mmxxix

Though we can know one event to happen ten years from now with some certainty, A Message from Earth was beamed by a high-powered radio signal towards exoplanet Gliese 581c in 2008 will be in reception range, it bears recalling the adage, via the always engaging Things Magazine, by scifi author William Ford Gibson that “The future is already here—it’s just not evenly distributed”—with nearly a year’s worth of 2019 headlines focusing and informing how 2029’s reporting might look if we continue on this same trajectory.  While perhaps not in the expected milieu and sacred settings of blockbuster movies no epic flooding yet of New York City or London but we are on the cusps of experiencing such cinematic disasters Delhi or Jakarta and instead of delivering us to a life of leisure and a forty-minute workweek, we are instead fretting over mass robotic-redundancy and unemployment, so Gibson’s quote resounds with perspective. What do you think about these predictions? The past is good council but the present may make us all come up short.

buckeye state

Recommended by Digg, we really enjoyed reading this nuanced, thoughtful essay that explores the project to restore North America’s blighted chestnut forests (see also) by creating a genetic hybrid whose DNA contains material from wheat that makes it resistant to the fungus that wiped out the trees.
Given how some of our exuberance to adopt GMOs was misplaced—and conversely fears over it, it is especially vital to get the science right before releasing something synthetic into the wild as trees not thrive outside of our laboratories, fields and plantations, they are also a vital part of the landscape and ecosystem, host to their own particular constellations of Nature. What do you think? Testing is extensive and circumspect and well worth considering all the trials conducted and considered but one in particular stands out: tadpoles fed with either natural or transgenic chestnut leaf litter thrived equally well, but grew at nearly twice the rate of their siblings that had to make due with a diet of maple and beech leaves—their only option since the chestnuts disappeared a century ago, suggesting that the ecosystem is missing these magnificent and useful trees far more than we can appreciate.

cloud farming or ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

Via the New Shelton Wet/Dry, we learn of a fledging company that hopes to stave off the incidental but increasingly significant problem of cloud storage and energy-intensive data-management by enabling clients to keep their past and prognostications waiting in the wings in the form of crops whose DNA has been encoded (at density with integrity reaching two hundred petapixels per gram) within the plants themselves, and instead of consuming resources to maintain the information at one’s fingertips—we ought to mediate on the meaning of archives, curation and libraries before we decided to make everything at all times ready to summon forward whilst on the go—though the details seem rather sparse, to generate clean air and useful biomass as a by-product of perpetuating these hitchhiker genes.

Perhaps this passive form of storage could also be a substitute for the energy-hungry prospect of prospecting for crypto-currencies as well.  Compare to how restrictions on memory and storage of software was supplemented on the Apollo missions by weaving the programming into a mesh by hand.  Knowledge should be freely accessible but the omnipresence of it might seem to have diminishing value, considering the caprices of capacity and arbitrary limits. I wonder what it means for abstract, errant data to become part of Nature and whether that same information isn’t also party to the rules of evolution and inheritance and what we perceive as degradation, decoding errors that outside our dataset we would call mutations which in fact be taking that triangulation of statistics to the next level.

heritage tourism

In what smacks very much as an unholy alliance that turns over a rock to reveal that there’s already a booming genealogical travel industry, one problematic force of the gig-economy that’s turned gentrification into overdrive and percolated a housing crisis in the popular destination of the moment that’s proving very hard to recover from and another DNA analysis service that’s demonstrated some serious problems with confirmation bias and sampling-size form a partnership to make holiday-suggestions based on one’s ancestry—for those wanting to rediscover their roots.
Family histories can of course be fascinating, enlightening and humbling—to help us all realise that each of us has been uprooted and transplanted in one way or another, but this method and the package it promises does not strike me as the advisable way to dig around in the past. It’s a huge dissonance that we’ve cushioned ourselves to such a great extent to maintain our distance from others and avoid interaction or betraying intent, and yet we will invite strangers into our homes and automobiles and hope they’ll judge us well. What do you think? The two companies pledge that data about one’s DNA and travelogue won’t cross but I can’t see how that can be prevented. We’d all like to be able to extemporaneously share our narratives and autobiographies (especially when they reaffirm our uniqueness) and perhaps have a dramatic reunion with long-lost cousins, but I don’t think that journey is one that ought to be short-circuited though marketing gimmicks and cynical ploys for horizontal monopolies on one’s aspirations.

