Fun guy chillin’ in South American rainforest finds plastic-eating fungi
Seriously, though this is kind of a big deal. Know that big problem we have? You know, the one involving a crapload of used plastic hanging around in landfills with nowhere to biodegrade for a couple million years? Well, Jonathan Russell might’ve solved that problem. See, Russell and his fellow Yale students went to Ecuador, where they found a new kind of fungus they’re calling Pestalotiopsis microspora. Big deal, you’re thinking. Anyone can find fungus anywhere! Well, something his fellow students found out after the fact is that this fungus can live on a diet of polyurethane alone — and even crazier, it doesn’t even need air to do so! In other words, we could potentially put it at the bottom of a landfill and cover it with plastic, and it would do the rest of the work. This might be game-changing if it works as advertised. (photo via Flickr user dbutt; EDIT: Updated with link to research abstract) source
(via blessphemy)
Beetles Modify Emissions of Greenhouse Gases from Cow Pats
Agriculture is one of the biggest sources of the anthropogenic greenhouse gases responsible for global warming. Among these, cattle farming for meat and milk are major sources of methane, a gas with a potent warming effect. Much of this methane comes from the guts of ruminating cattle, but some escapes from dung pats on pastures. Now researchers from the University of Helsinki have found that beetles living in the cow pats may reduce emissions of methane. The study has just been published in the journal PLoS ONE.
Atte Penttilä, Eleanor M. Slade, Asko Simojoki, Terhi Riutta, Kari Minkkinen, Tomas Roslin. Quantifying Beetle-Mediated Effects on Gas Fluxes from Dung Pats. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (8): e71454 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071454
By digging around in their food, dung beetles like Aphodius pedellus may aerate cow pats — and thereby modify methane emissions.
ABANDONED AMUSEMENT PARKS
I cannot stop surfing through these haunting Francesco Mugnai pictures. His photo series on abandoned amusement parks brings chills to my body as thrilling as the excitement I can recall back from visiting the amusement parks of my childhood. Here are all the memories rotting in fields and perhaps hosting some ghostly visitors.
via indulged
(via crystalgardian)
Javier Pérez: En Puntas (2013)
Video installation of variable measurements comprising:
Sculpture: pointe shoes, stainless steel knives
Video projection: HD blu-ray, with sound, screened on a wall
9’A ballerina, whose pointe shoes are extended by a set of sharp kitchen knives, dances and twirls insistently until reaching exhaustion, fighting to maintain balance on the lid of a grand piano set on a stage. The theatre with its red velvet warm lighting, resembles an oversized music box. The camera turns around the dancer revealing the opposite side of the room: an empty and painfully bare theatre.
The ballerina appears as an eerie figure expressing effort, sacrifice and pain in her strive for perfection. Both fragile and cruel. Initially shy and hesitant, her steps become more and more emphatic, menacing and not exempt of violence, scraping and cutting into the delicate surface of the piano with her sharp pointe shoes.
Through this work, Javier Perez investigates and reflects once again upon the human condition. Using a strongly metaphorical language rich in powerful symbolism, he reveals the weaknesses that become the boundaries between seemingly irreconcilable concepts such as: beauty and cruelty, fragility and violence, culture and nature or life and death.
(via witchydarling)