Effortless Action

The Inner Life of a Cell (Harvard)

2007-12-12T02:14:00.001+01:00

Small wonders from the 'ordinary day' of a living cell.
Present knowledge of molecular machinery that execute life often rewards the researcher with surprisingly coherent views on how pieces can work together. The overall picture, however, is a maze of big unanswered questions.
Self-organization is everywhere in the movie, but its definitive law is still missing.

Statecharts

2007-12-06T03:31:00.001+01:00

David Harel proposed the Statecharts language during the 2rd HOPL Meeting, in 1987. Other widespread languages where also presented there, including C++ by B Soustrup and Lisp. (see D Harel, 'Statecharts in the making: a personal account')
Since then, D Harel implemented the new language in a number of research projects across computer science and biology. He is currently Professor at Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.

As an example of above mentioned research we shall consider Reactive Animation.
Statecharts can be connected to a graphics engine interface to give Reactive Animation (RA): this topic is widely explained in a recent paper, where RA connects data from molecules to organs in a large multiscale simulation framework (search 'Harel reactive animation').

Statecharts plus graphics would be an interesting tool for wise people and geeks, but actually they are under patent, even for academic research. The good idea is trapped in a golden cage, far away from its native sandbox and even farer from the huge collaborative playground known as web 2.0.

Patented software sometimes poses the challenge of reinvent the wheel. This requires an amount of serious work, along with the possibility of making out something new by means of combining already existing things. Fortunately, the latter aspect is a well known force that drives collaborative, formerly non retributed efforts like Wikipedia and the free software development.
The new wheels often perform better, as a result of continuous, community-wide beta testing. Moreover, hackability/reusability is the key that puts the good ideas back into the web reactor, where they can be collectively evolved and distributed.

2007-12-04T02:23:00.001+01:00

My claimID

Ribosome in action

2007-09-08T12:27:00.000+02:00

Kinetic Sculptures

2007-08-11T00:49:00.000+02:00

Theo Jansen is an artist and kinetic sculptor living and working in Holland. He builds large works which resemble skeletons of animals which are able to walk using the wind on the beaches of the Netherlands. His animated works are a fusion of art and engineering. In a BMW television commercial, Jansen says "The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds."

Jansen is dedicated to creating artificial life through the use of genetic algorithms. These programs simulate evolution inside their code. Genetic algorithms can be modified to solve a variety of problems including circuit design, and in the case of Theo Jansen's creations, complex systems. Some measure of "fitness" is introduced into the algorithm; in Theo's case it is to survive on the beach while moving around within two enclosing lines on the wet sand near the ocean, and the dry sand at the edge of the beach. Those designs best at the assigned task within the modeled beach environment are bred together and graded again. Over time complex designs emerge which sprout wings and flap in the breeze pressurizing what look like plastic 2 liter soda bottles. Articulated legs sprout and scuttle across the sand like those of a crab. Theo uses plastic electrical conduit to make some of the computer's most promising designs. He then lets them roam free on the beach, measures their success, and updates his model.

From his website:

Since about ten years Theo Jansen is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. Eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.

Universe Evolution

2007-08-09T16:54:00.001+02:00

The smallest Linux Computer in the World

2007-08-03T20:35:00.002+02:00

the world's smallest Linux computer, more or less the size of an RJ45 connector. If you have not enough space....

The Book of Kells

2007-08-01T23:52:00.001+02:00

The Book of Kells is an Illuminated Manuscript of great formal complexity, which was probably the work of seventh-century Irish monks. It is one of the more lavishly illuminated manuscripts to survive from the Middle Ages and has been described as the zenith of Western calligraphy and illumination. It contains the four gospels of the Bible in Latin, along with prefatory and explanatory matter decorated with numerous colourful illustrations and illuminations. The book has, through the ages, elicited from its admirers a response akin to ecstasy. In 1185, Giraldus Cambrensis made the following description of the book (translated from latin):

The book is a concordance of the four Gospels according to the text of Saint Jerome, with almost as many drawings as there are pages, each decorated in wondrous colors. Here one can contemplate the visage of divine majesty miraculously rendered; there, the mystical representations of the Evangelists, some having six wings, some four, some two. Here we see the eagle, there the bull, here the face of a man, there that of a lion, and innumerable other drawings. In looking at them casually, it might appear that they are no more than idle scribblings rather than formal compositions. One might not see the subtleties, whereas all is subtlety. But if one takes pains to study the book attentively, to penetrate the innermost secrets of the art, one will find embellishments of such intricacy, such delicacy and density, such a wealth of knots and interlacing links in such fresh and lustrous hues, that one will unequivocally pronounce it the work not of man but of angels.

Today The Book of Kells is on permanent display at the Trinity College Library in Dublin, Ireland.

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