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 …
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 …
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.
Next Thursday, February 11, the Hoxton Hotel in Amsterdam dedicates an evening to our newest publication: 'Save the Humans!'
We call upon you, dear readers, to participate in a new publication from the Next Nature Network: SAVE THE HUMANS!.
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 …
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, …
An interview about the history and promises of synthetic biology, and the problem with the word "nature".
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 …
The SAVE THE HUMANS! book is now available on our web shop.
Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids, laments the Rocket Man in Elton John’s timeless classic. In fact, it’s cold as hell. But that doesn’t seem to worry a new …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
Do humans exist merely to make money and use resources? Vandana Shiva believes humans have a higher purpose.
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 …
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 …
The next step is to embrace and celebrate how cultural artifacts are escaping control, becoming autonomous, and forming the “next nature”.
Joyce Hwang discusses the challenges for designers, and gains for citizens, of living in a truly biosynthetic city.
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 …
Remember when we created a little petition back in 2018 in the hope to legalise the tasting of in vitro meat? About 4000 of you agreed with us and signed it. If you were one of …
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 …
What if we would use the idea of symbiosis as the basis for the next period of Earth’s history?
How technology becomes nature in seven steps
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 …
The introductory essay from the Yes, Naturally book - available in our store!
"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.
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?
In 1953, a Harvard psychologist thought he discovered pleasure – accidentally – within the cranium of a rat. With an electrode inserted into a specific area of its brain, the rat …
Octavio Paz says calls The Invention of Morel , “ without exaggeration… a perfect novel. ” According to Borges, “ to classify [it] as perfect is neither an …
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 …
If we want to bring down global CO2 emissions to zero, we will need technological innovation and massive infrastructure projects.
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 …
Interview with Liam Young on his work in speculative architecture, the future, and our role in nature as humans.
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 …
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 …
Invasive species become the animal symbols for a man-made world.
Read Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft's essay on judaism in relation to the production of laboratory-grown meat.
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 …
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 …
Energy policy blah blah blah, life cycle analysis blah blah blah, energy return on energy invested, peak oil, carbon footprint, renewables, hydro, nuclear, blah blah blah blah …
Then, as now, one person could literally change the course of history, with nothing more than an idea.
The Moon Gallery aims to set up the first permanent museum on the Moon. Soon launching to the International Space Station, full of ideas worth sending to the Moon. The gallery is …
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg discusses the promises and realities of synthetic biology.
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 way we currently build is not sustainable. We will have to develop a sustainable living environment that matches our human needs, intuitions and potential.
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 …
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 …
We have entered the Anthropocene epoch, in which humanity and its instrumentalities are the most potent and influential geological force.
In the summer of 2018, the European Court of Justice (that’s Europe’s highest court) reviewed a case and concluded that gene-edited crops should be subject to the same regulations …
Volume magazine interviews Next Nature founder Koert van Mensvoort.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
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.
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 Dutch artist designs a Utopian eco-socialist online society.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
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.
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 …
The rapid technological advancement of the human race has led to many consequences, especially regarding the integrity of the atmosphere that protects all life on Earth. Although …
Rachel Armstrong discusses living buildings, Venice's foundations, millennial nature and how to improve our future.
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 …
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: …
Open Bionics is helping children in need for bionic hands. With Iron Man, Frozen, or Star Wars-themed prosthetics, their fantasies become reality.
The Actroid robot holds clues for climbing out of the uncanny valley.
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 …
Lately it seems that every movie, book and video game we see is about future apocalypses. Science articles are also painting a grim future for Earth and its inhabitants. If it’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 …
During the event The Biosphere Code, Stockholm University researcher Victor Galaz and colleagues outlined a manifesto for algorithms in the environment.
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.
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!
Why memes might be the next tool to make sense of on our increasingly hybrid virtual and physical environment.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) picked six test sites throughout the US to experiment with drone-based cloud seeding.
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 …
Many aspects of the current metaverse were already familiar 143 years ago.
Hendriks’s activity explores the positive transformative power of creative impulses and the importance of fundamental free scientific research.
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.
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 …
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 …
Portraits of people who live alone in the forest.
