The Playboy Interview
In 1961, the name of Marshall McLuhan was unknown to everyone but his English students at the University of Toronto – and a coterie of academic admirers who followed his abstruse …
In 1961, the name of Marshall McLuhan was unknown to everyone but his English students at the University of Toronto – and a coterie of academic admirers who followed his abstruse …
This promotional video for in-vitro meat was brought to you by the bureau for in-vitro meat promotion students of the Beckmans College of Design .
Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek discusses the 'naturalization' of capitalism and how ecology became a new field of capitalist investment. He also argues that the ultimate …
From October 11 to June 11 we will discuss the future of meat at Cube Deign Museum in Kerkrade (The Netherlands) with the exhibition Meat the Future.
Have you already visited our Meat the Future exhibition? Consider this three course meal an introduction to what you may expect.
For years, normality has been stretched nearly to its breaking point, a rope pulled tighter and tighter, waiting for a nip of the black swan’s beak to snap it in two. Now that the …
The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. -Ecclesiastes If we were able to take as the …
When techno–optimist and fellow at the Hybrid Reality Institute , Jason Silva, meets with Richard Doyle, author of Darwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants and the Evolution of the …
So you’re triggered by our call for products and now you’re considering to send in one, two or maybe three of your brilliant products for the Nano Supermarket? Good. Or – and this …
An interview about the history and promises of synthetic biology, and the problem with the word "nature".
I remember the smoke the most. That pungent smell permeating the camps of tribal people. Everything they touch is infused with the lingering perfume of smoke – their food, …
By the turn of the century, some people began raising questions about our meat consumption habits.
In vitro meat has the capacity to transform meat production as we know it, introducing an entirely new way of thinking about and interacting with food.
Read Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft's essay on judaism in relation to the production of laboratory-grown meat.
A stunning pre-history of the anthropocene
Smiling broadly and rattling with enthusiasm, the 33-year-old Rylana Doesburg shows off a QR-code on her phone: an angular pattern of black and white squares. “Thanks to this …
Outside of the limits imposed by the edges of an animal’s body, the cells can reproduce and multiply until they exhaust the nutrients and space provided, filling petri dishes and vats to grow the future of meat.
How can we design a cryptocurrency for the better of humanity and ecology? In this last chapter of the crypto deep dive series , we will dissect two kinds of blockchain …
The oldest known serious candidate forerunner for the bicycle is the ‘running machine’ built by the German Baron Karl von Drais. His two-wheeled machine became known as the …
For thousands of years people used oil lamps and candles to illuminate their homes during the hours of darkness. Neither produced much light and both were inconvenient in use as …
Writing is recognised as one of mankind’s foremost inventions and the mechanization of writing is one of these developments that typify what is commonly regarded as the work of …
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg discusses the promises and realities of synthetic biology.
Australian regulators will soon be faced with a challenge: can animal flesh produced in a lab be called meat? Amid reports that lab-grown meat could be on sale this year, the US …
We need to talk about the future of meat! Watch Next Nature Network director Koert van Mensvoort's TED talk on Meat the Future.
Interview with Liam Young on his work in speculative architecture, the future, and our role in nature as humans.
Since Darwin we tend to look at the biological world exclusively in economical terms. The idea that monkey's, frogs, or even ants do more than simply propagate, doesn't find much acceptance among scientists. And yet, even crayfishes at times seem to displace objects just for fun.
Every time we eat a piece of food, we take a bite out of the world. All these small bites tell a dozen stories. A carton of eggs presents the story of contented hens, a bottle of …
Many people welcome in vitro meat because of what it may mean for animals. Even though they often find the idea strange, the promise for animals is widely felt as a source of hope.
Octavio Paz says calls The Invention of Morel , “ without exaggeration… a perfect novel. ” According to Borges, “ to classify [it] as perfect is neither an …
The history of art through the ages reveals a constancy that, by conscious or unconscious applications, provides us with an omnipresent correlation dealing with the …
The next step is to embrace and celebrate how cultural artifacts are escaping control, becoming autonomous, and forming the “next nature”.
Do humans exist merely to make money and use resources? Vandana Shiva believes humans have a higher purpose.
Joyce Hwang discusses the challenges for designers, and gains for citizens, of living in a truly biosynthetic city.
Growing meat artificially, instead of within an animal, may soon be an available reality. Meet one of the pioneering developers of this product of the future: Aleph Farms. With …
Blue is a beautiful color, but its sound is simply irresistible. It is the song of the unhappy and the depressed. It is a sound that touches people. It was also the sound of a …
The connection we share through the Internet has laid the foundation for a whole new digital infrastructure, in which blockchain technology is heralded by many believers for being …
How technology becomes nature in seven steps
No matter which brand is going to rule the wireless headphones scene, it's time to get used to have a computer in our ear that we never need to take out. Until it may grow into it someday!
So, you are aware biotech will drive our evolution , you took the crash course on synthetic genomics , you've got your map of the DNA world in your backpack and are now eager to …
Cultivator is speculative design project on how bioprinting could find its way into the kitchen of the future.
A short story by Terry Bisson. For those who prefer video to literature, there's also this seven-minute film adaptation . "They're made out of meat." "Meat?" "Meat. They're made …
At Home in the Lab with Mark Post, Father of the In Vitro Hamburger. Interview from The In Vitro Meat Cookbook
What if we could drink from a giant drop of water? The bottle of the future has the shape of a soft, hygienic, biodegradable and edible blob.
"Owning the Weather" is a documentary about geo-engineering by Robert Greene. It's about whether or not we should engineer the weather and the different impacts that this has. …
Read Nicholas Carr's essay on the transhumanist dream of having wings.
My New Flame uses LED technology to faithfully recreate the experience of light from the ancient past
Farmers have long made frugal use of their table scraps, feeding their leftovers to hogs, dogs and now, cows. In a bizarre sign of our cash-strapped and climate-changing …
Some of our greatest cultural and technological achievements took place between 1945 and 1971. Why has progress stalled?
Humanity has an insatiable hunger for meat. Since 2013 we have been researching, developing and campaigning for a humane and eco-friendly way to get our protein fix. Since day one …
Here, you are allowed to design your reproductive lifestyle and intimate relationships without any biological, economical and technological limitations.
Digital and genetic techniques increasingly influence life. Our belief in progress through technology stands in the way of a moral debate on this development. By Rinie van Est We …
We humans simply feel more comfortable with technological change when it comes in a familiar form that refers to an existing and accepted object, habit, value, tradition or intuition.
The phone call was as unexpected as the American accent at the other end of the line. And when she hung up a few moments later, Ira van Eelen had to stop to catch her breath. More …
When I was a kid, my parents took me to the beach every summer. We’d swim in the ocean and play on our inflatable raft in the surf. When the tide was low, I’d build a sand castle …
Before we can decide if we will ever be willing to eat in-vitro, we need to explore the food culture it will bring us.
Nowadays humans suffer from diseases that didn't exist in the past, a trend that will probably continue into the future. A wide range of new disorders, especially related to the …
As you read this, a strange object that looks like a 2,000-foot floating pool noodle is drifting slowly through the central north Pacific Ocean. This object is designed to solve …
Invasive species become the animal symbols for a man-made world.
A selection of nine enthralling and striking concepts of future way of transportation.
The sublime is an aesthetic concept of 'the exalted,' of beauty that is grand and dangerous. Through 17th and 18th century European intellectual tradition, the sublime became …
The way people get around is starting to change, and as a professor of transport strategy I do rather wonder if the modes of transport we use today will still be around by the …
Our In Vitro Meat Cookbook has inspired many people around the world. Just recently, we had the BBC over at our headquarters to see what makes us thick. This idea of in vitro meat …
As if stand-alone technologies weren’t advancing fast enough, we’re in age where we must study the intersection points of these technologies. How is what’s happening in robotics …
Make no mistake, you're not looking at the latest Barbie line: These are the The Pussycat Dolls. Formerly an LA stripper show burlesque show, now upgraded to be pop music …
To all in vitro meat optimists, hear hear! In May 2018 we launched the petition ' In vitro meat is here. Let us taste it. ' We proudly announce that this petition led to …
Lab grown meat is part of the trajectory that agricultural technology is already following.
Thanksgiving is fake-for-real. While it's true that there was a minor harvest feast in 1621, held by English immigrants and Wampanoag Indians, the event was never celebrated …
The introductory essay from the Yes, Naturally book - available in our store!
