All posts tagged: created

The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants: Explore the 1977 Illustrated Guide Created by Harvard’s Groundbreaking Ethnobotanist Richard Evan Schultes

The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants: Explore the 1977 Illustrated Guide Created by Harvard’s Groundbreaking Ethnobotanist Richard Evan Schultes

Published by José

I mean, the idea that you would give a psychedelic—in this case, mag­ic mush­rooms or the chem­i­cal called psilo­cy­bin that’s derived from mag­ic mushrooms—to peo­ple dying of can­cer, peo­ple with ter­mi­nal diag­noses, to help them deal with their — what’s called exis­ten­tial dis­tress. And this seemed like such a crazy idea that I began look­ing into it. Why should a drug from a mush­room help peo­ple deal with their mor­tal­i­ty? –Michael Pol­lan in an inter­view with Ter­ry Gross, “‘Reluc­tant Psy­cho­naut’ Michael Pol­lan Embraces ‘New Sci­ence’ Of Psy­che­delics” Around the same time Albert Hof­mann syn­the­sized LSD in the ear­ly 1940s, a pio­neer­ing eth­nob­otanist, writer, and pho­tog­ra­ph­er named Richard Evan Schultes set out “on a mis­sion to study how indige­nous peo­ples” in the Ama­zon rain­for­est “used plants for med­i­c­i­nal, rit­u­al and prac­ti­cal pur­pos­es,” as an exten­sive his­to­ry of Schultes’ trav­els notes. “He went on to spend over a decade immersed in near-con­tin­u­ous field­work, col­lect­ing more than 24,000 species of plants includ­ing some 300 species new to sci­ence.” Described by Jonathan Kan­dell as “swash­buck­ling” in a 2001 New …

Scientists created the world’s thinnest spaghetti

Scientists created the world’s thinnest spaghetti

Published by skeptic

The next wave of nanotechnology is emerging from an unexpected place—the kitchen pantry. A research team at University College London (UCL) has crafted the world’s thinnest spaghetti using wheat flour, with each strand measuring just 372 nanometers across. This isn’t a culinary experiment but a groundbreaking step toward eco-friendly nanofibers that could revolutionize fields like medicine, energy, and materials science. The Promise of Starch Nanofibers Starch, produced by most green plants, is the second most abundant biomass on Earth after cellulose. Its role as a natural polymer makes it an attractive material for nanotechnology. Various pasta thicknesses. (CREDIT: UCL) Starch’s biodegradable and biocompatible nature, coupled with its mechanical flexibility and ability to be chemically modified, positions it as a critical resource for applications ranging from wound dressings to energy storage. Nanofibers made from starch offer unique properties: their high surface area makes them ideal for biomedical uses, such as drug delivery, tissue scaffolding, and advanced filtration systems. However, creating starch nanofibers at scale has been limited by the energy-intensive and wasteful process of starch extraction …

A New 3D Scan, Created from 25,000 High-Resolution Images, Reveals the Remarkably Well-Preserved Wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance

A New 3D Scan, Created from 25,000 High-Resolution Images, Reveals the Remarkably Well-Preserved Wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance

Published by José

Pho­tos on this page cour­tesy of the Falk­lands Mar­itime Her­itage  Few who hear the sto­ry of the Endurance could avoid reflect­ing on the apt­ness of the ship’s name. A year after set­ting out on the Impe­r­i­al Trans-Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion in 1914, it got stuck in a mass of drift­ing ice off Antarc­ti­ca. There it remained for ten months, while leader Sir Ernest Shack­le­ton and his crew of 27 men wait­ed for a thaw. But the Endurance was being slow­ly crushed, and even­tu­al­ly had to be left to its watery grave. What secures its place in the his­to­ry books is the sub-expe­di­tion made by Shack­le­ton and five oth­ers in search of help, which ensured the res­cue of every sin­gle man who’d been on the ship. This har­row­ing jour­ney has, of course, inspired doc­u­men­taries, includ­ing this year’s Endurance from Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, which debuted at the Lon­don Film Fes­ti­val last month and will come avail­able to stream on Dis­ney+ lat­er this fall. “The doc­u­men­tary incor­po­rates footage and pho­tos cap­tured dur­ing the expe­di­tion by Aus­tralian pho­tog­ra­ph­er Frank Hur­ley, who [in 1914] brought sev­er­al cam­eras along for the …

