science weekend at KXFS

August 2012

a weekend of science-leaning events at the King’s Cross Filling Station, a stunning new public space and pop-up restaurant on the Regent’s Canal designed by architects Carmody Groarke. behind a series of undulating panels, the existing kiosk has been being transformed into Shrimpy’s while the former forecourt hosts a bar, pizza oven and lecture theatre which will play host to a series of talks, installations, screenings and live demonstrations centered around the future of the humble filling station in a post-petroleum future. where will our energy come from, what will power our vehicles and what will we use these urban spaces for in years to come?

installation

on show throughout the weekend, Patrick Stevenson-Keating’s Future Filling Station installation takes its cue from KXFS’ history as a working petrol station and asks ‘what will power the fuel pumps of tomorrow?’

using the former forecourt as a fitting backdrop, the installation comprises four futuristic fuel pumps which use far-out but hopefully not far off energy sources which could power tomorrow’s vehicles

events

join us at this amazing space on the Regent’s Canal for talks, demonstrations and screenings – plus frozen margaritas, prosecco on tap, wood-oven pizzas and live music every evening from Bistrotheque’s legendary synth maestro Xavior…

Friday 17 August

7pm: urban air / though we’ve made progress on other forms of pollution, urban air quality remains a big problem. one beautiful suggestion for how to tackle it comes from fashion designer Helen Storey and chemist Tony Ryan, who propose a range of ‘Catalytic Clothing’ which actually neutralises pollution. join us for a discussion and screening with project collaborator and air quality expert Dr Frank Kelly from King’s College London

RESERVE A FREE TICKET

Saturday 18 August

12pm onwards: hydrogen fuel cell exploration / Arcola Energy’s Feimatta Conteh and Ben Todd will demonstrate their radio-controlled hydrogen fuel cell tugboat. after a 12pm talk about their work making Arcola Theatre greener, we’ll cast off to explore the Regent’s Canal using this small but mighty zero-emission vessel. the tugboat will then available for you to pilot throughout the day – with short breaks for hydrogen refueling!

RESERVE YOUR FREE 20-MINUTE SLOT HERE

2pm: high altitude wind / the breeze is much stronger in the upper atmosphere – but wind turbines would need to be massive to take advantage of it. Imperial College London’s Dr Stefano Longo (himself a glider pilot) will discuss a radical redesign of the turbine which would omit the tower and the inner parts of the blades to keep these ‘wings’ flying with help of automatic controls and long cables to transmit power back to us on earth

RESERVE A FREE TICKET

4pm: thin film solar cities / join George Dibb from Imperial College London’s Centre for Plastic Electronics in the forecourt for a talk about thin film solar: a new technology which could one day be coating our cars and cities with a power-generating layer – turning the city itself itself to a massive energy source!

RESERVE A FREE TICKET

7pm: green nuclear nite / first pioneered in the 1960s, molten salt reactors were a promising breed of safer, cleaner and greener nuclear power plants – able to run on an abundant element called thorium. today, in the face of climate change and resource wars, organisations like The Weinberg Foundation are pushing to get such designs back on the agenda. come find out why in this unmissable talk and film screening

RESERVE A FREE TICKET

Sunday 19th August

12pm: urban farming workshop / Andrew Merritt of Something & Son will discuss the lessons they’ve learned creating FARM:shop – London’s first urban farming hub and now a thriving workspace, café and events venue packed to the rafters with living and breathing food – and their most recent project, the Barking Bathhouse

RESERVE A FREE TICKET

2pm: biofuel under the microscope / join Slavina Georgieva from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London for a discussion about the promise and pitfalls of the next-generation biofuels, and an update on the latest research in the field

RESERVE A FREE TICKET

4pm: urban wildlife / join award-winning architect Catherine du Toit for a talk about 51% Studios’ Urban Birds Nestworks, and a look at how disused structures like filling stations could be used to provide habitats for urban wildlife

RESERVE A FREE TICKET

7pm: laser fusion nite / nuclear fusion is what keeps the sun shining, and for decades scientists have dreamed of harnessing its power here on earth. now, using lasers, we may be getting closer to the point we can tap into this clean, green source of unlimited energy. join Dr Ceri Brenner from the Central Laser Facility for a magical evening of discussion and laser light in the forecourt

