Scared Cat

BMW aggressively takes on the biomimicmarketing of Jaguar. Peculiar image of the week.

Via Infozaragoza. Related: The Naturalness of traveling with a Jeep, Facing Your Car, Steam Horse. Thanks iPeg.

Facing your Car

Do cars have a face? You would be inclined to say yes immediately. And you would be right as well, because they do. Study has confirmed through a complex statistical analysis that many people see human facial features in the front end of automobiles and ascribe various personality traits to cars—a modern experience driven by our prehistoric psyches.

Designers have realized this for a long time; a lot of thought goes into designing the face of the car. It’s an important element of the design process. As Chris Bangle—former design director of the BWM Group Munich—puts it in the recent documentary Objectified: ‘You, as a person, can have lots of different faces, but with a car, you can only have one face. When you put on that face, it’s there forever. It becomes the cars expression.’

And people are very picky when it comes to choosing a car they will be driving daily for the next couple of years. ‘Cars are kind of like avatars, they’re a representative of ourselves.’, says Bangle, ‘You know, I show myself to the outside world through this car.’

It’s no mere coincidence that the rounded Volkswagen Beetle looks so cute you want to hug it, or that the BMW headlights in your rear mirror are saying ‘Get out of the way or I’ll run you over.’ Cars’ faces tend to show the personality of the car. If it’s a performance car, it should look like that. If it’s a cheap ecological car, it’s appearance should reflect that as well. This is not only the skill of the designer, but also has a strong scientific base. Dennis Slice—an associate professor who was closely involved with the study of Cars’ faces—says: ‘The most unique aspect of the study was that we were able to quantitatively link the perception of cars to aspects of their physical structure in a way that allows us to generate a car that would project, say, aggression, anger or masculinity or the opposite traits.’

Will car customization take extreme forms in the (near) future? Will we end up sending along a picture of ourselves when ordering a car, so that the head- and taillights, as well as the logo and the license plates, can be modeled after our very own face? Why not, we already get to choose most of the cars appearance, so customizing it’s face only seems natural…

Re-visualizing Molecular Science

I vividly remember being offended throughout my high-school education because ‘atoms’ where consistently presented as these perfect slick round little spheres. At one time I even called the teacher a fabricator of lies and shouted: “Atoms aren’t balls!!”.

Of course the poor man couldn’t help it, as it was just decided to teach us high-school kids a outdated, simplified 19th century version of the atom model, rather than confusing us with subatomic particles like protons, neutron, up-quarks, down-quarks, gluons and what do you have nowadays.

In retrospect I was just a kid trying to be witty after having flipped through some of the science magazines of my dad, who was a physicist. Nonetheless, I always remained keen on the underestimated role of simulations in modern science.

Are you still reading? Then this call for proposals might be for you. The STRP Festival, Institute of Complex Molecular Systems, and Animation Studio invite artists, designers and scientists to develop a new visual language for molecular structures.

“Recently, a new problem has emerged for molecular scientists. For many decennia they have used a world-wide accepted way of representing molecules, even though these molecules have never really been seen. Unfortunately, this language is not suitable to represent the increasing complexity of the molecular systems and dynamic processes that are subject of modern research. … We think that a breakthrough in this area is only possible with ideas of people with different specialisms.”

Download the full Call for Proposals (pdf).

Schöne Aussichten

Schöne Aussichten is a photo series created by Wibke Schaub.

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The Eye of a Cyber Sapien

An earlier post on this blog already displayed the possible future of sight using augmented contact lenses. Researchers at MIT take this second sight to a next level by creating a retinal implant that could help blind people regain much of their vision.

People receiving the implant would wear a pair of glasses with a built-in camera that wirelessly powers the implant and sends images to a micro-controller on the eye-ball. These are then processed and send to electrodes implanted below the retina.

Besides the immense value for blind people imagine the future possibilities for truly virtual and augmented reality. Always wanted infrared sight? Or would you prefer to hook it up to your Second Life account? You can also just watch a movie.

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Time pilots us…

You step out of bed. Why? Because your alarm clock tells you it is time. A quick glance at the alarm clock tells you that you are still on schedule. First you take a shower and then breakfast. The clock helps you back to reality, “So late already?”, and you think by yourself; “Tomorrow I should shower shorter…” You wanted to clean up before you leave, but decide to leave the mess where it is; all to get back on track. Also the clocks on your way to the office help you to stay on the strict time schedule. When you enter the office-building you wonder if there is still time to get a coffee. Your watch gives you the answer…as always.

Related: Office garden rebellion, Virtual money – cows, coins, credit, airtime, The Nocturnal life of diurnal birds. Picture: Freakingnews.com

Implantable Silicon-Silk Electronics

Scientists of the University of Pennsylvania are creating electronics that almost completely dissolve inside the body, through the use of thin, flexible silicon electronics on silk substrates.

While implanted electronics must usually be encased to protect them from the body, these electronics don’t need protection. The whole process is pretty much seamless: The electronics on the flexible silk substrates conform to biological tissue. The silk melts away over time and the thin silicon circuits left behind don’t cause irritation because they are just nanometers thick.

To make the devices, silicon transistors about one millimeter long and 250 nanometers thick are collected on a stamp and then transferred to the surface of a thin film of silk. The silk holds each device in place, even after the array is implanted in an animal – so far the technique is tested on mice – and wetted with saline, causing it to conform to the tissue surface.

In a paper published in the journal Applied Physics Letters, the researchers report that such circuits can be implanted in animals with no adverse effects. And the performance of the transistors on silk inside the body doesn’t suffer.

The researchers are now developing silk-silicon LEDs that might act as photonic tattoos that can show blood-sugar readings, as well as arrays of conformable electrodes that might interface with the nervous system.

Journal Article: Silicon electronics on silk as a path to bioresorbable, implantable devices. Related: Conductive body paint, Phone Tooth, Metalosis Maligna. Image credit: Rogers/Omenetto. Via: Techreview.

Architecture that repairs itself

Venice, Italy is sinking. To save it, Dr. Rachel Armstrong in her TED talk argues we need to outgrow architecture made of inert materials and, well, make architecture that grows itself.

Related: Modernistic vs Next Nature architecture, Growing rooms, buildings & cities, How to print a building, Superman’s House. Thanks Jan Gillesen.

Aging Barbie

You wouldn’t give it to her but Barbie is already over 50 years old. The doll made her debut at the American International Toy Fair in 1959 and has been a young girls (and gays) beauty icon for decades. Just image what Barbie would have looked like today if only she wasn’t so utterly plastic fantastic by nature. Still a pretty woman, stylish too! Peculiar image of the week (creator unknown: let us know).

Related: Beauty kit for little girls, Virtual Miss, Photoshop Beauties, Objects of desire, Real Mario, Software that ranks female beauty.

Nature Transformer – Microwave Festival 2009

If you happen to be in the neighborhood, you may want to attend that inspirational Next Nature lecture Dr. Van Mensvoort will be throwing this Sunday 15-11-2009 at the Microwave International New Media Arts Festival in Hong Kong.

The festival is highly resonating on the nature caused by people. They will also screen parts of the Next Nature DVD and reprint the Real Nature is not Green essay. Nature transforms along with us!