breakfast of champions

One of the intermediate achievements to come out of a four-decade experiment of The Land Institute’s founders Wes and Dana Jackson was trialled earlier this week before a body of scientists, conservationists and environmental activists in the form of a cereal milled from the grain of a perennial wheat, domesticated through a series of cross-breeding (see also) to make a potentially useful food crop out of wild prairie grasses.
Calling their cultivar Kernza, the team hopes to transform and invert the way industrial agriculture affects the environment and ecosystem as an enduring part of an environment that admits cohabitation rather than a seasonal interloper that requires energy intensive replanting year after year and causes a large degree of collateral damage despite its otherwise shallow impact.  In comparison, seasonal farming practises seem like a scorched earth campaign, with pesticides, erosion, vast expanses of monoculture that does not allow for a degree of diversity and the act of tilling itself that releases a bigger share of carbon dioxide than most other human enterprises.  Learn more at the links above.

rose of jericho

Via the always wonderful and inspiring Nag on the Lake we are introduced to a shrub called Selaginella lepidophylla—a type of resurrection plant—that can cope with the arid and punishing conditions of its native habitat, the deserts of Chihuahua, and survive unscathed near complete desiccation.
During periods of drought—and researchers are looking into how they might reactivate the same dormant genes in food crops to make them sturdier under dry conditions—the plant, also known as the (False) Rose of Jericho, curls up into a ball when dry and unfurls its fronds upon re-hydration and has evolved another clever trick as has its North African cousin—Anastatica hierochuntica, the (True) Rose of Jericho—and can form tumbleweeds to be whisked away to a more favourable location. Since ancient times, farmers (and hucksters) have recognised resurrection plants as vegetable hygrometer to predict oncoming rain. See a time-lapse of the thirsty plant getting a drink at the link above.

hachimoji

From the Japanese 八文字 for eight letters, researchers at Harvard are reported to have successful synthesised a DNA analogue that incorporates additional four artificial base-pairs to complement the four natural ones that assumes the familiar double-helix structure. For moment, this potential expanded genetic repertoire could not escape the laboratory as it requires constant chemical nourishment that does not occur in natural biology but the potential is there for some incredible applications—including the search for extra-terrestrial life, pathology, enhanced data storage and nano-scale engineering.

petri dish

I know that living cultures are not globules of a lava lamp nor do they exist for our amusement (like this ill-conceived portable sea monkey kingdom of tardigrades that was fortunately never realised) these bacterial lamps from designer Jan Klingler are, on the other hand, quite keen specimens and the epitome of having a conversation-starter in terms of home décor. At first selecting microbes for their aesthetic value and freezing the growth of the culture in place once the desired effect had been achieved, the resin plates can also be sourced from specific people and specific places.
Romantically, Klingler captured and projected the microscopic biome of the lamp post in Stockholm where the artist met his partner in one of his creations, sort of a post-modern fossilised keep-sake, and it would be an interesting dialogue and clinical trial—in keeping with the laboratory-inspired look, to display their separate microbial constellations (magnitudes larger than our human bodies alone) from when they first met and compare them to how they’ve changed as they’ve mingled and exchanged strains of bacteria.

7x7

critically endangered: Mona Chalabi illustrates species on the brink of extinction by placing them in subway cars, via Nag on the Lake

secret of the selenites: we have the technology and surplus wealth to build a Moon base right now

wallflower: an artist installs a Putin portrait in a Trump hotel suite for a month and no one batted an eye

ballot measures: a consortium of artists create state-by-state voting guides in comics form for upcoming US elections—via Waxy

i preferred the sequel—also sprach Zarathustra: taking a fresh look at the worldview of Friedrich Nietzsche, who suffered no palliatives, in the age of self-help and search for consolation

aurum potable: anti-aging trends and questionable tonics are nothing new

drosophilia titanus: a selective breeding-program to create fruit-flies that could theoretically survive the harsh conditions on Saturn’s largest satellite, prodding some serious ethical and epistemological questions—via Boing Boing