Meet Josh Tetrick, entrepreneur who wants to reinvent the food industry and plans to launch lab-grown meat on the market by the end of 2018.
The way we currently build is not sustainable. We will have to develop a sustainable living environment that matches our human needs, intuitions and potential.
Volume magazine interviews Next Nature founder Koert van Mensvoort.
Dutch researcher and entrepreneur, Willem van Eelen, has died in Amsterdam. For more than half a century, Van Eelen relentlessly researched and promoted In Vitro Meat.
As technology evolves, what today seems like science fiction may be the job market of tomorrow: 11 professions of the future.
We have entered the Anthropocene epoch, in which humanity and its instrumentalities are the most potent and influential geological force.
Let’s talk about the most controversial of "m words"—monogamy. And let’s have this conversation with in mind its prehistoric origins. Our modern picture of prehistoric societies …
For the Venezuelan Magazine Platanoverde , Gabriela Valdivieso y Lope Gutiarrez-Ruiz interviewed artist/scientist Koert van Mensvoort and discussed some of the idea's behind Next …
And it’s already showing incredible results. VR transports us to faraway worlds without even asking us to leave our chairs. Yet we usually hear about it in the context of video …
In 2017, two years after her father died , Ira van Eelen decided to call the Dutch Arable Farming Union. She couldn't help but wonder how come the Netherlands was still not …
Too much carbon emissions warming up the planet? No problem: just bring the stuff back to where you got it from in the first place. Experts have been advising to bury carbon …
As the planet’s population speeds towards 9 billion, it’s becomes impossible to continue consuming meat like we do today. Will we all be eating rice and beans? Grasshoppers …
The future of farming is not to be found in further mass-industrialization nor in the return to traditional farming with man and horse power, but rather in swarms of smart, cheap robotic farmers that patiently seed, tend and harvest fields one plant at a time without the need for damaging pesticides.
A (very) short history of a century's worth of "disembodied" meat in fiction.
If Neanderthals ever walk the earth again, the primordial ooze from which they will rise is an emulsion of oil, water, and DNA capture beads engineered in the laboratory of 454 …
Biotechnology is nearly as old as humanity itself. The food you eat and the pets you love? You can thank our ancestors for kickstarting the agricultural revolution, using …
Rachel Armstrong discusses living buildings, Venice's foundations, millennial nature and how to improve our future.
The acronym that keeps Europe awake at night is TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), a trade and investment deal that the EU is negotiating with the US. From …
In configuring our next nature, artists and scientists explore new languages that move beyond the Anthropocene - the era of human beings. These semantics would bridge the gap …
My name is Jason Silva. I've spent the last 5 years hosting and producing a tv show on Al Gore's Emmy-winning Current TV network and I'm a fellow at the Hybrid Realities …
Last week, the U.S. Navy announced that four of their “ REMUS 100 ” unmanned underwater vehicles sailed off-radar and stopped responding to commands. The ‘bots were part of a …
For the closing event of Reprodutopia , a true meeting of minds took place as we discussed the social implications surrounding the future of reproductive technologies. Multiple …
Leather is one of the oldest and most versatile materials in the world. It’s a supple, tough, relatively strong and durable material and it’s relatively impermeable, yet …
We humans are changing. We have become so intertwined with what we have created that we are no longer separate from it. We have outgrown the distinction between the natural and the artificial. We are what we make.
Emotionally the avatar has a similar position as ones best friend, despite its "virtual" presence and the often longer lasting relationship with ones best friend.
Oded Ezer is a typographer from Israel who never fails to push boundaries, or rather, discard them altogether. Ezer is a rebellious force that swings between commercial and …
The Mammoth was the last of the giant land mammals of the Pleistocene era.
Are you familiar with the affliction? Anthropomorphobia is the fear of recognizing human characteristics in non-human objects. The term is a hybrid of two Greek-derived words: …
During the event The Biosphere Code, Stockholm University researcher Victor Galaz and colleagues outlined a manifesto for algorithms in the environment.
About 4 or 5 million years ago, major changes in the Earth's climate brought about grassland regions where giant mammals could graze.
The meat in the supermarket is abstract, square and habitually made from wickedly manufactured animals. A friend once told me he only eats meat if he "can not recognize the animal …
Open Bionics is helping children in need for bionic hands. With Iron Man, Frozen, or Star Wars-themed prosthetics, their fantasies become reality.
Imagine if everyone spoke a language that you don’t understand. It’s not a foreign language–it’s been spoken around you since the day you were born–but where as everyone else …
The Actroid robot holds clues for climbing out of the uncanny valley.
In old nature, wood is grown in the forest. In the next nature, wood might be grown in a lab. Akin to the process of growing in-vitro meat , researchers in Velásquez-García’s …
Nature demanded that we make a choice between immortality and sex, but the Next Nature of the 21st century may not. For help, we can look back to the 20th Century, which had many …
If you happen to be in Amsterdam this weekend, attend the other dinner at Waag Society.
On the 5th of August, one year after the lab grown hamburger, the In Vitro Meat Cookbook was launched.
Pokémon Go is slowly taking over our planet. People know more Pokémon than bird or tree species. However, avid players will have noticed that some of the first-gen Pokémon are not available in the game yet.
Intensive agriculture may be nourishing most of the Earth’s inhabitants, but it’s doing the opposite to earth itself. Its dependence on singular crops, heavy ploughing machinery, …
In imagining future urban landsapes, we need to answer questions about what can be sustained and what cannot, where cities can be located and where they cannot.
Hendriks’s activity explores the positive transformative power of creative impulses and the importance of fundamental free scientific research.
Wondering how next natural furniture may change your way of life? Will we feed our lamps? Grow chairs? Talk with our tables?
Are we on the verge of a future human evolution, one that isn’t, at least in it’s very core, “the survival of the fittest”, but rather “the evolution of the richer”? Think about …
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) picked six test sites throughout the US to experiment with drone-based cloud seeding.
What if you had the choice of sparing your child from diseases and disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease or autism?
Will these futuristic signs become part of our near future?
With its 656 beds, this hospital offers unconventional and leading computerized assistance for all sorts of patients.
American company Ideo has taken the essence of on-demand economy at heart, presenting a vehicle with detail-designed services for the future of carpooling.
Now why is that girl so excitingly staring at a few blurry blobs on a flat screen? Is it because these blobs are connected to her breath... What? Yes that is right, you are …
Many people don't know that growing and cooking in vitro meat is a decade old.
Portraits of people who live alone in the forest.
Nissan created the e-NV200 workspace: an electrical van with zero emissions that is packed with everything you need to work efficiently.
Is human activity altering the planet on a scale comparable to major geological events of the past? Scientists are now considering whether to officially designate a new …
The Moodmetric ring measures the autonomous nervous system signals that can be used to understand emotional reactions and improve quality of life.
Trading animal skins for pixels, our digital selves call for a digital wardrobe. The Institute of Digital Fashion , led by CommuneEast founder Leanne Elliott Young and Digi-Gxl …
In 1995, the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approved the use of in-vitro techniques for commercial meat production, paving the way for lab-grown meat products to make their way to the market.
Objects that normally used to surround us became more and more virtual, radically changing the aspect of our workplace.
The Ocean Cleanup claims its device could cut the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in half in five years.
Written by Werner Lippert & Peter Wippermann, Curators of the Entryparadise exhibition (26/8 until 3/12, 2006, at Kohlenwäsche, Zollverein) Design is about to undergo a …
During the riots of 1968 , as students in Paris ripped up paving stones and threw them at the police, one of the rallying cries was “sous le pave: la plage” (under the pavement: …
From nutrients within an organism, to organisms within collectives, to populations within a territory and so on - nature offers models on how to deal with highly complex systems.
New technologies – from artificial intelligence to synthetic biology – are set to alter the world, the human condition, and our very being in ways that are hard to imagine. The …
This potentially revolutionary device includes LED lights and temperature sensors to provide medication directly to the wounded section of the skin.
Humans have been manipulating living things for thousands of years. Examples of early biotechnologies include domesticating plants and animals and then selectively breeding them …
The world is returning to the era when a scraped knee or ear infection could lead to sudden, swift death.
Last weekends edition of the Guardian featured some of the In-Vitro Meat Visions developed at Next Nature Lab.
The series Museum of Selfies combines the original art of portraiture with its modern counterpart, the the smartphone self-portrait.
Solarium, a video installation by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), puts visitors in the hearth of the sun.