RESERVE A FREE TICKET

Vauxhall logo
the KXFS cultural programme is supported by Vauxhall

Worlds in Transit exhibition launch

6-11pm | Thursday 6 June 2013 | Silwex House | Quaker Street, London | E1 6SN

last summer, we invited a group of artists, filmmakers, astronomers, photographers, choreographers and curators to journey to the remote wilderness of northern Sweden to witness a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event: the Transit of Venus. the participants’ observations and artistic output from the expedition now form the basis of a publication and exhibition, launching in London one year on from the Transit

choreographer/artist Nissa Nishikawa filmed a site-specific performance in the forest, set to music composed by Ebe Oke. Cat Stevens and Archie McLeish will show photographs from the days surrounding the event, while filmmakers Kathryn Ferguson, Loren Filis and Fritz Stolberg used the Transit as a backdrop for new work

exhibition and publication launch on Thursday 6 June (an east London First Thursday) with an opening party at Silwex House, featuring a ‘real-time’ screening of the 2012 Transit of Venus at 10:09pm. exhibition continues throughout the weekend with workshops and screenings

Facebook event page here / images for press, blogging and publicity are available here

afrogalactica

from the outer rings of Sun Ra’s native Saturn to the depths of Drexciya’s undersea cities, the realms of afrofuturism provide a fertile space for forward-thinking imaginations. The Arts Catalyst’s next Kosmica night, guest curated by Jareh Das, explores the theme with guest artist Kapwani Kiwanga. beyond an amazing looking film/project about repatriating the aforementioned interplanetary jazz god to his home planet, Kiwanga will present AFROGALACTICA, a short history of the future mapping the progress of her imagined United States of Africa Space Agency

biomass

the first satellite able to ‘weigh’ the earth’s forest biomass has been given the go-ahead by the European Space Agency and will launch in 2020. the BIOMASS spacecraft will help give us a better assessment of forest cover, glacial melt, warming trends and climate change read more

gateways

Star Towers: Elysium Planitia

our new series of collage works feature monolithic structures set amid distant landscapes, connecting various locations around the known universe – in this case Gusev Crater on the edge of Mars’ vast Elysium Planitia with the centre of the Milky Way galaxy via three gateways, each imparting a different arrival velocity

spring

there are tons of photos of earth taken from space, but few as good as Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s recent series from the International Space Station, where he’s been living since November last year. while up there, he’s been posting photos on Twitter, answering questions from space and recording folky songs that aren’t entirely terrible. this photo from yesterday shows spring around Lake Balaton in Hungary

super/collider Icelandic expedition

11-18 September 2013

as the sun reaches the peak of its solar activity cycle, join super/collider, scientists and likeminded explorers as we travel across Iceland in search of the Northern Lights and other natural wonders this autumn

amid the stark beauty of Iceland’s surreal landscapes, we’ll spend seven nights under the stars with the best possible chance of seeing the Aurora Borealis. in autumn 2013, the sun will reach solar maximum – making solar storms and the resulting atmospheric light shows more likely, more intense and more spectacular. if you’ve ever dreamed of seeing the Northern Lights, this is the best chance you’ll get all decade

by day, we’ll hike to towering glaciers, visit active volcanoes, search for crystals and minerals with an expert guide and explore Iceland’s amazing natural and geologic features – from erupting geysers and natural hot springs to tumbling waterfalls and icy glacial lagoons

with the passing this week of visionary architect Paolo Soleri, I’ve been thinking about the time I spent at Arcosanti – his experimental desert settlement – last November while writing a piece for AnOther. one morning, up early to take photos with the rising sun hitting the concrete, I wandered through the empty city; home to 60 or so people but deserted at that hour, except for a bobcat which padded noiselessly past. inside the silent, sun flooded rooms and offices, Soleri’s visions of soaring arcologies hung on the walls and filled endless, carefully preserved scrolls. in one room, an architectural model of one of his hyperstructures caught the sunlight, its monumental scale lit up over the miniature landscape