second nature

Regardless if you refer to the messy bundle of influences, incidents and accidents that make up one’s inheritance luck or grace—the question of nature versus nurture ought to be flattened out since those factors that inform our trajectories are just as much outside of our agency as winning or losing the genetic lottery—its role in one’s success ought not to be discounted.  Though I’d like to consider myself enlightened and gracious enough to acknowledge—with due humility—that fact, reading this essay from David Roberts writing for Vox confronted me with an important reminder that my relationship to my own legacy and that of my peers, neighbours and strangers isn’t as generous and empathetic as it should be.
The goal post for that is always being set further back—as it should be too. Agency and willpower are not empty concepts and are what elevates us, but they are nonetheless secondary and demand to be formed and reinforced through habit—just as it is that the majority of merit and honour is to be found in overcoming those baser instincts and snap judgments whose pedigree have obviously paid off over the generations but can be ill-suited for most modern settings. What do you think? It was particularly provoking how the reasoning that removes one from the cycle of bad habits is the same one that generally remains quiet and tardy when greed and sloth are making the executive decisions and comes calling after the fact as regret and recrimination. The ability to stare into the middle distance and muddle through reflecting on that receding goal post is of course influenced by those same heirlooms that are beyond our control and the clarity of vision and resolve is determined by our peers and their willingness to not forgive but rather overlook our trespasses.

bran and chaff

The fact that the genetic code of rice and maize were mapped in 2002 and 2009 respectively and the wheat genome is just now being puzzled out is not a comment on the staple crop’s importance—both culturally and agriculturally, but rather testament to advances in computational power pitted against an incredibly complex blue-print that is magnitudes larger than human DNA (three billion base pairs as opposed to sixteen billion in a cell of wheat) and is composed of six copies of each chromosome (hexaploid) compared to diploid humans (XY, XX).
One wonders how much fourteen-thousand years of farming contributed to that complicated pedigree and how much was driven by natural forces.  Equipped with this more complete picture and an understanding behind the mechanism and orientation of how certain traits are expressed, after careful research and deliberation (the worst trade-offs are the ones we don’t see coming) scientists hope to be able to select for adaptable cultivars that can withstand a hotter, drier climate or varieties that don’t require pesticides or fertiliser, like this indigenous Mexican corn that can fix its own nitrogen from the air. Other applications could yield wheat-based products that are more nutritious and palatable for people with intolerance to it.

a high-toned, candied muskiness

We’ve just been made aware that the common North American grape variety for wines, juices and jams is called the Niagara and is a hybrid of the European species Vitis vinifera and the native Vitis labrusca—the fox grape, named for its earthy character and cause of and partial, unsatisfying rescue from the French wine blight of the 1850s due to its export overseas with a pernicious aphid in tow—through this illustration from the 1901 Woodlawn Nurseries Spring seed catalogue. The grape was first created through selective cross-breeding in 1868 and are cultivated along the eastern seaboard and in the province of Ontario. It was also nice to be reminded that there was once a convention of the mail-order seed catalogue that while by its nature is a nod to competition and proprietorship also recalls a time when barriers to entry were low and farmers and gardeners weren’t beholden to one source.

7x7

paying it forward: a comprehensive and inspiring look at the “I Promise” school of Lebron James

archival quality: an object lesson on the durability of microfilm, via Slashdot

mercator-projection: Google Maps shifts to depict the Earth as a globe, helping to ameliorate geographic perspectives (previously)

achoque: a convent near Lake Pátzcuaro is saving an endangered salamander from extinction—the nuns producing a cough syrup from its skin, via Kottke’s Quick Links

jingfen: a Finnish comic about social anxieties finds resonance with millions of Chinese people

lossless compression: organisms seem pretty indifferent to the effects of squeezing their whole genome into a single DNA molecule

the oxygen of amplification: exploring the conundrum of covering tabloid politics and some advice for journalists on how to not fall into the manipulative traps 

skynet

While perhaps the ominous subtext of this robotics manual from the mind of Isaac Asimov might prefigure the Terminator’s dilemma and not vilify the Cassandras and Sarah Connors of the world could be read as dismissive of ethics in robotics, I think it might have more universal applications in decision-making, large and small, in politics, the sciences (artificial intelligence and genetic modifications) and business dealings. Cinematic time travel usually results in irrevocable paradox and suggests maybe one ought to be discouraged from mucking about with the past, even if we are in the dumbest time-line, and with or without the benefit of hindsight we might do well to pause and pose this question to ourselves before acting.