Quote Eric Horvitz : "After finishing my doctoral work, I returned to Stanford Medical School to finish up the MD part of my MD/PhD. During one of my last clinical rotations, I …
Nearly every adult in the Western world owns a personalized pet, sometimes more than one . It is treated with great care, fed when necessary and fitted to the owner’s wishes and …
Peak oil, the point when petroleum extraction is at its maximum, may have already occurred sometime in the last few years . Not only affecting whether we drive a Humvee or not, …
The Weather Machine: an installation that explores rain, clouds and sun heat to recreate the weather occurring outside.
The Stedelijk Museum has added The In Vitro Meat Cookbook to its public art collection, turning the book into a piece of art!
At the end of every cold winter there is a debate in the Netherlands on whether the forestry service should feed the oxes, horses and deers grazing the Dutch nature resorts. The …
Researchers in Tokyo have developed an artificial womb (for goats).
Researchers designed a smart fabric able to encode data readable by a magnetometer, like the one in your phone, without electronics or batteries.
According to professor Mark Post, lab-grown meat could become the environmentally friendly alternative for breeding cows and pigs for meat consumption. Watch his talk!
According to researchers we could go a step further and use stem cells derived from your skin cells.
In Ancient Greece the people were part of a direct-democracy, this means that they would directly vote for policies and laws. Nowadays, it seems as though this horizontal approach …
Its simplicity is one of a kind and it takes my breath when I realize that this little drawing is actually the internets Big Bang point of origin. It shows the first node on the …
Nongenetic evolution strikes again in the elaborate shape of the treble clef.
"Upon returning to class after the Golden Week holidays, students at a Tokyo elementary school were delighted to find their teacher had been replaced by a robot. The talking …
With advances in genomics, imaging and other technology,scientists have to face the age of big data.
The gumboot chiton snail produces the hardest biomineral known on earth - and it may hold the secret to better nanotechnology.
A new technology aims to provide doctors with a true hologram of organs.
Cities have seen guerilla gardens, rooftop honey production, and fire escape chicken coops. Now, urban farmers may be adding aquaculture to the mix. Headed by ex-banker …
"However, while 3D printers are becoming increasingly accessible and capable of rivalling the quality of professional equipment, they are still inherently limited by a small print …
Dusting furniture and floors should be history in forty years time, as special bacteria in a yet to develop cleaning product will be eating the dirt. The speculative cleaning …
Emma is in poor health. She has painful varicose veins, stress-related eczema, puffy skin, a grey complexion, red eyes and a hunch-back. She is an imagined office worker of the …
Agriculture may be one of the oldest of our technologies. Over time it has developed, changed, revolutionized, industrialized - or simply put, it has evolved . Today’s farms are …
A few years ago, convincing meat-free “meat” was nothing more than a distant dream for most consumers. Meat substitutes in supermarkets lacked variety and quality. Plant-based …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your coordinates as we …
According to this fictitious future medical bill almost every part of the human body will be repairable in 2028. Gut bacteria replacement, Bone tissue growth for skull repair, …
Last week, the gene editing world was hit by news the equivalent of a nuclear bomb. In a video on YouTube , Dr. Jiankui He at Southern University of Science and Technology in …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
Peculiar image of the week. Langley researcher Elton W. Miller stands poised in the Propeller Research Tunnel, as if pondering the future of aviation in this image from mid-1927. …
A while ago a plan was proposed within the European Union to add a “Three Strikes, Out” law regarding to copyright infringement. After three accuses of copyright infringement by …
Douglas Coupland is a writer and artist based in Vancouver. For the canadian newspaper Globe and Mail, he wrote The ‘radical pessimist's guide to the next 10 years’ a dystopian …
What do you think of lab-grown meat? "Yuck" might be your first reaction. One day, however, it could become the environmentally friendly alternative for breeding cows and pigs for …
Ever wished you could take a shower with pigeon poop? Artist Tuur van Balen proposes changing pigeons from flying rats to cleaning agents. A speculative, specially engineered …
Map-enthusiast Valerie Pieris has created a fascinating visualization of human population centers. We all know that a huge fraction of humanity lives in Asia, but this map really …
Nation states and geographical borders. But for how long?
Indulge in this video simulation that displays the flight path of every commercial flight in the world over a 24-hour period.
Ikea’s research laboratory was inspired by our Magic Meatballs to re-design their famous meatballs.
I first saw this statement on the Artvertising building . Let this be our slogan of the week.
Comic relief for the weekend. The Sumsing Turbo 3000 has it all. Commercial spoof of a cellphone with many functions by Groen Brothers . Related: Excuse me, Is Your Tooth Ringing? …
As they went down the elevator shaft, going deeper underground, neither Nada nor Manko spoke a word. To Manko it seemed to take forever. In his mind, he went over the long …
Drones are typically thought of as flying spying robots, or even worse flying spying shooting robots. But could we also employ drones for good? The people of …
Mathieu Lehanneur created a plant-powered indoor filtration system, that pulls in filthy air to be processed through a plant's leaves, roots, and humidity, reintroducing purified …
Arjen Born , a Dutch Photographer, envisions the future of assisted living through hilarious and moving photographs. Photography often reside in the realm of the nostalgic past, …
The first essay ever written on Next Nature, published in Next Nature Pocket and in Entry Paradise, New Design Worlds . ( download pdf ) (German version: Erkundungen im Nächste …
John Zerzan, published in Green Anarchy issue #24 - Spring/Summer 2007 The rapidly mounting toll of modern life is worse than we could have imagined. A metamorphosis rushes …
The Made and the Born: Neo-Biological civillization, written by Kevin Kelly, excerpt from Out of Control : The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World, …
Some reactions from people shopping when they see how fresh their meat is.
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
When I was a kid, I thought that people that could make smoke circles were really cool. Now I think machines that can do that are even cooler!Â? Made by Takeshi Ishiguro
Mark Post is planning to bring lab-grown meat on the market shelves within five years at a reasonable price.
Scientists believe the introduction of a hormone-like system, such as the one found in the human brain, could give AI the ability to reason and make decisions like people do. …
At this year's TED conference , held in Long Beach California, Biotechnologist Juan Enriquez argued that even as mega-banks topple, the big reboot is yet to come. It will come …
The human ear is a miracle of mechanical evolution. It allows us to hear an astonishing range of sounds and to communicate and navigate in the world. It’s also easy to damage and …
The Singapore Food Agency has approved “chicken bites” containing meat made from real chicken cells that were grown outside of a chicken’s body. Alongside similar news from Israel …
Dutch experience designer Leanne Wijnsma designs for the human instinct and puts the sense of smell back to where it belongs, as modern hazards have shifted to the digital realm.
Is the evolution of the single bladed razor into an exorbitant five–bladed vibrating gizmo the outcome of human needs, or is there another force in play? Say hello to Razorius …
We recently spoke to Ilari Laamanen, to peel the outcrops of Momemtum9, and unveil the overlapping themes to the next nature philosophy.
Imagine, it’s 2050 and you are feeling hungry. What will be on your plate? Where will your food come from, and how will it be produced? It may be juicy ants from the nearest …
Patricia Piccinini is an artist interested in the relationship between humans and non-humans, the natural and the artificial, science and storytelling. Working with silicone, …
Meet the teledildonics, an ingenious species of bi-directionally controlled sextoys from the future, available today. These touch emulating vibrators find each other on social sex …
People across the world have been eating insects for thousands of years. We know that approximately 2,000 species are edible and that these insects are eaten in many different …
An interviewer once asked Pablo Picasso why he paints such strange pictures instead of painting things the way they are. Picasso asks the man what he means. The man then takes out …
While Elon Musk may be trying to initiate efforts to colonize Mars, scientists on Earth are attempting to build an accurate digital twin of the planet to simulate in the future. …
As cities push to the edges of the wilderness, wild animals are increasingly com
Last week, Next Nature Lab had the first Meat & Greet to explore the future of in vitro meet.
An interview with Daisy Ginsberg, artist and synthetic biologist.
The first time I explained biomimicry to a stranger was not in a talk or a workshop but in a big-box bookstore just after Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature had come out. I …
Since the early days of the net, the electronic pastoral has lent itself to all sorts of dubious agendas pushed by science, the military and even libertarian tendencies. In the …
It's not an easy task to define the practice of designer Jasna Rok . Fashtech pioneer? Radical innovator? Visionary designer? ‘All of the above’ seems only appropriate. In fact, …
Technology is nestling itself within us and between us, has knowledge about us and can act just like us.
