Material Science makes Yahoo!?

Today I found this article on Yahoo!'s front page. A new lattice structure of metal created to make ultra light materials from the researchers of HRL Research Laboratories, The University of California at Irvine, and the California Institute of Technology .  It is certainly nice to see something AWESOME instead of the lives of celebrities int the headlines.  I would love to know if other people are interested in this, and how our collective knowledge would be effected if this is the news we were given?

Book Club Meeting!

So there has been a change in plans... A new book has been chosen. "The Lab: Creativity and Culture" by David Edwards. We will be discussing soon, with the first topic being that of the barbeque utensils on the cover.

If you would like to join us, let me know.

biopolymers out of everything?

I try to stay attuned to what's going on with biopolymers and a few things have popped out recently in regards to new functional options. In the past week I got some information about biopolymers made out of chicken feathers (though I thought I might have seen this one before). And a new funding for 'spider silk' biopolymer implementation. If only I could get my designer hands on some of those materials - AMAZING - absolutely AMAZING!

All of the news including Pepsi's 100% biopolymer bottle have given me great hope for the industry - I'm certainly hoping its not a passing trend, but creates sustainable options for the future of materials.

The photo above is some of my preliminary bioplastic research back in 2007 - I can't believe its been that long!

So cool

Continuum is so cool I backed it on kickstarter....

Book Report : The End of Oil

So I read The End of Oil throughout the past couple of weeks. It was a spur of the moment purchase at the used bookstore at the beginning of February - and I'm so glad the purchase was made. It was published in 2005, and already some of the forecasting in regards to the price of oil, increased production from non-traditional sources (tar sands etc...) have come to pass. It seemed like a relatively well balanced book in regards to its honesty about the future of energy, which I appreciated greatly. I loved it and it affirmed what I knew, and gave me more insight into the politics of oil.

And life just became more interesting

So, everyone who knows me knows how much I love the city of Montreal, in fact I'm loving it right at the moment, sitting in an open air cafe, watching all the people meander down the street, which is closed to cars for the weekend, and is a giant street festival/sidewalk sale. Oh how lovely.

While at the video store a couple of weeks ago, I saw a poster for the work of Brandon Ballangée (pictured above), and started to look into where this exhibition may be. It happens to be right here in Montreal, at the SAT ( the Society for Arts and Technology, or la Société des arts et technologiques). I must look into this institution further, as I see they are having an evening event next weekend called Art & Design Montreal - if only I had known earlier, I would have submitted some stuff for exhibition, but I will certainly be attending! Sounds like a really interesting group of people, and I look forward to seeing what's going on around here!

Textiles CAN save the world

Often when talking about sustainability and textiles, I often get the feeling that others believe the impact of textiles isn't big enough in order to require more thought past organic/fairtrade/reused/recycled or shared. Of course I beg to differ, and often cite the many sins of textile industries, and the impact of production, transport, use and disposal, and that the textile industry is not just big - but GIANT, and has the power and capabilities of contributing solutions for not just fashion, but many other industries, including architecture, agriculture, transportation, and many more I can't recall at the moment. I came across an article today in Azure of something I've heard of before, but had forgotten about, and I'm glad to have found it again. It is the solar harvesting textiles created by Sheila Kenndey and Frano Violich. They have been working on the creation of viable energy harvesting solutions using window blinds, and other surfaces, and worked on Portable Light Project, and are now working on a larger scale, looking at powering entire structures using their technology. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to get her hands on a bit to play with... This is such a lovely and feasible and implementable technology - if only we could get more ideas and technology!

I wish...

I wish I could have gone to this exhibit! It looks like it was AMAZING. Put on by the Experimental Art Foundation it looked at the intersection of biotechnology and art is always fascinating to me. Its interesting to think of the different sides of biotechnology - those that are deemed to save the planet versus those which we are all are going to die a horrible death... Interesting nonetheless.

The Arts Catalyst

So I found The Arts Catalyst the other day. Art + Science = Awesome is what I say! There seem to be more people like me out there. They have lots of great events and calls for submissions, so if its up your alley, give it a look!

Material Database!

I love materials... Rematerialise is all about Eco Smart Materials from Kingston University (UK Kingston, not Canada Kingston). Thanks Sarah for the link!

PLA Info

Here is some info on PLA - I <3 bioplastics! Looks like a good overarching article!