The Mushroom Color Atlas: An Interactive Web Site Lets You Explore the Incredible Spectrum of Colors Created from Fungi

The Mushroom Color Atlas: An Interactive Web Site Lets You Explore the Incredible Spectrum of Colors Created from Fungi

Published by José

Enter the Mush­room Col­or Atlas, and you can dis­cov­er the “beau­ti­ful and sub­tle col­ors derived from dye­ing with mush­rooms.” Fea­tur­ing 825 col­ors, each asso­ci­at­ed with dif­fer­ent types of mush­rooms, the inter­ac­tive atlas lets you appre­ci­ate the broad spec­trum of col­ors latent in the fun­gi king­dom. The shades, tints, and hues will sur­prise you. Julie Beel­er, a design­er liv­ing in Ore­gon, first launched the inter­ac­tive Mush­room Col­or Atlas back in 2021. Now, she has released a com­pan­ion book, The Mush­room Col­or Atlas: A Guide to Dyes and Pig­ments Made from Fun­gi. Illus­trat­ed by Yuli Gates, the book is “equal parts art book, field guide, and col­or dis­til­la­tion work­shop.” You can order your copy today. The same goes for a Mush­room Col­or Atlas poster. If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon. If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions …

How Man Ray Reinvented Himself & Created One of the Most Iconic Works of Surrealist Photography

How Man Ray Reinvented Himself & Created One of the Most Iconic Works of Surrealist Photography

Published by José

It would sur­prise none of us to encounter a young artist look­ing to cast off his past and make his mark on the cul­ture in a place like Williams­burg. But in the case of Man Ray, Williams­burg was his past. One must remem­ber that the Brook­lyn of today bears lit­tle resem­blance to the Brook­lyn of the ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry in which the famed avant-gardist grew up. Back then, he was known as Emmanuel Rad­nitzky, the son of immi­grant gar­ment work­ers. It was after he took up the art life in Man­hat­tan that he met the gal­lerist Alfred Stieglitz, form­ing an asso­ci­a­tion that would begin his trans­for­ma­tion from aspir­ing painter into form-chang­ing pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Inspired by Mar­cel Ducham­p’s Nude Descend­ing a Stair­case, No. 2 after see­ing it at the epoch-mak­ing 1913 Armory Show, Ray befriend­ed the artist him­self. Despite its con­sid­er­able lan­guage bar­ri­er, this rela­tion­ship gave him a way into the lib­er­at­ing realms of sur­re­al­ism in gen­er­al and Dada in par­tic­u­lar. “The move­men­t’s refusal to be defined or cod­i­fied gave Ray the ratio­nale to leave his for­mer life …

Private Snafu: The World War II Propaganda Cartoons Created by Dr. Seuss, Frank Capra & Mel Blanc

Private Snafu: The World War II Propaganda Cartoons Created by Dr. Seuss, Frank Capra & Mel Blanc

