trash. (via Recently-Discovered ‘Magic Mushrooms’ Can Eat Plastic - DesignTAXI.com)

Outstanding news

Stephen Hawking (via ecocides)

Well said

These maps demonstrate that our idea of “development” destroys the systems that support life (that includes human life.)

shapeways:

Virginia Tech: 3D Printing Vending Machine

(via thenextweb)

Ricky Gervais (via dawkinshawkingdarwin)

(via ecocides)

saveplanetearth:

Rising consumption, increased resource use by a growing population puts unbearable pressure on our Planet – WWF 2012 Living Planet Report @ WWF

ecocides:

Countries must take urgent steps to value their natural capital – such as forests, peatlands and coastal areas – as part of their economic development, the World Bank has urged.

Placing a monetary value on natural ecosystems is a key step on the road to “green” economic growth, according to the World Bank, which published a report on green growth on Wednesday at a conference in Seoul, Korea.

By making such estimates, countries can develop policies that ensure the pursuit of economic growth does not occur at the expense of future growth potential, by destroying natural assets such as water sources or polluting air, rivers and soil.

Rachel Kyte, vice president for sustainable development at the bank, said that the patterns on which economic growth had been achieved in recent decades were unsustainable, because of the amount of environmental degradation involved.

She said: “At current rates, we are in danger of undermining the basis on which growth has been achieved in the last decades. We do not believe that current growth patterns are sustainable.”

She gave the example of the government of Thailand, which has moved towards more environmentally sustainable growth by attempting to place a value on its mangrove swamps. The exercise has been illuminating – chopping down mangrove for wood gives a return of less than $1,000 per hectare; removing the mangroves to make room for a shrimp farm might generate nearly $10,000 per hectare; but if the mangrove swamps were retained and their importance in providing a barrier against floods was taken into account, they could be valued at more than $16,000 per hectare.

Kyte acknowledged that few countries had so far taken steps to evaluate their natural systems in this way, and said the failure to do so had contributed to countries allowing their environment to be degraded in the pursuit of short term economic growth.

[read on | words by Fiona Harvey]

joshbyard:

Disney Researchers Can Turn Almost Any Object Into Multi-Touch Gesture-Recognizing Interface:

The important thing to understand is that capacitive touch technology can be used with almost any object or surface.

…Touché accurately and quickly detects gestures on objects as disparate as a doorknob, table, and water in a fish tank. In one very exciting example, the video postulates a future where you interact with your smartphone (or other wearable/implanted computer) by performing touch gestures on your own body. Grasp your own hands to stop the music, tap on your palm with two fingers to go forward a track, ball one hand to pop up the local weather on your Google Glasses HUD… and so on.

The possible uses of Touché are staggering. Imagine a bathtub that detects when your head hits the water, or likewise, a swimming pool that detects a young child who can’t swim.

With Touché, you could create a doorknob that only opens if you grasp it in a special way — or a bookcase that only swings back to reveal your secret laboratory if you grab the right book with exactly the right grip.

Imagine a mouse that a) knows who is currently using the computer, and b) responds to different grips. Maybe a five-finger “claw” could lower the DPI (sniping mode), while palming the mouse might enable “relaxed” mode with different button assignments.

(via Disney Touché turns everyday objects into multi-touch, gesture-recognizing interfaces | ExtremeTech)

(via thenextweb)

sunfoundation:

Visualizing Light with a Trillion FPS Camera

A fruit and a roll of tape illuminated by a femtosecond laser pulse and effectively captured at a trillion frames per second. Light moves less than 1 mm per frame.

Unbelievable

socimedia:

Interactive storytelling utilising HTML5 

Filmmakers have long tried to use the web to promote their movies. Some of Hollywood’s brightest minds are now trying to move the idea on further and have started to embrace new online methods of crafting creative ways to tell entirely new types of story.

Mark Cieslak talks to Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead Director Edgar Wright about his online project the Random Adventures of Brandon Generator which lets the audience influence the outcome.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9716925.stm

Cool