Strandbeest - Wind Robot

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 matierial of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. Eventualy he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives. Definately go to his website and check out all his other work and their are DVDs of more of the wind walking machines. They are very impressive.

Sweating Robots

VIDA 9.0 is an anual international competition created to reward excellence in artistic creativity in the fields of Artificial Life and related disciplines. Projects include autonomous robots, avatars, recursive chaotic algorithms, knowbots, cellular automata, computer viruses, virtual ecologies that evolve with user participation, and works that highlight the social side of Artificial Life. This year's winner was Alexitimia by Paula Gaetano Adi.


"Alexitimia is a term that means the incapacity to verbalize emotions, and it is the name of this robot that looks nothing like a robot. Alexitimia invites contemplation as it quietly exudes a dual impression of severity in its form and sensuousness in its surface. It passively invites a viewer to resort to touch, so as to satisfy an inevitable curiosity about what it is made of. Its only response is an autonomic body phenomenon: sweating."

Initially I thought a sweating robot was something very unique and a concept only possible as a an artistic pursuit. But with a little investigation it turns out sweating robots have been around awhile and are pretty common.

"Although thermal manikin technologies have been used to evaluate clothing comfort and heat stress for many years, no other manikin systems possess the unique measurement capabilities incorporated in Coppelius. The Coppelius manikin is capable of internally generating a controlled supply of moisture through 187 individually controlled sweat glands. Moisture and heat loss can be continuously monitored for full clothing ensembles in a variety of climatic conditions and simulated activity levels. The ability to precisely control sweating over lengthy test periods has been lacking in previous thermal manikin technologies."

UFOs on Mars?

No not really. It's just NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, so why is this significant?


" NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft appears twice in the same frame in this image from the Mars Orbiter Camera aboard NASA's Mars Global Surveyor. The camera's successful imaging of Odyssey and of the European Space Agency's Mars Express in April 2005 produced the first pictures of any spacecraft orbiting Mars taken by another spacecraft orbiting Mars."

That's right, "...the first pictures of any spacecraft orbiting Mars taken by another spacecraft orbiting Mars."

3D system 'moves' phantom limbs

A computer program has been designed to allow amputees to see and move a 3D "phantom limb".

A small study by researchers at the University of Manchester found the device could help people with phantom limb pain. Previous research showed that if a person's brain is "tricked" into believing they can see and move a "phantom limb", pain can decrease.

The researchers say one patient saw her pain ease after just one session.

Dr Craig Murray, of the School of Psychological Sciences who led the research, said: "Although there isn't compete agreement on how phantom limb pain is helped by the mirror box or our virtual reality system, one theory is that the brain is being tricked."

Phantom limb pain or sensation is really a fascinating phenomenom. It is experienced both by amputees and by children born without a limb. This suggests that our perceptions of our limbs are "hard wired" into our brains. Go here for more information. These perceptions which can be painful could also be helpful in transitioning amputees to electrical prosthetics.

13 Most Beautiful Avatars

"13 Most Beautiful Avatars, an exhibition in Second Life's increasingly popular Ars Virtua gallery captures the most visually dynamic and celebrated "stars" of Second Life. The Matteses have been living in the virtual world, Second Life, for over a year, exploring its terrain and interacting with its peculiar inhabitants. The result of their "video-game flanerie" is this series of portraits."

"The 13 Most Beautiful Avatars images will be exhibited, in the real-world, at the Italian Academy at New York's Columbia University. For the Ars Virtua show, in Second Life, a 3D replica of this physical exhibition space has been recreated for presentation of an exhibition identical to the "real" one."

So for lack of a better descrition I just posted what the website says. It doesn't seem like some kind of avatar beaty pageant but more or less portriats of avatars.

Astronaut Jesus

I think this gives me a whole new view on Intelligent Design.


"Jesus is Back!! In his second visit to Earth, let us rejoice !! Please teach us and show us the way !! He is an elite member of the astronaut gods that have come to our planet since the begining of time to shape our civilization and the world as we know it. Let the passion of AstroChrist fulfill our lives and hearts once again."

You can buy one here.

Better Than Blood?

"A man-made, pure-white compound called Oxycyte carries oxygen 50 times as effectively as our own blood. Researchers are betting that it’s the best way to treat America’s leading cause of accidental death: traumatic brain injury."

"Oxycyte is the newest product in a family of compounds known as artificial blood. The search for a synthetic substitute for human blood began at least as early as the 19th century, when doctors actually tried using milk to replenish blood loss. "

Milk?!...I mean seriously milk???! But according to Brown University's Division of Biology and Medicine's Synthetic Blood website they state that:

"The earliest experiments with blood substitutes were motivated by the fact that most human-to-human blood transfusions were unsuccessful due to a lack of understanding of blood groups. Unfortunately, people's reactions to transfused animal milk turned out to be very severe.

mid 1870’s: experiments with alternatives to human blood - milk from cows, goats, humans; severe reactions."

But didn't we also see this same type of white artificial internal fluid in 1979 when Science Officer, Ash of the Nostromo turned out to be a malicious android and got his head knocked off .



Spurting gallons of white"android blood" everywhere, truly pretty gross. Turns out though that this had its own dairy connection too but only for close ups.

"Ash's blood is colored water. Milk was not used as it would have gotten very smelly very quickly under the hot studio lights. Milk was used though for the close-up of his innards, along with pasta and glass marbles."