Published by José

Pri­vate Sna­fu was the U.S. Army’s worst sol­dier. He was slop­py, lazy and prone to shoot­ing off his mouth to Nazi agents. And he was huge­ly pop­u­lar with his fel­low GIs. Pri­vate Sna­fu was, of course, an ani­mat­ed car­toon char­ac­ter designed for the mil­i­tary recruits. He was an adorable dolt who sound­ed like Bugs Bun­ny and looked a bit like Elmer Fudd. And in every episode, he taught sol­diers what not to do, from blab­bing about troop move­ments to not tak­ing malar­ia med­ica­tion. The idea for the series report­ed­ly came from Frank Capra — the Oscar-win­ning direc­tor of It’s a Won­der­ful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton and, dur­ing WWII, the chair­man of the U.S. Army Air Force First Motion Pic­ture Unit. He want­ed to cre­ate a car­toon series for new recruits, many of whom were young, unworld­ly and in some cas­es illit­er­ate. Capra gave Dis­ney first shot at devel­op­ing the idea but Warn­er Bros’ Leon Schlesinger, a man who was as famous for his hard-dri­ving busi­ness acu­men as he was for wear­ing exces­sive …

‘The gangs never used to kill children, now they do’: how cocaine created Argentina’s first narcocity | Global development

‘The gangs never used to kill children, now they do’: how cocaine created Argentina’s first narcocity | Global development

Published by skeptic

” frameBorder=”0″ class=”dcr-ivsjvk”> The victims included a petrol station worker and father, Bruno Bussanich, 25, who was shot three times at close range. Near his body a note addressed officials. “We don’t want to negotiate anything. We want our rights,” it said. “We will kill more innocent people.” Such notes have become a feature of Rosario’s gang disputes. In 2023, even the in-laws of the footballer Lionel Messi, who own a supermarket in the city, were targeted. Assailants fired 14 shots at the store and left a note reading: “Messi, we’re waiting for you.” Experts say the increasing flow of drugs through the city has also led to the “intense recruitment” of children. “Twenty years ago, football teams took the children to make them professionals, but now the gangs take the children,” says Gabriela Meglio, a deputy secretary of Amsafe Rosario, a teachers’ union. Luis Schiappa Pietra, an organised crime prosecutor, said the children on trial were getting “younger and younger”. “Now they are 14, 15 – mostly poor boys who want an identity, to …

Apple Created These Five Different Designs for Apple Pencil Pro’s Box

Apple Created These Five Different Designs for Apple Pencil Pro’s Box

Published by skeptic

In addition to new features like a squeeze gesture, gyroscope, and Find My support, it turns out that the Apple Pencil Pro has a fun packaging twist. As noted by Arun Maini and Nikias Molina, Apple has created five different box designs for the Apple Pencil Pro, each with the word “Pro” in a unique style. When you buy an Apple Pencil Pro, you will receive one of the five boxes at random. Thought this was pretty fun The Apple Pencil Pro has 5 different types of box and you have no idea which you’ll get when you order it Also each one has the word “Pro” on it in some shape or form pic.twitter.com/1QQO5akZWW — Arun Maini (@Mrwhosetheboss) May 8, 2024 Key new features of the Apple Pencil Pro include the ability to squeeze the accessory to bring up a tool palette, a gyroscope that allows users to roll the Apple Pencil Pro for precise control of shaped pen and brush tools, haptic feedback for certain actions, and the ability to find the Apple …

Artists created images of Christ that focused on reflecting different communities

Artists created images of Christ that focused on reflecting different communities

Published by Sam

(The Conversation) — In 1915, Norwegian artist Emanuel Vigeland, one of the most respected Scandinavian artists of his time, created an image of Christ with golden hair and fair skin. Vigeland was well aware of a widely popular Bible illustrated by French artist James Tissot showing Christ as Middle Eastern with dark hair and brown skin. Tissot had spent many years in the Holy Land in the late 19th century, researching the “historical Jesus” as part of a new group of artists looking for historical accuracy. Vigeland, however, was seeking a different tradition, one that saw a picture of Christ not as a photographic truth but as an image that communicated to the Norwegian community that Jesus was a brother. Vigeland shows a handsome youth in front of a landscape of the New Jerusalem as described in the Bible. He used the elegant style of the day, art nouveau, to appeal to his modern community, helping the Norwegian onlooker bond with the image. In my work as a religious history scholar, I’ve learned that throughout …