CAUTION // FLASHING LIGHTS @caution-flashinglights - Tumblr Blog

Law of life

The second law of thermodynamics (entropy) is the first law of life. If you do nothing, entropy will take its course, and you will move toward a higher state of disorder that ends in death. So our most basic purpose in life is to combat entropy by doing something “extropic”—expending energy to survive and flourish.

artandsciencejournal

Earthshine

Tomoko Konoike’s exhibition, Earthshine, incorporates elements of traditional Japanese culture with a contemporary style to create a dreamy, otherworldly dimension. The works exhibited include an animation, sculptures, drawings, photographs, and a traditional Japanese paper folding screen. Konoike drew inspiration from traditional sources such as ancient Japanese animistic cultures and Noh drama, and modern sources such as pop culture.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating pieces of Konoike’s exhibition is Donning Animal Skins and Braided Grass, an enchanting six-legged wolf covered in glass shards. Wolves, which are extinct in Japan, are a recurring figure in the artist’s work. The dazzling life-sized wolf’s crystalline body creates a beautiful and surreal landscape akin to a forest or perhaps outer space. Earthshine is on display at Gallery Wendi Norris in San Francisco until October 26.

(Sources: Hi-Fructose/Blouin ArtInfo)

-Janine Truong

odditiesoflife

Abandoned Building 25 at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center

Located in Queens Village, New York, Building 25 at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center has sat abandoned and rotting since 1974. While all of the other buildings of the facility were sold off or demolished, this building remains. For almost four decades, Building 25 still stands, ignored and decaying.

Originally, the open land was owned by the Creed family and was purchased by the New York State Legislature in 1870 to house the New York State National Guard. After four decades of complaints about random long range bullets flying into surrounding areas, the National Guard abandoned the buildings in 1912. At that time, Creedmoor State Hospital opened as a farm colony for then Brooklyn State Hospital, with patients working on the farmland for treatment and room and board. Creedmoor was a state-run hospital for the mentally ill.

From 1918 to 1974, the population grew from several hundred to over five thousand patients. Through the decades, a large number of violent criminals were sent there and allowed to wander the grounds freely, with some easily escaping. With reports of rape, assault, suicides, fires and burglaries, the institution was out of control. In addition, complaints of patient abuse by staff and unsanitary living conditions added to the already horrid and unsafe living conditions at the hospital.

By 1974, Creedmoor Psychiatric Center was closed with all of the grounds and buildings vacated and sold, all except Building 25. To this day, the building stands abandoned and ignored by the state. Why buildings like this are allowed to stand deserted and rotting for decades can only be answered by their owners.

original article and photographs by Hannah Frishberg

vicforprez

rorschachx

Illustrative picture of wave-particle duality , which shows how the same phenomenon can be perceived in two different ways.

thevuas

caution-flashinglights

Where's Waldo with AUDI Armada

8bitfuture

Tiny implant can transmit realtime blood data to your doctor.

Researchers at Switzerlands EPFL have demonstrated a 14mm long implant, able to analyse up to five proteins and organic acids in the blood simultaneously, and transmit the data to a doctor.

The data transmission works in several stages, with the implant using radio waves to transmit to a patch on the skin (which also provides power back to the implant through the patients skin). The patch then uses bluetooth to transmit data to a smartphone, which can then feed it into a web-based database accessible by a doctor.

The implant could be particularly useful in chemotherapy applications. Currently, oncologists use occasional blood tests to evaluate their patients’ tolerance to a particular treatment dosage. In these conditions, it is very difficult to administer the optimal dose. De Micheli is convinced his system will be an important step towards better, more personalized medicine. “It will allow direct and continuous monitoring based on a patient’s individual tolerance, and not on age and weight charts or weekly blood tests.”

In patients withchronic illness, the implants could send alerts even before symptoms emerge, and anticipate the need for medication. “In a general sense, our system has enormous potential in cases where the evolution of a pathology needs to be monitored or the tolerance to a treatment tested.”

#technology #medicaldevice #healthcare