The Netherlands leads in cheese, clogs, and cultured meat. This sustainable and animal-friendly form of meat has largely been developed in our country. In 1997, Willem van Eelen …
Last month we discussed how the vacuum played a big role in Manko's life since he lost his right leg. Soon he developed this idea further, beyond the mere notion of extensions …
Many things have been rumored about the artist called Manko since he vanished about a year ago. Some even went so far as to claim he had died. So it was all over the news when …
The increasing ‘liveliness’ of machines and accessibility to the virtual world has raised questions about whether it is possible to uncouple the mind from the body in through a …
Today there are on average there are some 8000 planes in the sky carrying at least half a million people. On average during the Stone Age there must have been less.
We sat down with Shahar Livne, an Israeli-born designer who graduated from the Design Academy in Eindhoven to talk about her vision on the future of plastics.
Hello meat lovers! In vitro meat innovator Aleph Farms has taken the saying 'one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind' to a whole new level. The startup has succeeded …
Steven Levy writes in Wired on the unexpected turn of the Artificial Intelligence revolution: rather than whole artificial minds, it consists of a rich bestiary of digital fauna, …
Nonhuman Nonsense is a research-driven design and art studio existing somewhere between utopia and dystopia. They wonder upon our relationship with the non-human, embracing …
By MARCEL VAN DER DRIFT. Ten years from now, a cell phone gently sinks to the bottom of the river. It's one of the latest models. The clever design, trendy colours and nifty …
The Weather Drone controls the weather, it makes sure the sun will shine on your birthday, or that the rain will fall during a period of drought.
Virtual reality is already becoming a part of the conversation surrounding social media. Will it become the next popular social network?
In science fiction and popular science, 2030 is often suggested as the year in which our planet will run out of oil. Similarly, 2100 will be the year that, according to …
Mark Weiser (originally written for ACM Interactions ). What is the metaphor for the computer of the future? The intelligent agent? The television (multimedia)? The 3-D graphics …
The nature of humanity in the twenty-first century is, according to sociologist Steve Fuller, a ‘bipolar disorder’ beset with dualisms of identification such as divine/animal, …
Last week The Hague hosted a festival dedicated to contemporary experiments in music, art and digital culture.
What the Internet would look like if all data were ephemeral?
Today is Earth Day! This means that we think about the relationship between man, nature and technology, as technology is becoming a nature of its own. Acknowledged in 192 …
Traditionally, technology is seen as a force that diminishes our instincts and puts us at a distance of nature. Increasingly however, we realize technology can also energize and …
Always thinking about food? What about food that doesn’t exist yet? On the 18th of September at De Studio, Next Nature Network will host a night of talks on the future of food and …
When you look through a super-telescope, you can still see the planet Earth. Once called the blue planet, she now looks red and parched. We had no choice but to abandon her… On a …
To thread the uncanny valley is a conscious choice for many artists and enthusiasts, as a means to evoke, through their work, powerful emotions, thoughts and everything in between.
Last month I had the opportunity to immerse myself in Tokyo’s newly opened digital art landscape, the Mori Digital Art Museum. The museum stands out for it enables virtual …
Current social distancing measures are all about keeping a physical distance from each other in order to flatten the curve. But this does not mean we have to keep a distance from …
Additivism is a movement that calls for radical rethinking of new technologies, such as 3D printing, the plastification of the world and our human position within it.
The Sun is the most important source of energy for sustaining life on Earth, but it gives us a lot more than just light and heat. It also gives us solar storms.
For years scientist and farmers are researching the possibilities of eating duckweed, shoveling it out of the ditches onto our plates. This proteinrich plants can be used in animal fodders or be eaten by humans.
Meet Jenny Kleeman , journalist and documentary-maker. Sex Robots & Vegan Meat is her first book for anyone interested in, well, sex robots, vegan meat, out of body birth bags …
Most people think of mammoths as the iconic woolly species from the last Ice Age, which ended around 12,000 years ago. But mammoths originated in Africa around 5 million years …
We recently talked with Suzanne Lee about the textile industry and technology, growing leather in the lab, and the use of new alternative materials in the future of fashion.
An industrial robot just tattooed the first person ever in San Francisco.
Exhibition Fungal Futures: design with mushrooms.
"To understand why a product is the way it is today, you need to learn about its evolutionary background." Meet Huub Ehlhardt, an engineer with a PhD in product design . Huub …
We live in a world of fast or disposable fashion. This industry is increasingly impacting the environment due to the use of toxic chemicals, water and energy consumption, heavy …
So you’ve seen the peak of the Mount Everest on tour ? Descended the bobsled ride of the Matterhorn in a Disneyland ? Think you’ve seen it all? Now come and see The Berg in …
The top three aspects why people should support cultured meat.
Today we hold the ability to gather a lot of knowledge, thanks to science. We are able to watch, analyze, manipulate and change matter to the nano-level. This makes it tempting to …
The world is developing, climate change is happening and it's time for us to do something. Now. One strategy would be to simply stop eating meat — or at least reduce the amount of …
The Hyperloop will turn the world into a global village.
Is social media ruining the world? Dramatic political polarization. Rising anxiety and depression. An uptick in teen suicide rates. Misinformation that spreads like wildfire. The …
Twenty-first century society draws from a world that is less determined by objects and increasingly shaped by connectivity. The clear either/or distinctions that formerly informed …
What if you could have the taste of a juicy, sizzling burger without the destructive impact of using animals for meat? That is what Impossible Foods wants to do with its new burger.
Today browsing and gaming is dominated by the shortcomings of machines, for machines simply do not know who is on the other end. Man needs to interact; therefore man needs to …
Looking at evolution, we see that there’s always a next nature. Nature changes along with us. How will that influence our way of life in the future?
In vitro meat has been billed as a way to end animal suffering , put a stop to global warming , and solve the world's insatiable demand for animal protein. There's no doubt that …
Meet the Shiva Therapist fro HUBOT. She massages with her own hands, but for the heavy work, she has four additional robotic arms at her disposal.
Many people will have heard of the infamous swastika made up of larches that revealed itself every autumn in a forest outside Berlin . The trees, which turned yellow at the end …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
What if we could redesign the system to work for humanity and the planet we call home? What would the economy of ecology look like?
During the Antarctic summer, thousands of mesmerising blue lakes form around the edges of the continent’s ice sheet, as warmer temperatures cause snow and ice to melt and collect …
The eggplant emoji became a political weapon and gain cult status being the forbidden fruit of the web.
While evidence indicates that humans domesticated themselves , we're not the only primates capable of self-domestication. Bonobos and baboons have shown they are just as capable …
We live in a world in which we control the biology of a tomato at such precision, you could think of it as a product of technology, instead of a product of nature. Think about it, …
In the past few years, scientists have hatched some pretty crazy-sounding schemes in the name of protecting Earth and its inhabitants. From building an underwater wall 120 …
Take a bite from this pear and I'll spare you all the default connotations with the apple of eden. Source photo by Pablo Montanez . See also Modernistic Watermelon , Ferrari …
Written by Kevin Kelly , published in The Technium . I claim that technology has its own agenda. What is the evidence that technology as a whole, or the technium as I call it, is …
The length of a muscle fiber was once limited by the size of the animal it was growing in. Now, freed from the constraints of the body, it’s possible to culture “thread” made from long strands of muscle tissue.
Interview with Mike Thompson and Susana Cámara Leret.
Today we cannot meet, touch or hug our loved ones. And while we all like the feeling of the touch of another human being, physical contact does not just feel nice, it is crucial …
For the last six months millions of Indian farmers have been marching through the national capital in an effort to repeal the laws that they believe would end guaranteed pricing …
Looking for a self-sustainable mobile microhome? Ecocapsule got you covered. This cute-as-pie capsule pod allows you to live completely off the grid in a low-energy, mobile …
In vitro meat is creepy, unnatural and downright disgusting – and so is every other kind of food we eat.
Speculative designer Agi Haines' work focuses on (re)designing the human body, and speculates upon future scenarios.
Rooftops covered with grass, vegetable gardens and lush foliage are now a common sight in many cities around the world. More and more private companies and city authorities are …
The current lockdown in much of Europe has city-dwellers flocking to the countryside to wait out the outbreak sweeping the continent. Seeking relief from coronavirus, urbanites …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
Zero: 'Where to begin? We've had many discussions in our Lab about the future of the children. The plan was simple: to raise the kids to the physical age to be 'frozen' in. Then, …
After Magritte; Surrealism in the 21th century. Peculiar image of the week, created by Isabel Lucena.
