go-pro or pencil-shavings

Researchers are exploiting the amazing properties of the recently discovered carbon-foil graphene to mimic the behaviour of tendons and muscles that can tense and relax at the slightest prompt, be it moisture, pressure or light.
Once these little works of origami were better understood, range of motion could be configured in such a way and programmed to demonstrate certain strengths and agilities. The elusive class of carbon—distinct from the graphite that’s in pencil lead and diamond, had been guessed at for many years and even predicted the material’s robustness but no one could imagine how one could sheer a surface layer so thin as to realise all those assets until Manchester physicists Andre Geim with associate Konstantin Novoselov applied some office tape to a pencil-sketch he’d been making, balled up the tape and rolled it in his fingers before tossing it into the waste bin. Prompted by his partner, Geim later retrieved the bit of cellophane tape—which is a pretty nifty job in materials engineering itself being pressure-sensitive and will produce x-rays if used in a vacuum—to discover that a layer of grapheme had been preserved. Together awarded the Noble Prize in 2010 for this discovery, a decade prior Geim, making him the only laureate to hold both honours, was presented with the Ig Noble for his study on levitating frogs with small magnets. Though this imaginative parody of the pomp and circumstance international committees whose recognition can take decades or more seems to suggest a certain dastardliness in the sciences and humanities, it is quite the opposite in nomination and presentation, crediting achievements that first make one laugh and then think.

trapper-keeper or mixed-media

The ever-brilliant and stunning Colossal curates a very fine exhibition the schematic and stratified collages of artist Augustine Kofie, whose exacting planar work evokes other assemblages and pastiches but harks back as well to an interesting but receding niche when what we call data occupied physical space and needed to be corralled and organised in particular ways. It’s the odd bird, I think, who harbours nostalgic feelings for carbon-paper and filing (though working for the American government, the paperless office is still in the future) but it is really poignant to study the architectural cross-sections of note-pads and linotype folders and wonder where the intersections between storage and figures now stand.

5x5

unrepresented: via the intrepid Presurfer, profiles of non-existent countries

feathering one’s nest: archaeologists discover a wealth of paper ephemeral in generations of roosting birds in the roof of a Moscow area cathedral

defence of driving: bizarre, vintage missionary meets Martian drivers’ education film

artist’s rendering: comparative visualisation of five hundred exoplanets

outrageous fortune: historic figures that gamed the system and the legacy of ancient lotteries

minstrel show or executive function

Via the always brilliant Mind Hacks’ Spike Activity that encapsulates weekly developments in neuroscience and psychology come an interesting study that the chemical signals that the blood delivers to the brain are not merely the well-travelled troubadours with reports of far-off happenings and fuel sources they they are generally taken to be but rather selective in their service.
I was always grateful that our bodies were smarter than us. Blood flowing into the folds of the brain does not just blindly acquiesce to the demands of the neurons, it seems, but rather can itself dictate what parts of the brain receive nourishment and assert a political influence after a fashion over the choices we make and priorities assigned. The circulatory system (which also pushes lymph) does not take orders from the brain from conception but like language and motor-skills, is also a learnt behaviour, which really is saying quite a lot about self-discipline. What do you think? What if it’s true that the blood can veto our will or lack of resolve?