please note that due to overcast skies this event has been cancelled

if you’re up very early (or out very late) next weekend, join us at our new observation site high atop Hackney in the Dalston Roof Park for the latest in our PopUp Astronomy Club events

from 3am til sunrise on Sunday night/Monday morning we’ll be watching for the peak of the annual Lyrid Meteor Shower (aka shooting stars) which according to EarthSky “tend to be bright, often leave trails and are known for uncommon surges that can sometimes bring the rate up to 100 per hour. those rare outbursts are not easy to predict, but they’re one of the reasons the tantalizing Lyrids are worth checking out”. we’ll also take a look through our telescope at the rings of Saturn and maybe a few nebulas

free but please RSVP for entry instructions. this event is obviously very weather dependent so check this page again before leaving the house to make sure it’s happening. also note the sky will look NOTHING like the image above

sample of the week: Malachite

used to make green paint in ancient times, Malachite is a rich green copper carbonate hydroxide mineral with the formula Cu2CO3(OH)2. usually found deep underground, where hydrothermal fluids and water reservoirs can create Malachite stalagmites. this particular sample is from Zaire

stripes

from exquisite gemstones and the rings of Saturn to stripey tights and eye-popping prints, Patternity‘s first festival of pattern explores the enduring magnetism of stripes in all their forms. the jam-packed events programme includes workshops ranging from t-shirt printing to neuroscience, all investigating an aspect of this particular pattern

we’ve made a short film about stripes in space which will be screening on Sunday 14 April as part of science day

battlegrounds

stretching 3.7 million square kilometres across the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, the Congo Basin is home to a vast rainforest covering over one and half million square kilometres. it extends from the ice-capped peaks of the Rwenzori range (also known as the ‘Mountains of the Moon’) down into lush lowlands, following the Congo River and its tributaries flowing down towards the Gulf of Guinea. home to thousands of unique animal and plant species, as well as indigenous forest-dwelling people, the region generates its own weather systems and sequesters massive quantities of CO2

now, like many of the world’s tropical forest areas, the Congo Basin is under threat from a new enemy: palm oil. in addition to logging, poaching and other pressures, the forests now face a rapid expansion of palm oil plantations to help fuel demand for this increasingly lucrative product, which is used in products like cakes, biscuits and chocolate Easter eggs. you can help by avoiding low-scoring products on the Rainforest Foundation’s list of chocolate brands and supporting work like WWF’s long running Congo Basin campaign

tropical ice

snow and ice may not be features you associate with Africa, but high in the Rwenzori Mountains, year-round subzero temperatures keep the top of the continent permanently capped in white. as the highest source of the Nile, the upper reaches of the range are home to about twenty glaciers – a precious treasure located less than a degree north of the equator. earlier this year, in a piece originally published in Bspirit! Magazine, we caught up with photographer Klaus Thymann – who set out to photograph the continent’s secret icecaps as part of Project Pressure…

housing everything from delicate fulgurite structures created by lightning strikes to an ultra-dense ball of silicon nitride which can dent concrete, the Institute of Making is home to some of the world’s most wondrous substances. tomorrow, after years in an increasingly-crowded university basement, the collection and its curators are moving to a bigger, brighter more public space where you’ll be able to handle samples, experiment with new materials and create stuff in a state-of-the-art workshop read more

species of the week: Xanthoria parietina

an uncommonly beautiful example of common orange lichen aka Xanthoria parietina, maritime sunburst lichen or shore lichen. it thrives in sunny hardwood forests and on exposed seacliffs, where bird droppings provide a rich source of nitrogen. incredibly tolerant of air pollution and heavy metal contamination, it can be used as a bioindicator to measure things like air quality

book launch: An Introduction To Isomorphology

Saturday 23 March 2013

join us at EB&Flow Gallery for the launch of Gemma Anderson’s An Introduction To Isomorphology – a new way of seeing and classifying the natural world that draws on artistic and scientific practice. Gemma will be in conversation with mathematicians Tom Coates and Dorothy Buck talking about things like the topology of symplectic manifolds and algebraic varieties followed by drinks and the chance to see her ongoing exhibition

