Nature

[box]This post originally appeared on the FTMF.info planning blog.[/box]

In this post, let’s explore the link between the twin worlds of microbiology and creative thought, drawing inspiration from three brilliant scientific discoveries. Labcoats on, people!

1. Sponges

If a sea sponge (phylum porifera) is forced through a sieve to disintegrate it down to its cellular level, those cells, if left alone, will recombine into a sponge again:

Lesson: some ideas only make sense as a whole – passing them through a ‘sieve test’ can reveal whether they were ever meant to be, while others may naturally merge together.

2. Slime Molds

A single-celled slime mold (physarum polycephalum) can solve mazes, mimic the layout of man-made transportation networks and choose the healthiest food from a diverse menu – and all this without a brain or nervous system:

Lesson: deploy resources efficiently – really smart solutions often arise naturally, yet knowing what’s best still requires lots of prior research. But hey, if a slime mold can do it…

3. Artificial Jellyfish

Scientists have created an artificial jellyfish using silicone and muscle cells from a rat’s heart. The synthetic creature, dubbed a medusoid, looks like a flower with eight petals. When placed in an electric field, it pulses and swims exactly like its living counterpart:

Lesson: even the most difficult concept can be somehow ‘brought to life’ – be it in a new context, through the addition of a couple of key ingredients, or sheer appliance of science!

Mobile Sketching App from Autodesk

My new Samsung Galaxy S2 is awesome. Seriously awesome.

Though I have a full blog post detailing my Android setup (composed for immediacy, productivity and entertainment) in the works, I thought I’d share details of one of my favourite apps: Autodesk’s SketchBook Mobile.

With it, and my trusty BoxWave Capacitive Stylus, I’ve turned my handset into a mobile sketchpad. Here are the results:

Me, taken with the front-facing camera
Me, traced via SketchBook Mobile

So it’s pretty effective, right? I’m no Picasso, that’s for sure, but the app is a very handy addition to my mobile armory, and it’s one I’d recommend to anyone with a powerful enough device. Here’s their full product demo:

Oh yes, almost forgot to mention – this whole post, except for formatting and adding links, was completed on my handset itself via the official WordPress app. Suck on that, Apple fanboys!

The Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus

The “Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus” is a drawing machine illustrating a never-ending story by the use of patent drawings.

The machine translates words of a text into patent drawings. Seven million patents — linked by over 22 million references — form the vocabulary. By using references to earlier patents, it is possible to find paths between arbitrary patents. They form a kind of subtext.

New visual connections and narrative layers emerge through the interweaving of the story with the depiction of technical developments.

How To Draw All Sorts Of Crap

I don’t usually blog about drawing, unless it’s about gadgets, toys or, say, the psychology of comic art. But when I saw this image from Coelasquid I was struck by the urge to share. And besides, I’ve been stuck with writers block lately, so why not revert to pretty pictures instead?