Excerpts from the Rebbit AMA with Andras Forgacs, founder of a company that manufactures in vitro meat.
Your next phone could be the noPhone: a technology-free alternative to any smart mobile device.
What happens when our dreams become a commodity and advertisers gain the technology to enter our dreams?
By ALEX WRIGHT, Published in NY Times December 2, 2007 The growing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook , MySpace and Second Life has thrust many of us into a new …
We recently talk to Nadine Bongaerts about the role and impact of synthetic biology, the gap between biosciences and society and the importance of communication to overcome the fear of new technologies.
We now live in a world where plastics are becoming a part of our marine ecosystems. As a result, we strive hard to clean the plastics from our oceans. Dr. Max Liboiron ( Michif …
No self-respecting manager would be without a BlackBerry. But now these handheld gadgets, which provide workaholics with constant email updates, are being blamed for chronic …
Illustrators from the 1800s to the 1950s offer strange prediction for the future of meat.
Last weekend the ECO coin ran its second living lab at Welcome to the Village festival. We wanted to experiment with making our new sustainable currency more social and test our new ECO coin payment system.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term 'biohacking'? Perhaps you are now thinking of a bunch of kids sitting in their kitchen with a DNA kit, (wannabe) …
Imagine we would have an alternative monetary currency for environmental value. Would the rain forest still be destroyed if there existed an ECO–currency to express its value and …
The human body is increasingly recognized as a biometric source of information for a wide spectrum of issues, including security, psychopathology, personality and health. Earlier …
WiredScience writes: Hackers who commandeer your computer are bad enough. Now scientists worry that someday, they’ll try to take over your brain. In the past year, researchers …
Experiments in the Revival of Organisms is a 1940 motion picture which documents Soviet research into the resuscitation of clinically dead organisms by Doctor Sergey Sergeyevich …
On January 17 1803, a young man named George Forster was hanged for murder at Newgate prison in London. After his execution, as often happened, his body was carried ceremoniously …
In the last few decades there have been numerous films that take the struggle between mankind and its increasingly intelligent and autonomous technology as a leitmotif. Ranging …
Mythology still surrounds us, we just relate to it differently. Games and movies have replaced pantheons and folk tales. Fairies and gnomes left the forests and the rivers and moved to virtual realities.
Recently, a video clip has been circulating the web that purportedly shows a rabbit born earless due to the radiation at Fukushima. BoingBoing has a convincing take-down of the …
Emoji, Skype, Selfies - can these communication technologies close the generation gap? In part, yes! Young people are teaching senior citizens how to use technology, and it’s …
Sixteen-year-old Japanese singer Hatsune Miku grew in short time to a worldwide popstar. With her colourful appearance she counts millions of followers on social media, she …
We officially launched the Next Nature Movement in The Netherlands. To seal the beginning of the Next Nature Movement, director Koert van Mensvoort donated the first symbolic ECO coin.
NNN director Koert van Mensvoort writes a letter to humanity.
Magic meatballs playfully familiarize children with the concept of in vitro meat.
A Dutch artist designs a Utopian eco-socialist online society.
The movie The Matrix brought ectogenesis to the public eye.
The protozoa Toxoplasma gondii makes an unobtrusive home in nearly every warm-blooded species, but it's prolific life is limited: Toxo can only reproduce in cat stomachs. The …
During the late 1930’s the philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote its widely influential essay ‘The work of Art in the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility’. While describing a general …
Would you pray to a Robot deity? A group of Japanese buddhists is already doing so. Meet Mindar , the robot divinity shaped after the buddhist Goddess of Mercy, also known as …
Written by Debbie Mollenhagen PART 1: FROM LINEAR TO CIRCULAR Designer living has become designing life. I often ask myself: did it taste like the real thing? But when I open my …
Right now, somewhere in a laboratory in California, the Netherlands or Japan, a technician is taking a few thousand skeletal muscle cells from a living animal, and placing them in …
As early as 2009-10 , researchers were looking at Twitter data mining as a way to predict the incidence of flu. At the time, the H1N1 virus, or “swine flu,” had made the jump from …
It's that time of year again; the Unicode Emoji 13.0 has announced that 117 new emojis are to be implemented in the second half of 2020. It got us curious of what these new emojis …
The Singularity , as popularized by Ray Kurtzweil, refers to a near term, theoretical time when machine intelligence greatly surpasses our own. At this point we will experience a …
Breathtaking satellite images that will change how you see the World.
Prof. Patrick Brown developed a meatless burger that look and taste like meat, made out of plant ingredients.
New study suggests that the real environmental problem is embodied in the things we buy.
Remember the Modular Body? Curious about how OSCAR was really created or keen to know more about the project as a whole? Check out the making of videos!
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
What are then the actions to foster for an effective sustainability? A series of articles will try to point the plastic poblem.
Solar cells are often considered an eyesore, used for their sustainability yet not for their beauty. Installed on roofs or in solar parks, they take up precious space. Well that’s …
From all the memes that have reached me through my screen since the outbreak of the corona pandemic, there is one that perfectly reflects my thoughts in the beginning of March …
The definition of the noosphere as "the sphere of human thought on earth" is woefully anthropocentric. It ignores that fact that our fellow sentient organisms have noospheres of …
An ingenious Russian crow that used a lid as a snowboard to slide down a snowy roof persuaded millions of YouTube viewers that animals are not merely beasts of burden – they also …
Soon, we might be getting a taste of the first lab-grown chicken meat.
Would you like a dog snout, cat eyes or fluffy bunny ears? The choice is yours. Virtual selfie filters have become a widespread phenomenon on social media platforms such as …
Are we creating the penicillin or the asbestos of the 21st century? In the months preceding our Nano Supermarket Project , we share some speculative nanotech products with you. …
Behold the first pictures of our Bistro In Vitro ice bar in the Future Food House.
Don’t be surprised when you catch a human face on a screen strolling through the Van Abbe museum for contemporary art in Eindhoven, as these are Europe’s very first robotic …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Want to see your work here? Get in touch and …
Every piece of plastic that’s ever made, still exists. It results in a floating garbage dump in the ocean, full of life. While this (geo)design was never intentional, humans …
Contrary to popular belief, global warming is not simply a bad thing: there are winners and losers. While low-lying countries, like Bangladesh, are expected to suffer extensively …
Researchers are teaching drones to recognize and follow forest trails.
Meet Pirjo Kääriäinen, professor of design driven fibre innovation at Aalto University, Finland. Kääriäinen founded CHEMARTS —a collaborative program at the university that brings …
Growing meat in the lab, rather than slaughtering animals, could become a viable alternative for people who want to cut the environmental impact of their food consumption, but …
Help us realize the in vitro meat cookbook and be part of the future of our meat!
Meat fruit combines the femininity of fruit with the masculine sensibilities of red meat in a hybrid celebration of our post-patriarchal, post-gender society.
MIT researchers have developed a system of traffic control that will make traffic lights obsolete.
Hooray! This just in: Next Nature Network is granted a significant contribution from the Dutch government intended to develop a Future Lab for design & technology in Eindhoven …
In 1994 researchers at Ohio State University created two artificial wetlands* in riverine basins in order to investigate their possible benefits, and whether they could replace …
For almost three years, we worked on a sneaker company that we knew would go bankrupt on the day it was founded. This is our coming out...
As ocean-based oyster beds have all but vanished, in vitro oysters may prove an exquisite alternative.
What will you be having for breakfast, lunch or dinner in 2050? Where will this food be sourced? And how will it be prepared? Edible insects? A hamburger made from cultured meat? …
Brian Eno - artist, composer, inventor, thinker - spoke to Kevin Kelly about the meaning of Africa for music and technology. "Africa is everything that something like classical …
Paint with meat! is a product for children of 5-10 years old. It allows them to prepare a meat dish on their own and in a very creative, fun and safe way: by painting with meat!
The surprising results of a year offline in the "real" world.
Every day brings fresh and ever more alarming news about the state of the global environment. To speak of mere “climate change” is inadequate now, for we are in a “ climate …
In the Netherlands, there is a raging debate about a movie nobody ever saw. It seems that images have become so powerful, we don't even need them anymore to scare the hell out of …
Will we in the future still buy several needs according food in shops, or will we grow M&M’s ourselves? There is a lot happening on in the field of food technology , think for …
We have lived for 200 years in a growth economy . That's more than a lifetime, so it is no surprise people tend to think of economy as infinitely growing. Herman Daly , who …
Privacy is a right. A right given to people by telecommunications companies and social networking websites. It can be described by multiple-choice lists of settings. And it seems …
It’s long been a desire of the human species to have complete control over our own thoughts. We’ve all had these moments where we curse our brain. Asking questions like: “Why …
For our new book "Save the Human" we invite you to submit quotes that question the autonomy of mankind in the digital computer era and study the future of the independent creative spirit.