talk starts at 4:30pm | EB&Flow is located at 77 Leonard Street, London, EC2A 4QS

located 254 metres above sea level with gas intakes at 116m and 232m above the streets of San Francisco, the Sutro Tower acts as a climate sentinel, stretching up into the atmosphere to measure CO2 levels. the first US sampling site to be located in an urban centre, it’s equipped with automated flask sampling systems that provide daily measurements of a suite of greenhouse gases, carbon isotopes, halocarbons and other compounds. together with other stations, it has witnessed a steady rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, with recent figures from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration making for grim reading. there’s a good summary of the new data on The Guardian and a great apocalyptic climate disaster round-up on Motherboard

Gemma Anderson: Isomorphology

among the endless array of forms, functions and designs found in nature, a series of repeating patterns and similarities have emerged over the eons. spirals, hexagons and branches appear throughout the biological and mineralogical world, forming a kind of visual identity for the planet. could other worlds contain different, but similarly repetitive motifs?

new to our shop: 80 pages of psychedelic science, ranging from DMT and other mind-altering substances to adventures in the 4th dimension and metal cell-like structures called polyoxometalates – a promising debut from editor Lore Oxford

£10 / ONLINE SHOP CLOSED UNTIL APRIL 2013

scientists at the European Food Safety Authority announced this week that they have identified a number of risks to bees from neonicotinoid pesticides – adding to the growing consensus that such chemicals are behind the worrying decline in bee populations. the insecticides work by messing up insect nervous systems and can remain active in the soil for years – harming birds, fish, amphibians and other species. you can get involved by adding your signature to UK, European and US petitions calling on governments to act on the mounting evidence

designing the distant future

back in November, we were privileged to be involved in a workshop at CASS exploring design for the distant future. working with staff from the Interior Design BA course, we came up with a brief which challenged students to create a monument designed to be experienced 1000 years from now

thinking long-term, the students had to consider the qualities and performance of two structural materials: one well-known and trusted and the other more newer and more innovative. after researching these two materials, teams looked into global locations ranging from the coast of Iceland to the mountains of South America, taking into account future scenarios ranging from climate change to earthquakes. finally, the students had to dream up a purpose or reason for future visitors to seek out their structure

after an intense research session, the time came to stop reading and get hands-on building mock-ups and models showing the monuments. here’s just a sample – scroll down to read about the winners

first pioneered in the 1960s, cryonics involves the rapid cooling and storage of the human body or brain after death, offering a tantalising shot at immortality. despite the obvious allure of being awoken in some futuristic tomorrowland, only a couple of hundred people have as yet undergone the procedure, which starts with the injection of anti-freeze chemicals as close to possible after death

we’re super excited to start the new year with the first in a series of ‘briefings’ – which we’ll be publishing when there’s something big going on we think more people should know about

the first covers the approach of comets ISON and Pan-STARRS, which could make 2013 the best year for astronomy in living memory. we look at the prospects for seeing a comet in the daytime and catch up with the Hampstead Observatory’s Doug Daniels, who you may remember fondly from our rooftop Science Fair™ astronomy session back in 2010

printed on 100% recycled paper on our RISO printer, each double-sided A4 briefing is matched up to an online gallery with colour, animated and credited versions of each image

download as PDF

the art of Apollo 17

forty years ago tonight, mankind’s last mission to the moon touched down in the Taurus-Littrow valley, located in the Taurus mountains just east of the Sea of Serenity. for the next three days, commander Eugene Cernan and geologist Harrison Schmitt lived and worked in this most dramatic of Apollo landscapes, collecting a record haul of moon rocks, taking measurements, setting up experiments and taking pictures on a range of cameras. some, like this one showing Schmitt next to big boulder, became well-known while hundreds of others languish in the archives. here is just a small sample…

on this day in 1973, NASA’s Pioneer 10 made a close fly-by of Jupiter, plunging through the gas giant’s magnetic fields to beam back the best images yet of the distant planet. fittingly, tonight sees Jupiter at opposition: the point in space where its closest to earth and brightest, so look out for it in the eastern skies on your way home tonight