The Moodmetric ring measures the autonomous nervous system signals that can be used to understand emotional reactions and improve quality of life.
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.
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: …
Cultivator is speculative design project on how bioprinting could find its way into the kitchen of the future.
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 …
The sun lies at the heart of our solar system, providing life-giving light, heat and energy to Earth. The sun always gives, without asking for anything in return. In the …
As we go about our daily activities, we may lose sight of our connections with nonhuman life. Here are three exhibitions to encourage you to step outside of your everyday and …
Picnic Green Challenge calls upon people like you to invent a product or service that can help to save the world. Restore the planet's harmony and lets you win 500.000 Euro on the …
Can a meal replacer save us money, time, and maybe even save the world?
The series Museum of Selfies combines the original art of portraiture with its modern counterpart, the the smartphone self-portrait.
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 …
Many people don't know that growing and cooking in vitro meat is a decade old.
The Weather Machine: an installation that explores rain, clouds and sun heat to recreate the weather occurring outside.
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 …
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 …
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.
Solarium, a video installation by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), puts visitors in the hearth of the sun.
Researchers in Tokyo have developed an artificial womb (for goats).
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 …
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 …
Chantal Sebire suffers from an extremely rare form of cancer (foto: AFP) Since a few centuries some we tend to consider nature as something to preserve. Hence the international …
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.
My New Flame uses LED technology to faithfully recreate the experience of light from the ancient past
With advances in genomics, imaging and other technology,scientists have to face the age of big data.
Our peculiar image of the week learns us that what is good for the environment doesn't always look good for the environment. The adieu of this disused tank into the Gulf of …
A new book explores who (or what) gets to define what is "natural".
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 …
The people at Preem.se – the Swedish organization responsible for this advertisement – must think this is the way to promote environmental protection with a younger generation of …
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 …
When a floppy disk becomes a 3D printed save icon.
If you happen to be in Amsterdam this weekend, attend the other dinner at Waag Society.
All humans on Earth put together are not enough to fill the Grand Canyon. We are so small yet so present.
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
A critical and visual take on culturally emerged Nature. Full of statements from designers and thinkers from around the globe. Wild systems, Genetic Surprises, Calm Technology, …
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
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, …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
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 …
People in the world’s developed nations live in a post-industrial era, working mainly in service or knowledge industries. Manufacturers increasingly rely on sensors, robots, …
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.
We recently spoke to Ilari Laamanen, to peel the outcrops of Momemtum9, and unveil the overlapping themes to the next nature philosophy.
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 …
When the first baby is born off-Earth, it will be a milestone as momentous as humanity’s first steps out of Africa . Such a birth would mark the beginning of a multi–planet …
Some 10,000 years ago humans began to domesticate plants and animals. The birth of agriculture, one of the earliest technologies available.
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 …
As cities push to the edges of the wilderness, wild animals are increasingly com
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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. …
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 …
Did you know that some Dutch people are so addicted to their devices that they'd rather give up sex, vacations, or even a finger than their phone?
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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
Technology is nestling itself within us and between us, has knowledge about us and can act just like us.
How will we stay healthy in the future? Can we utilize the power of design to move towards a more healthy society?
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 …
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.
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.
An interview with Daisy Ginsberg, artist and synthetic biologist.
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.
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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, …
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 …
Phytoplankton are microscopic algae living throughout the ocean’s surface waters. They can’t swim and are at the mercy of the currents and tides. Despite their small size, …
Global warming is "very likely" a human-caused problem that will last for centuries and require concerted international action to reduce its potentially devastating impacts, a …
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 …
Humans’ natural sense of privacy helps them regulate the boundaries of public and private, but fail when trying to identify privacy risks in the online world.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 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.
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 …
Dune offers a useful allegorical narrative of the “scramble for Africa”, which saw European empires carve up the continent into colonized powers.
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 …
The exhibition "Apocalypse - End Without End" shows that the end is a human invention
It’s widely known that the world has a plastics problem. What’s less widely known is that we have a similar problem with another kind of waste: electronics
A laboratory is developing a synthetic dog that will be used for surgery trials, saving many canine lives and changing the veterinary world.