On July 21, 22 and 23 you are invited to join us at Welcome to the Village festival in the Friesland province of The Netherlands for our next iteration of the ECO coin!
Food and Concept designer, Chloé Rutzerveld, explains her 3D food printing project Edible Growth.
Eating meat has made us who we are today: evolved, intelligent humans, able to use a verbal language.
In the future, artificial wombs could replace incubators as they mimic the natural environment of the female uterus. But what will these devices look like?
In Ngogo, Gombe and elsewhere in Africa, bands of male chimpanzees regularly make organized raids on neighboring troops and batter their enemies to death. These grim, warring …
At Next Nature, we often argue that "our image of nature as static, balanced and harmonious is naive and up for reconsideration ." Paleontologist Peter J. Ward happens to agree. …
Utopian off-grid ReGen Village produces all of its own food and energy is being implemented in Almere.
Robots are getting stronger and smarter every day. They are taking over our whole lives. How long will I have my job before a robot steals it?
Pink chickens, synthesized tiger penises and salads grown from bodily fluids - how could they shape our future? In a Next Nature collaboration with the Gogbot Festival, the …
Did you know that about 20 percent of your body isn't really yours? It has been patented by some corporation you probably never heard of. You can't patent gold, you can't patent …
On society's search to becoming a meatless one, several new kinds of 'meat' pop up in the food industry. From so called 'hybrid' meatballs, to 'the chicken that isn't', when will …
BeoSound Moment is an intelligence sound system that predicts the music the user is in the mood for.
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Want to see your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your coordinates as we …
The pattern on the Animal Sweater suggests a new way to experience commercial imagery. The Animal sweater, designed by Karl Grandin, was first shown at The Biggest Visual Power …
Intentionality separates culture from nature. A dog is intentional, a fox is not; a park is intentional, a forest is not. Since trash, ruined buildings, and automated computer …
Originally herons are migratory birds, in the winter they leave to warmer habitats. In the city there is enough food to survive the winter. Some herons are even too lazy to find their own food and try to collect it from the local snack bar.
The Pavlok wristband gives its wearers an electric shock if they fail at hitting work deadlines or completing fitness goals.
We had the honor of hosting Bruce Sterling in our Next Nature Network headquarters to talk to him about the concept of the convergence of humans and machines.
Zackary Scholl developed a program to produce a poem that passed the Turing Test.
We live in turbulent times. Thanks to science and technology, we are able to perceive our environment down to the atomic level. We can read DNA, manipulate cells, cut and paste …
Let's talk about hyperbreasts. Have you ever wondered why men like women with large breasts? Historically large breasts are presumably sexually attractive for men because they …
It might just be my old nature mind, but I still find it a daily miracle: being able to walk into the bakery around the corner and trade a piece of paper – called money – for a …
Imagine your cruise to the Galapagos came with a ghoulish warning: "Your hair will fall out, your skin will blister, you'll probably get cancer and your children's children might …
Food companies are hard at work inventing processes to make luncheon meat look "deli fresh".
Looking back on the first recorded attack on a human cyborg.
A floating photovoltaic system will lie on the waters of a Japanese dam, representing the largest solar establishment in the world.
Researchers at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine succeeded in hooking up a prosthetic arm to the human brain.
If you’ve watched clouds roll by, you know wind moves more steadily in the upper atmosphere. Turbines just can’t reach high-altitude wind energy. Kites can!
Birds are fascinating creatures, but for farmers, airport staff, and waste management specialists, they can prove to be a profound nuisance. How to deal with a flock of birds …
It takes years to design a new banknote, having hundreds of people working on every little detail, all done under the watchful eye of governments and professionals. However today, …
Have you ever gone a day without water? Most likely you have experienced low energy levels or fatigue after a few couple of hours. Water gives us energy. More than that, water is …
Some years ago scientists managed to build a rudimentary invisibility cloak, which was an impressive device but it had some important limitations, not least of which was that it …
We tend to think of plastic as a cheap, inferior and ugly material used to make children’s toys, garden furniture and throwaway bottles. But as an experiment, imagine for a moment …
The Kitchen Meat Incubator does for home cooking what the electronic synthesizer did for the home musician. It provides its users with a set of pre-programmed samples that can be …
A new theory claims it wasn't human deforestation that caused the ecological collapse of Easter Island, but something smaller and squeakier.
Cheetos and other junk foods are more carefully engineered than the average bridge.
A revolutionary new smartphone for the blind uses a completely tactile interface.
On the 5th of August, one year after the lab grown hamburger, the In Vitro Meat Cookbook will be presented in Amsterdam.
Can we have pretty power stations? The design of power stations is becoming more appealing.
Christian Schwägerl is a correspondent for Der Spiegel and the author of Menschenzeit (The Age of Man). He will be presenting his views on the Anthropocene at the Next Nature …
Vegetarian food products typically mimic existing meat products. The meat flower reverses this principle.
The first 3D printed house is a recognisable and attractive Dutch Canal House, an exhibition and building site in the heart of Amsterdam.
Should we make a next step in what we serve at the table? What about insects? Would you give them a try?
A special absorbant film that require no soil may be able to grow plants more efficiently than soil farming.
The U.S. Secret Service is conducting test drone flights over Washington, D.C.
Gene therapy can cure up to 200 different diseases and the list is growing.
A stack of pancakes ladened with syrup, a frothy latte posed next to a white MacBook, a deep pan pizza oozing with cheese. Instagram has made “food porn” – images that portray …
Man is a flexible species. We tend to adapt quite rapidly to new environments. But how fast can these adaptations turn to new evolutionary traits? For instance: to what extent is …
Try it once. Go stand near a highway, close your eyes and listen carefully. Hear the sound of tires on the asphalt, hear the rhythmic ‘sshhh’, focus on this particular sound. And …
Magic Meatballs are designed to playfully familiarize children with lab-grown meat.
We recently handed this year’s ECO Coin Award to Dutch designer Dave Hakkens, founder of the Precious Plastic movement. With his open sourced recycling machines, he provides people around the world the knowledge to start recycling plastic locally.
On June 17th a NNN Fellow Day was organized to explore the future project: Next Senses.
This question is an excerpt from the Pyramid of Technology toolkit In the late nineties, the Tamagotchi egg was released. A small egg-shaped device that contained a digital …
This slightly uncanny piece of modernistic meat is actually not made from meat, but from wax, oil, paint polystyrene, stage blood & latex, by artist John Isaacs , who titled …
Kevin Kelly -- senior maverick at Wired -- asks people how they see the internet and if they can, visualize it. Here is how: "The internet is vast. Bigger than a city, bigger than …
A new material can stop toxic off-gassing from plastics, but the 'new car smell' is so valuable the car industry might not change.
If vegetarian products can mimic meat, then why not the other way around?
A virtual reality theme park where visitors can explore the virtual world in a physical environment.
Last week the Olympic women’s diving pool at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre mysteriously turned swampy green overnight.
The artificial womb is on the verge of becoming a reality, but how it will affect our culture is for us to decide.
Genetic engineering isn't just for scientists in ivory towers or corporate R&D labs anymore. Researchers are still creating new mice and crops every week, but the tools and …
It is a home to crawlers, virusses, search engines, gamers, spammers, chatters, twitters, bloggers, worms and spiders. If calling it alive goes too far, it's still safe to say …
Lenka Clayton : A series of five digitally repaired images taken in Lebanon of buildings damaged by the 2006 conflict with Israel. The images were taken specifically for this …
By analyzing billions of phone calls, researchers at Scandinavian telecom company Telenor , mapped how social connections between people – measured partly by how often they called …
In millions of offices and homes around the world, people are hard at work planting crops, feeding cattle and tilling their land. Welcome to Farmville , the digital rural world …
For most of us, obtaining food is easy. We go to the grocery store, where fruits are labeled and meats arranged by species. We go to a restaurant, sit, and wait for our food to …
This morning we received an astounding video from a group of animal right activist that broke in at Rayfish Footwear, the Thai based fashion brand that creates $1500 personalized sneakers from genetically engineered stingray leather.
This movie titled "All My Clothes" reminds us of a more straightforward example of intimate technology: the clothes we wear every day.