dark

techniques and devices used to detect nuclear weapons are being deployed in the search for dark matter – the mysterious material that makes up perhaps 25% of the universe but which we know almost nothing about. located in an abandoned mine nearly a mile underground beneath the Black Hills of South Dakota, the LUX experiment is shielded from cosmic rays by the rock, and immersed in a tank of ultra-pure de-ionized water to keep out stray radiation. beyond observing dark matter particle interactions, which have so far eluded direct detection, the experiment could lead to smaller, more capable devices for searching for rogue nuclear material

plant

an annual event since the early 1970s, the Tree Council’s National Tree Week has seen thousands of volunteers planting trees up and down the country. originally a response to the widespread devastation caused by Dutch elm disease, this year’s celebration takes place under the looming shadow of the Chalara fraxinea fungus – which threatens to wipe out most of the UK’s ash trees. you can help fight back by planting a tree, or for extra credit, becoming a tree warden

workshop: the monument

November 2012

we’re super excited about our first-ever schools workshop, created in collaboration with London Metropolitan University’s Sir John Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design. all next week, students will be designing a physical monument for visitors to experience 1000 years from now. using different materials and restricted only by size (10m x 10m x 10m), they’ll consider what materials will last so long, where to site their structure and how future people will experience and interpret their monument. contact Kaye Newman if you’re a student and would like to take part; we’ll also post some of the results here in due course

cretaceous

like dinosaurs? get yourself down to Protein‘s Hewett Street space for GIF masterminds Reed + Rader‘s first solo show in the UK – ‘Cretaceous Returns’. expect dubstep dinos, prehistoric paper foliage and primitive animation – plus signed Mini Dinosaur sculptures, limited edition video pieces and prints of the Brooklyn-based duo’s prehistoric world for some early Christmas shopping

dhcmrlchtdj

on now at London’s Red Gallery, this solo exhibition of works by Worlds in Transit participant Fritz Stolberg comprises two installation works and two new photographic series. as Stolberg explains, the title of the exhibition was taken from Jorge Luis Borges Library of Babel, which describes the universe as an infinite architecture of interlocking hexagonal rooms filled with books that contain every possible combination of 23 alphabetical letters read more

prototype

an urban laboratory in the desert north of Phoenix, Arcosanti is a living prototype for architect Paolo Soleri’s vision of a city set in – and in tune with – nature. combining architecture and ecology, the ‘Arcology’ is designed to eventually house 5000 people on 15 acres of land, instead of the usual 500 acres required by your average sprawling suburb. we’ve spent the past few days here interviewing the people who live here for a forthcoming piece in AnOther, so stay tuned for more photos soon

TARA party pics

as part of the TARA’s recent stopover in London, super/collider and AnOther Magazine teamed up to host a little soirée on board the French environmental research ship, which is sponsored by fashion house agnès b

after some drinks and nibbles, captain Loic Vallette and chief scientist Chris Bowler gave a talk about the vessel’s recent plankton-sampling voyage before leading tours above and below decks. you can read our full piece for AnOther right here and scroll down to see Amelia Karlsen‘s lovely photographs of the night

missed the boat? sign up for our mailing list and we’ll keep you posted on future events

big news this week from the La Silla Observatory in Chile, which has detected an earth-sized planet in the star system next door, Alpha Centauri. using the HARPS fibre-fed high resolution echelle spectrograph (as you do) the team monitored star Alpha Centauri B over the course of four years, watching for tiny fluctuations that reveal the presence of orbiting bodies. though the planet is far too hot to visit (and not yet 100% confirmed) news of a new world just 4.37 light years away has already got folks discussing the possibility of sending an interstellar probe to the system

crystalised

we’re not entirely sure what to expect from Cosmicmegabrain‘s group show in London this weekend, but if nothing else Emily Candela‘s krustapseudicals alone should make it worth seeking out. created live on the night, the (theoretically) edible crystals contain vitamins, minerals, proteins (harvested from the artist’s hair) and tiny amounts of skin and dental care products like lip gloss and mouthwash – what Emily calls “basically crystallisations of magazine articles offering beauty advice”