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 …
Humans have been manipulating living things for thousands of years. Examples of early biotechnologies include domesticating plants and animals and then selectively breeding them …
"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 …
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 …
To pay tribute to the destroyed orange petunias during the Petunia crisis, Klaus Pichler has composed an illustrative book.
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 ‘Beneath the Surface’ exhibition organized by Taiwan Designers’ Web at the Chiayi Art Museum teaches us about unconventional connections, past and future.
This question is an excerpt from the Pyramid of Technology toolkit The first computers barely fit in your living room. This all changed with the introduction of the desktop …
In July 2018, a century-old red oak went live on Twitter. The account @awitnesstree , tweeting from the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, introduces itself in its bio: …
Our deficiencies have always driven us, even among our distant ancestors, back in the last Ice Age. Having neither the speed and strength to hunt large prey, nor sharp teeth and …
In conversation with Canadian researcher Suzanne Simard, inventor of the Wood Wide Web.
For multispecies feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway, “it matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” She studies the current age as the Chthulucene (chthon, …
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 …
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 …
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.
As modern humans, we are out of balance with our natural environment. With use of technology, we try to prolong our human lifespan and create materials that live longer than we …
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 …
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 …
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 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.
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?
Gene editing is advancing at a faster pace than most of us can keep up with. One significant recent announcement was gene editing tool CRISPR’s application to non-genetic diseases …
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 …
The eggplant emoji became a political weapon and gain cult status being the forbidden fruit of the web.
Interview with Mike Thompson and Susana Cámara Leret.
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 …
A selection of nine enthralling and striking concepts of future way of transportation.
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 …
What if living objects could re-connect humans with their menstrual cycle and change the way we perceive it?
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 …
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.
We spoke with the Museum of Edible Earth, a travelling museum dedicated to the prosperous amount of soil samples.
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 …
The image of the whole Earth as seen from space has become a symbol of the environmental movement. Time for an update?
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 conversation with film director Joshua Ashish Dawson about the future of wellness, climate anxiety and healthy cynicism India-born, Los Angeles-based film director Joshua …
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, …
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 …
As with many of the products we consume, there’s a cost beyond what we pay at the store. Producing coffee has an environmental cost, too.
Where were you on the 4th October 2021? During the day that will be remembered for the Facebook outage, not everyone was equally impacted.
After Magritte; Surrealism in the 21th century. Peculiar image of the week, created by Isabel Lucena.
Your next phone could be the noPhone: a technology-free alternative to any smart mobile device.
NNN director Koert van Mensvoort writes a letter to humanity.
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 …
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 …
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 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, …
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.
The coverstory of Next Nature Magazine investigates how the rise of virtual influencers on social media reveals a superorganism.
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 …
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.
In 1912, the RMS Titanic met a fateful demise as it crashed into the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean, leaving a mark on the world's collective memory, and igniting a lasting …
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 …
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 …
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) …
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 …
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 …
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 …
In 1972, the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth, a report about the future of the world. They described the limits of the world’s resources and what it is capable of …
The commercial race to get tourists to space is heating up between Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson and former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. On Sunday 11 July, Branson ascended …
A lot of the ground we live on is polluted. More than a third of our soils are moderately or heavily degraded; heavy metals such as lead are increasingly found in urban soils, …
The idea of colonizing Mars has become the big speculative future of humanity on Earth. But, artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg has radically different ideas to contribute to the …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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.
There’s no place on earth untouched by human activity: This was clear as Lucas Foglia whizzed across the vast, white expanse of Alaska's Juneau Ice Field last summer. He was …
By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times , December 11, 2007 The pace of human evolution has been increasing at a stunning rate since our ancestors began spreading through Europe, Asia …
Lab grown meat is part of the trajectory that agricultural technology is already following.
Speculative designer Agi Haines' work focuses on (re)designing the human body, and speculates upon future scenarios.
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 …
The times where memes were geeky and funny, somewhat disturbing images have been over for years. Even a simple frog such as Pepe is not innocent anymore. Memes were hijacked by …
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 …
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 …
The movie The Matrix brought ectogenesis to the public eye.
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 …
What are the characteristics of the perfect leader? The answer could be found looking at nature.
