Mushroom Lights Up the Night in Brazil: Researcher Finds Bioluminescent Fungus Not Seen Since 1840
ScienceDaily (July 6, 2011) — In 1840, renowned English botanist George Gardner reported a strange sight from the streets of Vila de Natividade in Brazil: A group of boys playing with a glowing object that turned out to be a luminescent mushroom. They called it "flor-de-coco," and showed Gardner where it grew on decaying fronds at the base of a dwarf palm. Gardner sent the mushroom to the Kew Herbarium in England where it was described and named Agaricus gardneri in honor of its discoverer. The species was not seen again until 2009.
"Like all other organisms in which it occurs, bioluminescence in fungi is an oxygen-dependent reaction involving substrates generically termed luciferans, which is catalyzed by one or more of an assortment of unrelated enzymes referred to as luciferases. In fungi, both the luciferans and luciferases involved remain largely unidentified. During the luciferan-luciferase reaction, unstable chemical intermediates are produced. As these intermediates decompose excess energy is released as light emission, causing the tissues in which this reaction occurs to glow or luminesce. Although the older literature reports some fungal species as producing white or blue light, all recent studies and observations indicate that bioluminescent fungi emit a greenish light with a maximum around 520-530 nm."
As a mathematical mainframe to design the volumetric base of Instants of Metamorphosis v.01, we have the Ulam Spiral. The installation will be presented at the ABCIBER 2011 conference and exhibition next November in Florianopolis, Brazil:
Abstract: Stanislaw Ulam’s (1964: 516) most general observation on his famous spiral, that a “property of the visual brain” allows patterns relating to the characteristics of primes to be discovered, may indeed stimulate the mathematical imagination, and inspire further creative attempts at visual pattern recognition in this area, but his spiral (fig.1), like its derivatives, has yet to be successfully interpreted in terms of possible arithmetic principles that can explain the genesis of the known distribution of prime numbers. Of his spiral he says only that it “appears to exhibit a strongly nonrandom appearance” (Stein et al. 1964). A corollary of this somewhat disappointing observation is that Euler’s pessimistic prognosis has yet to be disproved: “Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the mind will never penetrate” (cited by Ivars Peterson in Science News, 5/4/2002). The Encyclopædia Britannica (2004) continues to suggest this consensus is alive and well, referring in an article entitled “Elementary Number Theory” to “the irregularity in the distribution of primes” which “suggests that there is no simple formula for producing all the primes.”
This month we have two invited temporary members who started working with The Double Collective to develop part of their undergrad research project I'm supervising - Erica Monteiro and Flavio Santos. They will be involved in the production of Instants of Metamorphosis v.03 including the managing of the 3D online shared environment, aim in to produce a theoretical reflection about the creative process itself from a metapoint of view (Edgar Morin, 1977).
First of all, they have to learn about the Open Wonderland Platform. Here we have a few tips:
Using Google 3D Warehouse Content in Project Wonderland:
and
Using the Kinect as input for Open Wonderland with the FAAST toolkit:
and one more:
Using an empty module to bootstrap development with Open Wonderland:
Last Monday I was talking with a new friend (Milena Zafir) about the structural similarities between the church and the academy. She suggested me to read "Michel Foucault – from “The Order of Discourse” (Michel Foucault, from “The Order of Discourse” R. Young, ed. Untying the Text (1971). We were in a garden, talking and drinking beer after a frustrating talk of Don Buchla, at the School of Communications and Arts, University of Sao Paulo. I was reading the small book today while traveling form Sao Paulo to Limeira.
In reply to the following FB post by Professor James K Gimzewski:
(JAmes K Gimzewski) If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. 12 June at 11:40
I wrote:
(Clarissa Ribeiro) and when we hard believe we are telling the truth but we are inventing realities? 12 June at 14:57 · Like · 1 person
Venkatram Dattu wrote the following replying to my reply:
(Venkatram Dattu)Rashomon effect ....... 12 June at 21:29 · Like · 1 person
Googling "Rashomon effect", I selected a few references, including the trailer of the film "Rashomon" (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)and an interesting paper of two Harvard University researchers:
The Rashomon Effect: Combining Positivist and Interpretivist Approaches in the Analysis of Contested Events. by WENDY D. ROTH and JAL D. MEHTA Harvard University Abstract: Positivist and interpretivist analytical approaches are frequently believed to be incompatible as research strategies and ways of understanding the world. This article argues that not only may versions of positivism and interpretivism be combined in the analysis of contested events, but this combination can further the goals of both approaches by contributing information that may have been missed by adopting only one perspective. The authors illustrate this using two case studies of lethal school shootings near Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas, and introduce methodological strategies to manage potential biases that may lead to contradictory testimony. However, these same contradictions act as distinct data points from the interpretivist perspective, offering insight into the cultural understandings of a community. The authors develop new forms of triangulation that are tailored to these research goals and illustrate how, just as positivist analysis may be used to aid interpretivism, an interpretive understanding of a community may be necessary to develop causal theories of contested events such as school shootings.
This the video Ralf Flôres posted last week on FB: "Ralf Flôres Clarissa Ribeiro Pra semana das ligações interestaduais, falsários em missões possíveis, banco que rouba, banda dos desafinados, risadas na madrugada, batidas no trânsito, corrida do rodízio, kibe do Jaber..." Friday 10:40
A starting point to the EyeTracking-ChaoticNarratives adventures...
The following form will be used at the Voodoohop to run the dynamic of collecting antenarratives:
Instantes de Metamorfose I Voodoohop, 21 Janeiro de 2011, São Paulo
Dinâmicas de desenho e escrita emergente são a base do processo de colecionar/construir os espaços estoricizados. A coleção de espaços estoricizados objetiva tornar visível a dinâmica sistêmica. É a partir dessa coleção de espaços estoricizados que é possível construir novas narrativas observando as relações entre as partes, entre partes e todo, entre todo e ambiente. Os espaços estoricizados serão agrupados em 7 (sete) instâncias de organização e significado em uma estrutura que é um sistema dentro do sistema-processo criativo. As instâncias são – impressão, atenção, memória, comparação, julgamento, reflexão, e imaginação e a dinâmica contempla as seguintes etapas: 1) Impressão (desenhos emergente produzido imediatamente após a experiência) 2) Atenção (escrita emergente produzida 10 minutos após a experiência e/ou gravação de vídeo com depoimento na forma de brainstorming) 3) Memória (escrita emergente e/ou desenho produzidos 1 (um) dia após a experiência) 4) Comparação (escrita emergente produzida 2 (dois) dias após a experiência combinada com a produção de um painel semântico) 5) Julgamento (escrita emergente produzida 3 (três) semana após a experiência) 6) Reflexão (escrita emergente produzida 5 (cinco) dias após a experiência) 7) Imaginação (escrita emergente e desenho produzidos 7 (sete) dias após a experiência)
Nome: Sobre você: E-mail: Facebook: concorda em participar da dinâmica via e-mail?
Instant of Metamorphosis 01 was installed for the first time in March 2010 at the Faculty of Administration and Arts building, Limeira, Sao Paulo Countryside, Brazil
Instants of Metamorphosis version 01, was exhibited from 01 October to 21 December 2010 at the FAAL - Faculty of Administration and Arts, city of Limeira, São Paulo countryside, Brazil. During this period The Double collective crew was involved in the dynamic of collecting antenarratives through emergent writing and drawing activities combined with video documentary. http://www.faal.com.br/
Here one idea that emerged concerning the base/stage to the interaction with the projections. The structure was composed by a series of small wooden planes fixed onto the ceiling. The planes could be moved by the audience being interconnected by a set of pulleys. Nevertheless, in the end, the wooden kinetic structure was becoming more evident than the performance projection. The idea was to make the material part of the work 'disappear'...
Here another previous idea suggested by Graziele Lutenschlaeger:
Here we have the sketches of the instructions to the video documentation production that were sent to Renata La Rocca in Brazil in March 2009 as a suggestion/orientation:
Talking about the mirrors, reflection, Jennifer Nikolov(a) mentioned the film "Arizona Dreams", mentioned it could be 'read' as a movie about the relation between a man a fish...Me and Renata La Rocca was discussing questions of reflection related to the installation Instants of Metamorphoses v.02 that will interfere and define the design of the installation's structure.
Listed bellow are some of the references brought by the participant N.H. in the dynamics of collecting antenarratives / Instants of Metamorphosis version 01. December 2010
The first reference was the book Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror), by Comte de Lautréamont:
Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror) a poetic novel (or a long prose poem) consisting of six cantos. It was written between 1868 and 1869 by the Comte de Lautréamont, the pseudonym of Isidore Lucien Ducasse. Many of the surrealists (Salvador Dalí, André Breton, Antonin Artaud, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, etc.) during the early 1900s cited the novel as a major inspiration to their own works and Les Chants de Maldoror, and its protagonist Maldoror, have continued to fascinate people since its publication.
Here an Italian band of Death Rock named "Chants of Maldoror" I found when looking for the book via Google search engine:
The second reference was the experimental/horror film Begotten, 1991 , directed and written by E. Elias Merhige:
The film heavily deals with religion and the biblical story of the Creation. But as Merhige revealed during Q&A sessions, its primary inspiration was a near death experience he had when he was 19, after a car crash. The film features no dialogue, but rather uses harsh and uncompromising images of human pain and suffering to tell its tale. It also has no music, instead, the movie is accompanied by the sounds of crickets, and occasionally other sound effects such as grunting and thrashing. The film was shot on black and white reversal film, and then every frame was rephotographed for the look that is seen. The only colors are black and white. There are no half-tones. This is intended to add to the eerie atmosphere of the movie, as sometimes the viewer cannot always exactly make out what it is being shown, but can still infer a sense of suffering. The look of the film is described in the trailer as "a Rorschach test for the eye". Merhige said that for each minute of original film, it took up to 10 hours to rephotograph it for the look desired.
Two weeks after his experience in the isntallation Instants of Metamorphosis v.01, the participant sent the book "Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror), by Comte de Lautréamont (a translation to Portuguese) to Clarissa Ribeiro via Renata La Rocca.
Lautréamont, Conde de. Os Cantos de Maldoror. Tradução de Claudio Willer. São Paulo: Vertente Editora, 1970. (pseudônimo do poeta francês de origem uruguaia Isidore Ducasse)
ndopterygotes are those insects with distinctive larval, pupal, and adult stages. Their name (endo = within, pterygos = wing) refers to the fact that in later immature stages the wing buds are not evident externally, but instead the future wing tissues are entirely internalized; they make their first external appearance in the penultimate (pupal) stage. In contrast, other winged insects (for example, bugs) have external wing buds in instars before the penultimate.
Another name for this group is Holometabola, referring to the "complete metamorphosis" of the species; that is, the dramatic changes between larval, pupal, and adult stages.
Four of the five largest orders of insects belong to this group (Coleoptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, and Diptera).