info on the event here, hat tip to (and full interview on) Dazed Digital

Tristram Lansdowne: islands in the sky

we first came across Canadian artist Tristram Lansdowne when his surreal island paradise graced the opening pages of Landfill Editions’ epic Mould Map project. now we’re wishing we lived in Toronto, as a retrospective of his meticulously hand-painted works opens, showcasing a breathtaking series of imagined worlds. since we don’t, we caught up with him via email to find out more about the natural inspiration behind his paintings
read more

radio silence

couldn’t not post an image from Derek Mead’s photographic tour of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s facility in West Virginia: a series of telescopes nestled amid lush forests and hills read more

science printing workshop

23 October 2012

as part of the ün-establishment series we’ll be bringing our new Risograph printer down to the Nicholls & Clarke building in Shoreditch for a Tuesday afternoon of science, art & craft. join our expert teachers Nancy Straughan and Ciara Phelan and learn how to create patterns, prints, collages and illustrated work using science textbooks and imagery as inspiration – then create your own on-the-spot prints

tara

after a voyage of more than 62,000 nautical miles, the French environmental research vessel TARA will next week dock in London as part of an ongoing educational sailing. we’ll be co-hosting an exclusive evening tour and talk onboard the ship with AnOther Magazine, and there are also a series of other events and an exhibition at the Covent Garden branch of agnès b, who have sponsored the two most recent expeditions: a two-year drift through the Arctic pack ice and a circumnavigation of the globe to study plankton. the following article appears in Issue 23 of AnOther, on newstands now

after touching down on the western side of Mars’ Chryse Planitia in 1976, the Viking 1 lander beamed back the first images from the surface of another planet read more

species of the week

the Shield mantis is just one of millions of species found in Yasuni National Park, Ecuador – one of the most biodiverse places on earth thanks in part to the fact it never froze over during the last ice age. the rainforested area is home to an incredible array of wildlife ranging from fish and birds to reptiles and amphibians, as well as several uncontacted human tribes read more

Neptune rising

with the skies darkening and the most distant planet in our solar system shining high in the sky, we thought the next few weeks would be a good time to launch our new Pop-Up Astronomy Club – a series of impromptu events around East London that take place when there’s something good to see and the skies are clear. our first target will be Neptune, which reaches opposition tonight – making it brighter and easier to see. if you’d like to come see it with us in the coming weeks, check out the project page for more

ps: it will look nothing like this image

descent

early next Monday morning, 154 million miles from earth, a white and gold UFO-shaped spacecraft will hit the Martian atmosphere traveling at nearly 6km per second. after some hypersonic aeromaneuvering (as you do) NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory will deploy this parachute – the largest ever made to fly on an extraterrestrial flight – and start its treacherous final descent. if all goes to plan, a series of rockets will then fire to slow the craft down, enabling it to lower a 1-ton rover called Curiosity towards the surface. if it makes it, the SUV-sized rover will spend the next Martian year (687 Earth days) exploring the Gale Crater for signs of life

you can watch the landing, scheduled for 6:31am GMT on Monday August 6, on NASA TV

airspace

the city’s streets can seem like a no-fly zone sometimes, but the air around us is alive with often-unseen fellow urbanites – and this week brings two chances to learn more about species who overfly us daily and nightly. the first is Jeremy Deller’s new collaboration with bat scientist Kate Jones for Invisible Dust: a series of walks around East London’s Greenway to look for (and listen to) bats. then on Thursday lunchtime, The Honey Club will be outlining their plans to create the biggest bee-friendly community in the world in King’s Cross. the event is the first in a summer series at the King’s Cross Filling Station – a new public space and pop-up restaurant which will also see events from Wired, Wallpaper* and something called super/collider

hello

good news for native wildlife this week with the release of 34 frankly adorable dormice into the Warwickshire countryside as part the PTES National Dormouse Monitoring Programme – the world’s longest running national mammal monitoring project. such reintroductions are only done in areas where historical populations of dormice have become extinct and where the woodland and hedgerows have been managed to encourage native species like this little fella. if you don’t know the People’s Trust for Endangered Species, check out their wildlife encounters programme, where you can go walking with wolves, hedgehog tracking or cruising for basking sharks