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 …
'Big History' is a multidisciplinary study that seeks to put the human story into the context of a 13.8 billion-year story from the Big Bang to now.
Pleun van Dijk is a speculative artist/designer who investigates the intimate relationship between human and technology.
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 …
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, …
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 …
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 …
Living Carbon enhances natural traits in plants as a solution for stabilizing the climate by increasing the efficiency of the photosynthesis process.
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 …
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 …
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 …
There seems to be a green shift happening in Dutch Design, where the traditional vision is slowly sprouting into a newer, more refreshing one. The biodesigners are emerging from …
Breathtaking satellite images that will change how you see the World.
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!
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 …
In conversation with architect Julia Watson, a leading expert on Indigenous technologies and author of 'Lo-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism'.
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 …
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 …
What are then the actions to foster for an effective sustainability? A series of articles will try to point the plastic poblem.
New study suggests that the real environmental problem is embodied in the things we buy.
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 …
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?
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 …
As technology evolves, what today seems like science fiction may be the job market of tomorrow: 11 professions of the future.
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 …
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 …
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. …
Researchers are teaching drones to recognize and follow forest trails.
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 …
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 …
Krill, those tiny members of the ocean's planktonic community, have an importance disproportionate to their size. They are a vital food for whales, penguins and increasingly, …
MIT researchers have developed a system of traffic control that will make traffic lights obsolete.
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 …
Augment your physiology. Enhance your prospects. From neuro-electronics, to robotic-prosthetics and mind-altering pharmaceuticals.
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 …
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...
A (very) short history of a century's worth of "disembodied" meat in fiction.
A significant milestone has been reached as the US Department of Agriculture has granted approval to a vaccine for insects for the very first time. An important breakthrough, …
The surprising results of a year offline in the "real" world.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Promising food design projects do not always find their way to producers, the market and ultimately to consumers. Why is that and what can we do to advance these ideas? Why is it …
Fishfarming , or aquaculture has been the fastest growing food-sector for decades. This is nothing to be surprised about: fishing as a practice has been in existence since the …
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 …
In 2020, scientists made global headlines by creating “ xenobots ” – tiny “ programmable ” living things made of several thousand frog stem cells. These pioneer xenobots could …
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 …
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. …
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.
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!
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 …
A new theory claims it wasn't human deforestation that caused the ecological collapse of Easter Island, but something smaller and squeakier.
Conservation workers ask synthetic biologists to help them save the world's endangered creatures and habitats.
BeoSound Moment is an intelligence sound system that predicts the music the user is in the mood for.
Utopian off-grid ReGen Village produces all of its own food and energy is being implemented in Almere.
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 …
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 …
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.
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.
Google Cardboard was used by a cardiologist to train for a very risky heart surgery on a four months baby.
Demand for life-saving organ transplantation is at an all-time high. In 2021, a record 41,000-plus organ transplants were performed in the U.S., with top numbers for kidney, liver …
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 …
Looking back on the first recorded attack on a human cyborg.
Zackary Scholl developed a program to produce a poem that passed the Turing Test.
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.
Eating meat has made us who we are today: evolved, intelligent humans, able to use a verbal language.
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 …
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 …
Often cockroaches aren’t people's best friends, but maybe in a few years you will be relieved when you see a cockroach. Researchers of the North Carolina State University …
A revolutionary new smartphone for the blind uses a completely tactile interface.
A special absorbant film that require no soil may be able to grow plants more efficiently than soil farming.
Can we have pretty power stations? The design of power stations is becoming more appealing.
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 …
“Within a few years it will be possible for a premature baby to continue to mature in an artificial womb,” says gynecologist Guid Oei. It is therefore that the Artificial Womb: …
Dig a teaspoon into your nearest clump of soil, and what you’ll emerge with will contain more microorganisms than there are people on Earth. We know this from lab studies that …
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 …
A floating sustainable city where humans can live, work and study while supporting aquatic ecosystems. Soon this will become a reality in Dubai, as sustainable real estate company …
Meet United Matters, a London collective exploring how we might live in the future by blurring the boundaries between craft, science and technology.