The debate on the future of artificial biological reproduction is moving to Mexico. C Minds, an impact innovation agency that believes in ‘a 4th Industrial Revolution that brings …
The ECO Coin Award honours outstanding ecological heroes. In 2015, we handed out our first ECO Coin award to Yoyo Yogasamana for his digitalization of sustainable knowledge to …
For the past 25 years, I’ve studied everything from baboon cooperation in Ethiopia and orca whale innovation in the Bering Sea, to the Argentine ant invasion in my kitchen, and my …
Earlier we discussed the Magical Interaction project, in which Joris van Gelder rethought the boring activity of switching on/off a light by transforming it into a magical …
The uncanny valley, a phrase coined by Japanese robotic researcher Masahiro Mori nearly three decades ago, describes the uncanny feeling that occurs when people look at …
The Smithsonian’s National Air and Space museum has taken the sun observation to the next level with a giant public display of images and data that show the sun in hyper-real detail.
A futuristic Japanese hotel will be run by robots, designed to be extremely human-like.
This automated store in Sweden doesn’t have any human employees, only a smartphone app.
A team of scientists developed a peculiar strategy to counter the Arctic ice melting.
A team of German researchers published a study earlier this week indicating people can be duped into leaving a robot turned on just because it “asks” them to. The …
Paradise by the Laptop Light is a next nature event with short films, speedlectures, special guests and one laptop. It will be held on 12 September 2008 16:30-17:30, as the …
No, this is not another example in our fake for real series , comparing an artificial with a human hand. Rather, you are looking at twice the same hand: with and without its …
The standard story of the cowboy hat goes something like this: In 1865, J.B. Stetson went out west during the California gold rush. He observed that bowlers, raccoon hats, and …
The number one argument for eating meat: it provides nutritious proteins that cannot be entirely supplied by vegetarian alternatives. Like it or not, humans are omnivores. Meat is …
The Google self-driving car has driven 700.000 miles by itself, and now it can drive through busy city streets.
A company is working on culturing celebrity stem cells for cannibal cuisine.
The oPhone and oSnap allow you to send pictures with aromatic vocabularies.
Stretchy artificial skin lets prosthetic hand sense heat, humidity, and pressure.
Warka Water is an alternative water source to rural population that faces challenges in accessing drinkable water.
Meet the anti-smartphone. It literally does nothing but make and answer calls.
Many companies are seeing the potential of this technology to solve food scarcity, reduce pollution and offer cruelty free meat. One of these firms is Tyson Foods, the meat giant.
What do a kingfisher, cocklebur pods and a Namibian beetle have in common? Besides being living organisms, they have all served as inspiration for creative human technologies to …
Looking at a banana from a design perspective, one immediately notices the fruit is highly ergonomic and sophisticated: Bananas fit perfectly in the human hand, they come with a …
Martin Heidegger and Marshall Mcluhan already described people's tendency to extend their identities in the animate objects when interacting with them. When for instance, driving …
Designer and former fashion model Barbara de Vries was cleaning plastic litter off her favorite beach in the Bahamas, when she noticed the plastic fragments were all uniquely …
Restoring the sense of touch with an artificial hand, using a brain interface.
Besides finding their way, people look at to transport them to another place, or in this case, another perspective on planet Earth.
De Motu is an interactive music app that let you experience your body through music and influence the sound with your own body.
Researchers have the developed the EQ-Radio: a tool to read people emotions from a distance.
Go forward to nature at the La Fabrique du Vivant (the Factory of Life), the newly opened exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Exhibiting the recent works of fifty …
Why hunt? Why gather? Join the Neolithic revolution! Somewhere around 9500 BC proto-farmers began to select and cultivate food plants with desired characteristics. While in their …
Following anorexia nervosa (under eating) and bulimia nervosa (overeating and compensating), orthorexia nervosa (obsessively healthy eating) is the latest eating disorder in the …
Resource-poor Japan discovered a new source of mineral wealth: sewage sludge. In its first month of operation, a sewage plant in Japan’s Nagano prefecture has mined 5 million yen …
La Pâte Meat Fruit aims to seduce and inspire diners with an entirely new eating experience that balances eating meat and fruit. In vitro technology is used to grow meat …
In dry areas like the desert, on mountain tops or on the moon it’s impossible to grow anything. Or is it? A rain in the desert sparks extreme plant growth from the moment the …
"Atmospheric energy" has the power to revolutionize the production of electricity.
Designer and artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg explains how synthetic biology inspires her for designing the cars of the future.
Solar Impulse 2 is a Swiss project with the aim to enable long term flights using solar power.
The Brazilian model Paola Antonini uses her Instagram to show off her prosthetic limb.
There was a time when flipping the switch, and seeing a glass bulb light up, was magical to anyone in the world. Today, the presence of a light switch in a room, is something …
Transforming the way we travel is an essential part of tackling the climate crisis. The transport sector contributes about 20% of global carbon emissions . In the UK the figure is …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your …
Paradise by the Laptop Light is a visual power event with short films, speedlectures, special guests and one laptop. It will be held on 23 November 2007 16:30, as part of STRP Art …
Perhaps in the long run, historians will consider this as the official end of modernity as we knew it: The comeback of the wonky cucumber, abnormally bent banana, and comedy …
The Netherlands is known for its outright flat landscape – its even part of the name. How come the Dutch Womans Youth Rafting Team just won the World Cup in the category …
Nowadays buttons are completely mundane and natural objects in our environment. You find them on phones, alarm clocks, keyboards, elevators, dishwashers and of course on the …
We already know that bananas are evidence of intelligent design – by farmers, not by god. All commercial crops have been tweaked by the hand of agriculture, but modern bananas …
Famed for its jaguars, orchids, and horrifying parasites, the Amazon is just as famous for what it lacks: human presence. For many years, the prevailing wisdom has been that …
If you happen to be in the neighborhood you might want to drop by at the exhibition Post Natural Organisms of the European Union in Amsterdam. The small but delicate expo, curated …
Two master's students have created a speculative device to simulate the sensations of eating.
The very first restaurant to typify the modern fast food genre was White Castle, who opened their first location in 1916 in Witchita, USA. Ironically, at the time fast food was …
The greatest taxidermy in the world reveals a great deal about our changing notions of nature.
These robotic ants by Festo are learning to work together, like real ants do.
The multidisciplinary design consultancy Antrepo Team created a project named Minimalist Effect in the Maximalist Market in 2010.
Swiss artist Dan Acher created a replica of the Northern Lights by way of high-powered lasers.
Madrid's new plans to fight rising temperatures and high pollution rates investing on green urban areas.
At the edge of the woods along the motorway near the Dutch town of Bloemendaal, there stands a mobile telephone mast disguised as a pine tree. This mast is not nature: at best, it …
'Release' is a product that terminal patients can use to leave audio messages for their relatives, for after their death. People living with the notion that they will soon die …
A cat that had its back feet severed by a combine harvester has been given two prosthetic limbs in a pioneering operation by a UK vet. The custom-made implants that "peg" the …
To mark the twelve-year restoration of the Sint Jan cathedral in Den Bosch, a new statue of an angel carrying a mobile phone was added to the building. The angel joins the many …
The Center for PostNatural History doesn't house the dinosaurs or dioramas of your run-of-the-mill natural history museum. Instead, it's the first museum dedicated exclusively to …
Designed by a dancer, a new wheelchair moves intuitively with the user's movements.
From small stores to the US government, what the world thinks of bitcoin.
A hotel where all communication is conducted by Twitter hashtag.
The rise and fall of the Earths forests can now be tracked 'real time' through a new mapping tool called Global Forest Watch.
The current technology has not been able to replicate Christ the Redeemer perfectly, until now.
When there is such abundance of areas where IoT could be applied, several ridiculous, unnecessary products are inevitable.
The SkinBook is made of synthetic skin that allows beginner tattooists to practice their skills.