Data Visualisation

I've been working my way through several books about visualising data... And then coolhunting finds this. AMAZING.

It is the work of Andreas Nicholas Fischer, whose sculptures are based on scientific data vizualisation. He works with many mediums so do check out his webite.

Maybe?

Maybe the "New Scientist" isn't a scientist, maybe its a designer? I can always dream... Scientists are always getting into art and design - so now its my turn to be in a different realm. This is the work of Peter Wasilewski, a scientist with NASA, in a series called Frizions.

Posing Nature a question

I heard about this a couple of weeks back - but its entirely cool! Its called "Ask Nature" and was created by the Biomimcry Institute. You can search for a function, and it will tell you what organisms in nature do that... so. I asked it about melting ice. I got back several different cases - one including a plant pathogen called "P. syringae". Try it out!!! So much fun!

Nano-nano Everywhere

So the world of nano is coming into its own lately. Through Puff & Flock - I've found a whole site on Nanoarchitecture.net.... soooooo cool!

Michael Braungart Lecture and my scanner is broken...

How exciting its is to go to lectures by people you hold in high regard. I recently got the opportunity to go to a lecture put on by the Design Council and MADE at the RSA featuring Michael Braungart. I was so glad to have been able to go. I often use Cradle and Cradle principles as a starting point for my design process - thinking about how things could be better. I've scanned in my notes for any of you who might want to read them. I must say so many things stand out as being little gems of wisdom - I think my favourite is "[sustainable design is] not about being less bad but more good" - if that make any sense out of context. PS - my scanner is broken so the notes have had to be slightly touched up in photoshop. The pic above is a raw scan of the cover of my notebook - kind of interesting I must say.

New Discovery!

Thanks so much to my lovely friend Jen for the introduction to a new materials database - Inventables! They even have an affordable student subscription - of course to which I have signed up for! Oh the knowledge at my fingertips! I think they may need me on their team, I'll let them know certainly :P....

Summer of Hardly any Posts

Sorry about the lack of posts. It seems as if I've been rather busy (thank goodness for that). Spending lots of time gallivanting around London and elsewhere a little too. I've been busy working as well - you know jobs and stuff. I'm working on Nobel Textiles - very cool project, my job is organization for the exhibition, its sure a lot of work, but its very exciting. Its going to be amazing, I can't wait to see all of the designer's final exhibitions! If you want to check out my photos from some of my recent trips - check A Brave Toned Timid Girl. The summer has become very social - which is awesome, and I'm enjoying discovering the city, and all the fun things going on. I'll have more interesting posts soon - I promise.

MIT OpenCourseWare

I've known about this for awhile now - but just sharing now (I'm sorry for the delay). MIT has published most of their course content on the internet - so anybody can become super smart (though they may not get the piece of paper for it). Here is the link - I think I'm going to start on a couple of courses - something fun like Principles of Chemical Science. I'm such a dork - but I need to know more, my head might burst, but its only an intro undergrad course, so hopefully I'll get a tiny bit out of it. I was also thinking about Ethnography - we talk about it all the time, but I'm still not exactly sure what it is. And then there are a bunch on Polymer Physics. Do you think I can change and go to MIT instead? I don't think I mean that, but oh it looks like fun (again, I'm a dork).

My Bright Turquoise DNA

How do you like my DNA? It's Bright Turquoise - just like me :). I went to a great event at the Wellcome Collection this past weekend with the lovely Emmie. It was the Wellcome Collection's 1st birthday! We found the Origami man, and played with paper. I'm not sure, but I figured out how to fold my little helix from one that was lying on the table, the Origami man seemed to think I was a genius. I don't know, it wasn't that hard. I guess it was all that practice I had from my origami book that Kaori gave me in grade 9, that only had Japanese in it. I don't know. Emmie figured out a lovely star thing as well. Then we went to a talk about Science and Design with Paul Simmons from Timorous Beasties. Great talk - and his outfit was an entirely cute mix of mis-matchey stripes and plaids. I was paying attention to what he said - he really emphasized the need for designers to draw more (something I never do... oops). And he talked a lot about the wonderful macabre imagery in the Wellcome Trust's archive (I think I want to get my hands on some of that stuff). I think that's it for exciting things that happened this weekend, but I was sick, so I think having one cool thing to write about is quite good.