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 …
Food and Concept designer, Chloé Rutzerveld, explains her 3D food printing project Edible Growth.
The first 3D printed house is a recognisable and attractive Dutch Canal House, an exhibition and building site in the heart of Amsterdam.
The U.S. Secret Service is conducting test drone flights over Washington, D.C.
If we'll ever get to go to Mars as tourists , we wouldn't get lost. Ordnance Survey , the official British mapping agency, recently released a new detailed map of the Red Planet. …
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 …
Nowadays mechanical intelligence is often chosen over that of our own human capabilities. But there was a time where our computers were still not always a match against our own …
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 …
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 …
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 …
The food writer Bee Wilson, author of Consider the Fork , has put forth a surprising theory about forks and teeth that has received widespread online coverage. According to …
Cheetos and other junk foods are more carefully engineered than the average bridge.
A new material can stop toxic off-gassing from plastics, but the 'new car smell' is so valuable the car industry might not change.
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.
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, …
The influence of humans on the earth can hardly be underestimated. Think of climate change, deforestation, and the decline of biodiversity. We are heading for a sixth mass …
The Earth BioGenome Project is aiming to create a database of genomes of all organic life on earth within 10 years.
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 …
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 …
Last week the Olympic women’s diving pool at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre mysteriously turned swampy green overnight.
This movie titled "All My Clothes" reminds us of a more straightforward example of intimate technology: the clothes we wear every day.
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, …
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 …
Technology is not neutral; the same tech might empower some and disempower others. It is time to check our Technoprivilege, argues author Hendrik-Jan Grievink.
Ten books that continue to inspire the next nature philosophy—gathered for you to read this summer.
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 …
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.
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 …
A virtual reality theme park where visitors can explore the virtual world in a physical environment.
What if you had the choice of sparing your child from diseases and disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease or autism?
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Next time you are taking a walk to work, have a look around you. You will probably notice that most of your fellow pedestrians are glued to their phones, rather than enjoying the …
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 …
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 …
Should we make a next step in what we serve at the table? What about insects? Would you give them a try?
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.
The penguin jumper is designed by the Penguin Foundation, an organization that rescues penguins on the Australian coast who are hit by oils spills.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 oPhone and oSnap allow you to send pictures with aromatic vocabularies.
Warka Water is an alternative water source to rural population that faces challenges in accessing drinkable water.
With its 656 beds, this hospital offers unconventional and leading computerized assistance for all sorts of patients.
A futuristic Japanese hotel will be run by robots, designed to be extremely human-like.
Meet the anti-smartphone. It literally does nothing but make and answer calls.
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.
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 …
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, …
A large-scale asian food market serving in vitro meat, a transatlantic expo on the future of nature and a travelling exhibition that explores our relationship with AI. These five …
Cleaning up ships' pollution is making the ocean warmer than expected. Less pollution means less cooling clouds, heating up the Atlantic.
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 …
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 …
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.
The Google self-driving car has driven 700.000 miles by itself, and now it can drive through busy city streets.
Stretchy artificial skin lets prosthetic hand sense heat, humidity, and pressure.
De Motu is an interactive music app that let you experience your body through music and influence the sound with your own body.
Solar Impulse 2 is a Swiss project with the aim to enable long term flights using solar power.
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 …
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 …
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 …
We need to talk about COVID-19. Again (or, still). One of the main questions about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has for a while been about its origins. Most viruses …
As the world is trying to keep carbon emissions under control, humans are also looking for viable carbon-neutral transportation options. The people from French rolling stock …
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 …
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 …
The economic system and profit motive has been a driving force that steers and even dictates social change. Investors and stockbrokers have been a major influence to these social …
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 …
The greatest taxidermy in the world reveals a great deal about our changing notions of nature.
Soon, we might be getting a taste of the first lab-grown chicken meat.
The Brazilian model Paola Antonini uses her Instagram to show off her prosthetic limb.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
By the turn of the century, some people began raising questions about our meat consumption habits.
The multidisciplinary design consultancy Antrepo Team created a project named Minimalist Effect in the Maximalist Market in 2010.
A severely injured tortoise was saved by a team of doctors thanks to a 3D printed shell.