What if design began to put everything but the human first? The needs of the human not paramount to the design process, but instead the other entities that we cohabit planet earth …
Behold the featherless chicken, created by Scientists at the genetics faculty at the Rehovot Agronomy Institute near Tel Aviv, Israel. The idea behind the development of this …
Nothing makes a person more modest about future speculations than Retro Future. Want proof? Here is a 1958 video entitled " Magic Highway USA ". No, they didn't anticipate traffic …
Old nature provided us with a wide variety of food: fresh milk, crispy vegetables, nutritious meat. Yet this is not enough, we want more: We want a printed steak , square …
How can we unfold the Earth? Making a map of the earth is an ancient problem. For thousands of years cartographers, mathematicians, and inventors have developed methods to …
The Ipswich Museum, the Tring Museum, and around 30 other European cultural institutions and antiques dealers have experienced a rash of theft over the last few months. What turns …
In the film Plastic Bag , the title character spends a lifetime (or more) on a quest for a creator not even aware of his existence. A stunning short by Ramin Bahrani, director of …
When watching a science fiction flick, it can be hard to determine what time in the future it is set, although this is a usually an integral part of the movie. However, it is …
Andras Forgacs argues that bioengineering meat and leather is a civilized way to move beyond slaughtering animals for hamburgers and handbags.
British research group created anew scanning technique permits to obtain 3D images and detect wavelengths that our visual system is not able to see.
Putting the birds into the bird's eye view of Google Maps.
The News Machine is a contraption that explains the news distortion that happens when a message is broadcast through different media. The starting point is a tweet sent from a …
Buoyant Airborne Turbine is a giant high altitude wind turbine that brings low cost energy to remote areas and off-grid sites.
Buq are electronic life forms that shift the experience of the street scape from the primarily visual to a more auditory experience.
A speculative rendering of a climate change catastrophe? Is this our future? Or our past, long before people starting building dykes in the low lands?
Case IH debuted their autonomous farm tractor that plants, monitors crops and harvests, all without a driver.
The Bios Incube is a smartphone-connected biodegradable urn that turns cremated remains into a tree.
Now that we've recognized the internet as a living entity , we can begin to wonder what the internet is thinking of. Would it be possible to communicate? Ask questions? Read its …
Next Monday when your colleagues ask you what you have been doing for the weekend, you might answer you something default like you went out with friends, danced, biked to the …
Delicious retro-future meat from Japan. Food technology in the overdrive. Japanese researchers successfully cloned what is believed to have been the forefather ox of Gifu …
Alright, we were mistaken. Money isn't virtual after all. A recent TV commercial of a Greek bank shed light on the issue. Your money lives, is anthropomorphic and inhabits an …
"Until now, the major obstacle that has prevented people from thinking critically about stray shopping carts has been that we have not had any formalized language to differentiate …
What happens when next nature dreams of old nature? Such is the case with extinct animals that have ever come in contact with humans, particularly the dinosaurs, our own …
Where religions promise their believers a life after death and cryonics also needs a kind of belief in future technological development, designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau …
Mediamatic is hosting a pop-up urban mushroom farm in the middle of Amsterdam. Rows and rows of shiitake, oyster, and the elusive almond-flavored Agaricus subrufescens are …
Christopher Quinn and Tommy Walker's documentary ' God Grew Tired of Us ' tells the odyssey of four boys from Sudan who embark on a journey to America after years of wandering …
The Animal Architecture Awards have just announced the winners of their 2011 contest. Taking first place is Simone Ferracina's Theriomorphous Cyborg , a (speculative) augmented …
The layers in this visualization represent an average of how thousands of Americans spent their day
In the movie Fantastic Voyage, a submarine and its crew were shrunk and injected into the body of a sick man in an attempt to save his life. Despite the fictional nature of this …
The Sniffer – aka Google Nose – visualizes odors using a smell sensor, which is as good as a dog’s nose, and a glass in front of your eyes.
Scientists are using Twitter, blogs, and news sites to categorize the global psyche.
As a consequence of a big water diversion project to irrigate surrounding areas the Aral Sea is drying up.
Govedare paints the human impact on natural environments, showing how nature has become a subset of culture.
The Bored and Brilliant project asks people to measure their smartphone use take some conscious steps to limit the digital interactions.
In 2017, a hoverboard can fly 164 feet above earth and able to hover over the Atlantic Ocean.
A smart, huggable bed partner, who also improves your sleep quality. Sounds great, right? Soon, you might be able to order one yourself: Somnox is a soft robotic pillow that gently breathes as you hold it.
You can't beat the real thing, but then again, some generations seem to prefer the other choice. Competition between cola brands goes back a long time. Over the years, the two …
" It took just 10 minutes for a dozen prairie dogs to outwit the creators of the Maryland Zoo's new $500,000 habitat. Aircraft wire, poured concrete and slick plastic walls proved …
"Have you seen my stapler? No, but just look it up on Google home office maps ." CSIRO Researchers have developed miniature sensors that track lab equipment, coffee mugs and …
Rather than growing whole steaks in bio-reactors, Knitted Meat assumes that it is more feasible to create thin threads of protein. Supermarkets sell balls of meat fiber seasoned …
Humans and other hominids have a reputation for bringing about mass extinctions. Homo erectus has been blamed for the disappearance of many African carnivores, our ancestors …
In this essay, anti-civilization, anarchist philosopher John Zerzan critiques the concept of 'next nature.' He argues that rather than freeing us, our self-domestication through …
We thank all our supporters for making the In Vitro Cookbook possible.
Coop Italia has opened a flagship store in Milan to present their vision of what grocery shopping might hold for us in 2050.
Wu Tzu-ning presents a posthuman reality from genetic engineering to digital afterlife.
Designers face an unprecedented urgency to alter their methods and reprioritize their goals to address the accelerating degradation of the environment. This new …
This story is part of Next Generation , a series in which we give young makers a platform to showcase their work. Your work here? Get in touch and plot your coordinates as we …
This is Petra. In 2006 she fell in love with a peddle boat designed to look like a swan and has never left its side. In winter, when swans should be flying southwards, the peddle …
" Eat the View " is a campaign to plant healthy, edible landscapes in high-impact, high visibility places, whether it's the "First Lawn" or the lawn in front of your child's …
DNA related tools, once expensive and restricted to research and crime labs, are rapidly becoming affordable. Like GPS – once a high-tech wonder now turned into a everyday gadget …
Frequent readers of this website might be familiar with our claim that Next Nature emerges from a fusion between the Born and the Made. But now we can add another: the fusion of …
Just like corn, bananas , and essentially any other plant we cultivate, the Cutie mandarin is the result of a concerted effort to produce an ideal food. Mandarin oranges come from …
Last week, the young and talented designers of the Next Nature lab at the Eindhoven University of Technology presented their end of semester works in an internal exhibition. There …
The wunderkammer – the traditional repository of natural history curiosities and cultural relics – has been updated by the Center for PostNatural History in Pittsburgh, which …
Tech experts are betting that they can make vegetarian eggs that outperform the real thing.
From the handshake to the sanitary, gender-neutral fist bump.
Injecting mice with telomerase enables them to live 24% longer than the average mouse.
The BionicKangaroo technologically reproducesthe unique way a kangaroo moves.
Eco-friendly fashion is in vogue, evidenced by terms like “recycled-material” and “sustainable manufacturing” battered around as selling points for everything from sheets to …
The world’s largest indoor farm in Japan is 100 times more productive than traditional agriculture.
This Is What $15.3 Trillion of World Trade Looks Like.
Why would you stick to an elbow, a wrist and five fingers if you could make anything? This guy got a game-inspired bionic arm.
Self-constructing foundation thanks to genetically modified microbes.
At first glance, the premise of the film 'The Iron Giant' (1999) seems to be a total failure. An animation film set in the United States in 1957; while the Russian satellite …
Now there is an interesting biomimicmarketing technique we had not seen before. For their new marketing campaign internet security company Messagelabs worked with digital artist …
Many people tend to eat too fast. As a result they do not receive signals from the stomach that they are in fact full. The result can be overeating and obesity . To encounter …
Conspicuous consumption in the overdrive: The world's first refrigerated beach is to be built at a luxury hotel in the Dubai (aka the new Las Vegas) so the tourists don't burn …
The main character in ‘Being There’ (1979) is a simple-minded gardener named Chance, played brilliantly by Peter Sellars, who has spent all his life as a servant in the Washington …
Viktor Navorski is an Eastern European traveler – portrayed by Tom Hanks, who in the movie ‘Cast Away’ already played a man stranded on an uninhabited island – that finds himself …
All buildings today have something in common: They are made using Victorian technologies. This involves blueprints, industrial manufacturing and construction using teams of …
Last week, the young and talented designers of the Next Nature lab at the Eindhoven University of Technology presented their end of term works in an internal exhibition. There are …
Some countries just don't seem to have real problems. This weekend a protest was organized in Amsterdam against the bad weather . In the first three weeks of July the Dutch …
CouchCachet promises to give you the fully-booked, in-the-know life while you are on the Sofa.