7x7

true blue: synthetic, petroleum-based dyes go into a billion pairs of jeans a year but one company is committing to natural, indigo denim, via Things Magazine

scyphozoa: Ernst Haeckel’s (previously) exquisite jelly fish

through a different lens: a collection of the photography of Stanley Kubrick

electronic engineers’ master volume ii: vintage 1985 tech company logos and resources from Marchin Wichary, who also sets them to a screen-saver—via Coudal Partners’ Fresh Signals

notability, fame, notoriety: watch Time magazine create its cover for the Age of the Drones edition

hela: the immortal Henrietta Lacks (previously here and here) is honoured in the US National Portrait Gallery

bell-bottom blues: voice-over artist Ken Nordine narrates some trippy Levi’s advertisements from the 1970s 

gatekeeper

Through a process of elimination, researchers have isolated the protein that mosquito-born viruses exploit to gain entry into animal cells and may signal the elimination of diseases and infections delivered by such a vector.

The single protein identified as Mxra8 (assigned to the immunoglobulin domain)—which is notably absent from mosquitos, does not seem to affect viral replication but its absence does bar entry so the virus can’t establish a foothold in its host. Climate change, human incursion into nature and the global network of transportation and shipping mean that these diseases are not confined to exotic places any longer and affect everyone. Parallel trials with human cell cultures seem to confirm the initial findings.

going native, going naïve

In a surprising experimental set-up that could possibly pose a challenge—and surely many nuances—to the commonly-held theory that memories and learned behaviour resides in the strength of the synapses (sort of a non-space, a gap when one thinks about it), researchers found that non-coding ribonucleic acid (RNA) transplanted from an acclimated snail to a non-acclimated, naïve snail can seemingly carry and impart training from one to the other.
Long term memories may have an epigenetic—the way the expressions of genes are regulated—component to them, while many are sceptical of the experiments claims, which makes sense to a degree on a chemical level as the transplanted RNA would be primed to encode for a stress-reaction and maybe such primal responses are meant to be contagious and empathetic regardless of direct exposure. No snails were harmed in this experiment but the technique and theory behind it references the research conducted by biologist and animal psychologist James V McConnell in the 1950s and 1960s in which flatworms were trained to solve a maze and then fed to untrained individuals who seemed to take on the knowledge and experience of those they’d just incorporated. Made into fodder for speculative fiction, McConnell’s unorthodox beliefs in the nature and fungibility of memory also made him on the targets of the Unabomber in the mid-1980s, surviving the attack but suffering hearing-loss.

exoskeleton and arachne

The Verge reports on an international, interdisciplinary team of researchers who are not only looking at the amazing strength and tensile properties of silk—both from silk worm cocoons (previously here and here) and spider webs—to make lighter and stronger combat gear and body armour and for internal medicine as well.
Naturally flexible and less likely to be rejected and breakdown inside the body than the screws and plates meant to hold us together while we heal, doctors could use threads of silk to stitch us up. The researchers are also experimenting with engineering silk (previously) that has disinfectant properties and materially fortifying bones with a protein (fibroin) isolated from silk.

the matilda effect

As a corollary to the Bechdel test that poses three basic standards that the majority of film and entertain digest cannot pass fully or in part: at least two female characters, who hold a dialogue whose topic cannot include marriage or babies or the like, science journalist Christie Aschwanden, as Kottke informs, once suggested a similar gauge for gender-bias in the sciences.
The namesake of fellow science writer Ann Finkbeiner (the titular effect refers to academia’s general willingness to attribute accomplishment and discovery to a woman’s male colleagues rather than letting her have or share in the credit), who resolved to write a profile about an astronomer without calling attention to the fact she is a woman. The last being the first criteria, other subjects to avoid were her spouse’s profession, child care, her nurturing nature, how she was taken aback by the competitiveness in her field, how she’s a role model and how she’s superlative as a female. It would be nice if we as a society were more enlightened and that racial and sexist bias were an issue we’ve moved beyond.

pet project or message in a bottle

Via Slashdot, we learn that building on the 2016 discovery of a strain of bacteria in a dump in Japan that ate plastic, a group of researchers at the University of Portsmouth accidentally prodded the catalyst that allows the bacteria to breakdown and metabolise PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic into overdrive.
Curious to understand the evolutionary mechanism that selected for such appetites in the first place, scientists altered the enzyme inadvertently whilst taking it apart. Though further trials are needed, researchers are confident that the process is scalable and could be a tool (this is a big problem whose solutions take a concerted effort and shifts in behaviours, as well) in combating the problem of plastic waste in the oceans.