Swiss artist Dan Acher created a replica of the Northern Lights by way of high-powered lasers.
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.
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 …
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 …
Following anorexia nervosa (under eating) and bulimia nervosa (overeating and compensating), orthorexia nervosa (obsessively healthy eating) is the latest eating disorder in the …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
"Atmospheric energy" has the power to revolutionize the production of electricity.
Putting the birds into the bird's eye view of Google Maps.
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.
These robotic ants by Festo are learning to work together, like real ants do.
The SkinBook is made of synthetic skin that allows beginner tattooists to practice their skills.
'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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Computer-controlled players in video games can usually be spotted for their repetitive, illogical or unemotional behavior. Unlike humans, non-player characters (NPCs) don't get …
Two master's students have created a speculative device to simulate the sensations of eating.
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 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 …
Designed by a dancer, a new wheelchair moves intuitively with the user's movements.
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.
The current technology has not been able to replicate Christ the Redeemer perfectly, until now.
The Bios Incube is a smartphone-connected biodegradable urn that turns cremated remains into a tree.
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 …
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 …
"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 …
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 …
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 layers in this visualization represent an average of how thousands of Americans spent their day
British research group created anew scanning technique permits to obtain 3D images and detect wavelengths that our visual system is not able to see.
The Mammoth was the last of the giant land mammals of the Pleistocene era.
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.
Designer and artist Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg explains how synthetic biology inspires her for designing the cars of the future.
When there is such abundance of areas where IoT could be applied, several ridiculous, unnecessary products are inevitable.
The Bored and Brilliant project asks people to measure their smartphone use take some conscious steps to limit the digital interactions.
Case IH debuted their autonomous farm tractor that plants, monitors crops and harvests, all without a driver.
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.
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
The world is returning to the era when a scraped knee or ear infection could lead to sudden, swift death.
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.
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?
In 2017, a hoverboard can fly 164 feet above earth and able to hover over the Atlantic Ocean.
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 …
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 …
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 …
"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 …
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 …
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 …
The wunderkammer – the traditional repository of natural history curiosities and cultural relics – has been updated by the Center for PostNatural History in Pittsburgh, which …
From the handshake to the sanitary, gender-neutral fist bump.
Injecting mice with telomerase enables them to live 24% longer than the average mouse.
Human test subjects felt empathy for dinosaur robots being cuddled or abused.
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 …
This potentially revolutionary device includes LED lights and temperature sensors to provide medication directly to the wounded section of the skin.
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.
Wu Tzu-ning presents a posthuman reality from genetic engineering to digital afterlife.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
CouchCachet promises to give you the fully-booked, in-the-know life while you are on the Sofa.
The BionicKangaroo technologically reproducesthe unique way a kangaroo moves.
A team of researchers recently developed a new method for 3D printing that can reduce the printing process down to minutes.
A group of architects looked at natural forests to design the bamboo skyscraper.
Nissan created the e-NV200 workspace: an electrical van with zero emissions that is packed with everything you need to work efficiently.
Self-constructing foundation thanks to genetically modified microbes.
James Lovelock (1919) has lived on Earth for over a century. You may find that long, but it is short for himself. He thinks big and from a long-term awareness. At the age of …
What is the meaning of art on the moon? Artist on the Moon is the latest project from Icelandic visual artist Borghildur Indriðadóttir , who aims to perform for the stars and …
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 …
Hans Jørgen Olsen, a 12-year-old Norwegian boy, saved himself and his sister from a moose attack using skills he picked up playing the online role playing game World of Warcraft.. …
All buildings today have something in common: They are made using Victorian technologies. This involves blueprints, industrial manufacturing and construction using teams of …
Nissan’s Engineers Are Creepily Trying To Replicate Human Skin
Tech experts are betting that they can make vegetarian eggs that outperform the real thing.
The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the warms build pavilions made of polygonal silk panels.
Daan Roosegaarde is exploring possibilities to replace streetlights with luminous trees.
A tool that could turn the arm into a touch screen display.
Streetlights affect local ecologies for a longer duration, and at a higher level in the food web, than previously thought.
A visit to a massive, secretive Bitcoin mine that is said to make 800.000 Euro per month.