A group of researchers headed by Hokkaido University's Atsushi Tero have found an innovative and visually stunning way of exploring network development and social infrastructure. The team arranged oat flakes on a wet surface in a pattern resembling the layout of cities in central Honshu. Placing the slime mold Physarum polycephalum near the flake representing Tokyo, the group watched as the the mold grew outward. As the slime mold grew toward other flakes, it organized itself in a pattern strangely reminiscent of the Tokyo rail system. The research, published in Science, argues that the growth and organization occurred with "comparable efficiency, fault tolerance, and cost" to the development of technological networks.
Dr. Tero and other team members have started ...
categorized as experimentation, livingbreathing, maps, research, science.
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Meet the Collaboratives
Creative TV (see all the channels)
Plastic Earth
Headed by Takuzo Aida, a group of researchers from the University of Tokyo and Seoul National University have developed a formula for a plastic material made from water, clay, sodium ...
An Afterlife for Hotel Soap
I ran into a reference to the Clean the World Foundation a few days before the earthquake in Haiti. The nonprofit grew out of the seemingly petty question that ...
World Pulse Voices
As part of its mission to promote transparency and democracy while exploring world events from the perspective of women, World Pulse magazine recently initiated the first of a series ...
Blood Light
Mike Thompson’s Blood Lamp offers users a gory way to explore the issues of power consumption and planned obsolescence. Users break open the vial-like lamp and mix a few ...
Reimagining a Cold War Icon
A group of companies in Germany has announced plans to produce an electric small family sedan with solar panels providing additional power for accessories such as air conditioning. The ...
Fallout Cubicle
Sofia-based media artist Petko Dourmana recently exhibited the Post Global Warming Survival Kit at SIGGRAPH 2009. Dourmana's work appeared as part of the BioLogic juried ...
A Rather Fickle Memory Hole
Two recent news stories offer quirky challenges to the conventional wisdom that new technologies--especially the Internet--have made it impossible to forget anything. Raising questions about what we remember and how ...
Visualizing the New York Times
Earlier this year, digital artist Jer Thorp used the New York Times Article Search API to create visual displays exploring the areas of focus and interconnection found in ...
Carnival of the Animals
Our perception of animals has changed dramatically over the last century. The decline of agriculture and the expansion of the middle class have brought a view of animals that ranges ...
Evolving Art
To mark the bicentennial of Darwin's birth and the sesquicentennial of On the Origin of Species, an exhibit opening today at Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum explores the effects of his ...
Finding the Rhyme in Education Policy
In its search to bolster the faltering public school system, California has given new life to a quote attributed (with some variations) to Mark Twain: "History doesn't repeat itself, but ...
A Self-Powered Sentinel
Massachusetts-based Voltree Power is currently developing a network of sensor nodes that will monitor forest conditions and immediately alert users to wildfires. The system, the Early Wildfire ...
Memorial Map
Sean Askay, a geospatial content developer for Google Earth Outreach, created Map the Fallen as a tribute to US personnel who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq ...