SuperForest

This week has been a little music festival at SuperForest hasn’t it? I’ll keep the train rolling.

SuperForester Carla asked me nicely to repost my comment from Jackson’s beautiful post, and I obliged:

Hi there SuperForest,

I’ve noticed that we’ve been posting a lot of music mash-ups lately and that being so, it’s rather awesome that this lovely video found its way back into my hands. About a month ago one of my teachers showed my class this great video and just now, Carla shared it with me once again. I’m not one to take coincidences lightly, so I’m assuming this reoccurrence is the Universe’s way of telling me it belongs on SuperForest.

The Playing For Change Foundation provides resources to musicians and communities throughout the world. Last year, they released a documentary film titled “Peace Through Music“. In its essence, this film highlights the simple, but transformative power of music and attempts to emphasize our commonalities as human beings living on this planet. It brought together musicians from all over the world; some well known, others, street artists and mixes their different sounds to form cohesive beautiful remixes of well known songs.

Their first piece, “Stand By Me”, pretty much sums it all up beautifully. For those of you who haven’t seen it already, believe me when I say it is truly a treasure.

Have a great day,
-iman

On the last day of every month SuperForester Julius presents a monthly recap of the most amazing happenings in the world of science, technology and computing. Julius is currently in his last year of High school and plans on enrolling the Applied Physics bachelor this September.

Blood power

Certain materials have the property that they generate electricity of they are moved, they’re called piezo electrics. This movement can be anything, from a whispering wind to a human being shaking it. I won’t talk about the way those materials work here, rather I’m going to talk about an interesting application; blood.

At the Georgia Institute of Technology professor Zhong Lin Wang and his nano-research group discovered an interesting nano-material. Not surprisingly it has got those piezo electric properties. It’s a real small crystal and it’s diameter varies from 1/25th to 1/5,000th of a human hair, which is of course extremely small. As always I love nano-art (pictures taken from tiny winy things, for example this Nanobama), so I am pretty fond of this picture of this nano-piezo-crystal.

Isn’t mother nature amazing at a beyond-microscopical level? Thought so. But the most interesting thing about this discovery is that it’s got a very neat application: human veins, arteries and capillaries! In the future it might be possible to put this crystal inside your arteries where it can generate power from your bloodstream. So you might be able to charge your iPod from your own body! Though iPod-charging probably isn’t the most interesting application, the real nifty applications lie in the medical world.

Small devices that are embedded into your body – such as pacemakers – will be able to get their electricity needs from your bloodstream. This technology is just taking it’s baby steps, but it could offer tremendous possibilities in the future.

Duckweed ‘eats’ pig poo

I reckon pigs may not be all too popular at the time of writing this post, but their excrement (difficult word for poo) contains a lot of nutrients – nutrients for plants that is. And currently the entire world where animal farming is applied on an industrial level has got somewhat of a problem with the excess of poo. Because we have an awful lot of it we use it to fertilize acres of land, but with a bit of bad luck the nutrients in the poo make it into the surface waters (first it sinks in the groundwater). Then this surface water becomes ‘nutrient rich’ – you might think “what’s wrong about that?” well, most water plants have adapted themselves to nutrient poor waters. So when the water becomes nutrient rich all sorts of other plant species start to develop in the water and the original species die. The result is that the water becomes foggy which leads to a lower oxygen production in the water which causes the fish in it to die; all thanks to our excess of pig poo.

Jay J. Cheng, a smart Environmental Engineering professor connected to the University of Rayleigh, may have found a way to solve the problem: duckweed.

This small plant is able to ‘digest’ the pig waste at tremendous speeds. Besides that it’s got another tremendous advantage for mankind, duckweed can store at least for times more starch per surface unit then regular crops, this makes the plant a good candidate for biofuel.

Biofuel has been somewhat of a controversy lately, because the crops that are grown on acres are used for our fuel, while they could serve a better goal as food for Africa. This problem wouldn’t be apparent with duckweed, because it grows on/in water and it’s four time more efficient!

Cheng has been conducting some experiments on small scale with this concept and the first results are good, it’s working! So together with algae, the sun, the wind and hydrogen duckweed has the future.

Astronomers see the furthest object in the universe

When you are stargazing you don’t see a ‘live-view’ of the stars – some may already be familiar with this concept – instead you see a picture that can be hundreds or thousands of years old.

This all has to do with the distance between us and the star, this distance is sometimes so huge that it takes light years to make the journey. A term that is directly linked to this idea is lightyear, astronauts came up with it when they had to describe the distances from us to various stars. One lightyear is the length light travels in one year, in other words: if you’re traveling at the speed of light it would take an entire year to complete the distance.

And now astronomers have discovers the most distant object in space, at an amazing 13 billion lightyears. For astronomers this offers an interesting possibility, because the rays they receive from this star was emitted 13 billion years ago (way before the Earth found it’s creation). And with stellar objects like this one scientists can ‘look back’ into the history of the universe, and perhaps find out something more about it’s origination.

The second most distant object is a star too, but it’s ‘just’ 160 million lightyears away – just to give an indication of how special this discovery is. Thank you NASA!

That rounds it up for April’s Most Amazing Science. Of course, not everything could have been covered. But if you feel like I’ve missed out on something enormous feel free to share your scientific news of last month in the comments section. And if you feel the urge to share your thoughts about anything that got covered the comments section is opened too! Have an awesome Thursday!

Okay, I know what you are all thinking… “isn’t Mother Teresa a little too obvious for Thursday’s Inspiration?  So far SuperForester Aaron has done such a good job finding, unique and lesser known stories to bring to light.”

Yes I agree, Mother Teresa is a bit obvious (she is after all on the fast track to becoming a saint), but it’s important not to overlook or dismiss the obvious, especially when her life is such an obvious and profound source of positivity in the world.

Whether you are religious, spiritual, even just plain cynical… it is hard to deny the sweeping affect this one little nun has had on a staggering amount of humans worldwide.

Let’s just look at the numbers shall we? What started as a personal Mission to teach in Calcutta in 1929, and later became a one woman campaign to feed and care for the most destitute children in the city slums… has now turned into one of the largest Aids organizations in the world — The Missionaries of Charity.

Where the first mission had only 13 members, today there are over 513 missions, with over 4000 nuns running orphanages, Aids hospices and and refugee centers in more than 100 countries.

And it all began with one woman who saw someone in need and knew she could help. A single woman, reaching out her hand to another individual and offering food, shelter, love.

But that’s not why I love Mother Teresa so much. For me, it is not just what she accomplished, but how she accomplished it.  You may not know this about her, but this is a woman who struggled everyday with her faith. A saint who questioned constantly the purpose of her missions… her very belief in God. And for me this makes her all the more extraordinary, for how ordinarily human she was.

She wasn’t blessed with divine grace or miraculous powers… at least, not in her own mind. She was only doing what she felt right. Following the inner spark within herself that told her to continue, in spite of all odds.

But even this isn’t why I love Mother Teresa so much. The reason I love Mother Teresa so much is for the beautiful, simple mantra she put on the wall of her children’s home in calcutta.

“DO IT ANYWAY”

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

I think it is important to remember that all great inspiration comes from little seeds of kindness. And that everyone, no matter who they are, deserves a little kindness everyday.

So go be kind SuperForest. A good word, a right deed. Even if it isn’t appreciated or acknowledged. do it anyway.

-Aaron

Good evening, SuperForest!

Just a moment ago, I discovered the wicked fun creation of Mr. Aaron Meyers.

It’s called YouCube, and as the name suggests, it basically takes six Youtube videos and plays each one on a surface of a floating cube. You then take your mouse, click and drag to flip it all around and can watch and listen to the videos as they play!

It sounds complicated…and it probably really is, I have no idea how Mr. Meyers came up with this ingeneous concept but boy, is it fun to play with!

Yesterday, SuperForester Jackson put up a post about 3 amazing musical happenings. While reading that post, I was able to reflect on how creative masterminds are able to combine their powers with today’s technology to create astonishing sounds and music. So after playing around for a few minutes on YouCube, I decided to create a little music mash up of my own. It’s quite horrible, and is very loud, but I love it! For lack of a better name, I called it “Chaos” and you can play it here!

Fun! With a bit of time and a sprinkle of love, I bet you can make an even better one. And if you do, could you please share it with us? Thanks!

Get busy creating your own funky fresh YouCube by clicking here!

Love!
Carla

Good morning, SuperForest!

This is my brother. The one, the only, SuperForester Will. One of the most capable human beings I’m lucky enough to know.

Being wicked smart and generous, Wiggles (as I like to call him) has offered to rock the paperwork to have SuperForest officially declared a non-profit! So hopefully before the year is out, SuperForest will be a federally recognized non-profit organization.

So very exciting!

Thank you in advance, brother.

Love,

Jackson

(MLK image mash-up by me and an unknown police photographer)

I never in my wildest dreams thought that Martin Luther King Jr. would sing one of my favorite songs, but here we are. The Gregory Brothers remixed and autotuned the “I Have a Dream” speech into a total gem of a pop song. A pop song that I cannot stop listening to or get out of my head!

Here it is:

What I love most about this song is the way it has made certain phrases from the speech so easy to remember… From “Every valley shall be exalted!” to “My children will not be judged by the color of their skin,” to “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice…”  MLK’s words have now sunk deep into my psyche using the power of music. Impressive.

Imagine the Bill of Rights cleverly mixed into a bumping track. Or the plays of Shakespeare listed as a part of a rap!

I really love what the Gregory Brothers have done here. Great work, Gentlemen!

And earlier this year Israeli DJ Kutiman scoured youtube for sound bites, and combined them all into a 7 song album that rocks so hard it’ll polish your silverware.

Here dat:

And earlier still, Gregg Gillis (aka Girl Talk) showed how fun it could be to cleverly mash up popular songs, keep thing surprising, and get crowds around the world dancing like madmen and madwomen. Great fun.

Looky:

Music is so fun right now! So many cool things happening! So many new ideas flowing.

Awesome.

Gooooooooooood Moooooooooorrrrning SuperForest!

Today we welcome SuperForester Jo to Team SuperForest. Miss Joanna and I have been friends since forever and she’s going to make an incredible addition to this blog.

Jo, SuperForest. SuperForest, Jo!

Yay!

-Jackson

Greetings Super pals!
I saw this video through likeCOOL and thought it would be terribly selfish of me not to share it with you all. The ingenuity and genius of this video by Evelien Lohbeck speaks for itself, check it out:

Make sure to check out her website which displays her other awesome videos and clever photographs!

Have a wonderful start to your wonderful week,
-iman

(image via flickr user farm4)

What is it?
Launched in 08 in Paris and DC, it is the first self-service public bike-rental service. It was built to enhance each city’s public transportation system.

How it works: Each subscriber gets a card for $40/year. Go to a bike docking station, swipe your card and retrieve your bike. Ride to another station that’s where you need to get to, insert your card and park the bike at the docking station. It’s easy!

Docking locations: Available at www.smartbikedc.com

The Bikes: They are ergonomic, strong, and light weight. They are clearly labeled as Smartbikes and are bright red.

Why this is a wonderful program: The reasons are a-plenty. 1) It cuts back on carbon emissions b/c bikes don’t use gas. 2) If you live in the city with no car, it can make things a lot less expensive. Cabs cost money. If you DO have a car, well…it sure beats trying to find parking in DC. That can be a huge bummer. 3) It gets you out and about in beautiful summer time weather and gives you a little exercise. It’s a win, win, win. 4) If people in Paris do it, then you know it’s cool.

Peace and LOVE,

jo