image: British Wildlife Centre

Worlds In Transit

in June 2012, super/collider invited a group of artists, filmmakers, astronomers, photographers, choreographers and curators to join us in the remote Swedish wilderness to witness a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event: the transit of Venus. from our pristine vantage point amid the forests and fields, we watched as the planet Venus passed between the earth and the sun – its tiny black disk revealing the true scale of the solar system

the participants observations and work will form the basis of a publication and exhibition in London opening on 6 June 2013 – one year on from the transit. you can subscribe for updates, and we’ve posted a small selection of photos from the trip on Flickr in the meantime

space camp

Mars missions have already been simulated in the Canadian Arctic, off the coast of Florida, in the deserts of Utah and most recently inside an Austrian ice cave, but none look as fun as the one currently underway on New York’s Upper East Side read more

species of the week

Lycoperdon perlatum (syn. Lycoperdon gemmatum) (common puffball, warted puffball, gem-studded puffball)

the surface of this mushroom is described, variously, as being covered in warts, spiny bumps, jewels or spikes. early on, when still crisp and white, these mushrooms are edible, with an apparently aromatic taste to them. when older, the matured and now slightly brown-colored puffball reproduces by opening its upper surface to liberate and disperse spores

warning: super/collider does not recommend eating wild mushrooms unless you are an expert, as many poisonous varieties resemble edible ones

image: Daniel Ullrich

pressure

incrementally flowing down into valleys, lakes and oceans, the slow motion march of glaciers has etched the earth’s surface for eons – but today these remote white worlds are under threat. with the puzzling exception of the Karakoram range, the world’s glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate, with geologists predicting that some of Africa’s little-known ones could disappear completely before the decade is out

created by the accumulation of snow over centuries, glaciers are found on every continent bar Australia. surprisingly, many remain unmapped and unphotographed, which is where Project Pressure comes in. founded in 2008 by lifestyle photographer Klaus Thymann, the not-for-profit initiative is slowly creating an archive of glacier photography which will form the basis of a touring exhibition and global glacier atlas. working in collaboration with the World Glacier Monitoring Service and NASA, the project carefully records GPS co-ordinates to compare glacial retreat, and has been recognised as an official contributor to the Global Terrestrial Network for Glaciers

with a focus on endangered and ignored glaciers, the project has already documented areas of Alaska, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Greenland, Iceland, Montana, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the Rwenzori mountains that straddle the DRC and Uganda. in May, super/collider will be sponsoring and accompanying Project Pressure’s first expedition to Asia – first to the Lirung glacier in Nepal, then on up the valley towards the more remote (and unnamed) ice packs closer to China – so stay tuned

image: the Spegazzini glacier in Argentina photographed by Project Pressure in 2008

species of the week

Cephea cephea

the jellyfish Cephea cephea is captured here in the mobile stage of its life cycle. the term jellyfish or medusa only refers to the free-swimming members of the greater phylum of Cnideria, whereas when attached to the sea-bed, they are called polyps. instead of tentacles they have eight highly-branched oral arms, along which there are suctorial mini-mouth orifices. Cephea cephea wafts in the tropical water of the Indo-Western Pacific, and is fished for cooking purposes despite consisting of up to 98% water

the Handcrafted Particle Accelerator

what if we could look ourselves up in a parallel universe? what if we could predict our future using DNA? what if we could build a particle accelerator at home? UK-based designer Patrick Stevenson-Keating creates projects which not only solve problems, but ask questions. for Milan Design Week, we teamed up with him to create the world’s first handcrafted glass particle accelerator read more

Ulysses

of all the lovely stuff on show at Pick Me Up to choose from, we’re totally loving the cosmic back-story behind Miles Donovan’s Ulysses collages. inspired by the NASA space probe and its Jupiter-assisted plane change and subsequent trans-solar adventures, the series presents an alternate take on the spacecraft’s wandering journey around the Jovian system, past Comet Hyakutale and out into the unknown

related: voyage / summit

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