Canon PowerShot G9
ƒ/4
7.4 mm
1/125
80
Puzzle Series: What is this, or what do you want it to be?
The most specific answer within the next 24 hours wins Kevin Kelly’s book What Technology Wants.
31 responses to “What’s That? (99)”
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My first thought on what is this, is that concept I still don’t like…
Emergence.
As a natural occurrence of the changes of the physical state of water… How can I explain this… it’s even complicated in Spanish because it’s happening all at the same moment. Let’s say:
The condesation of water in some parts of the place, plus its beginning to melt from ice into water in other parts -the difference of temperatures in and out, high and low?-… Because it is still cold enough, the melted water running down, turns into ice which creates those paths and beautiful branches ( = emergence) , which allow other droplets to rundown and freeze somewhere else. The iteration of this may create such a landscape…
We are viewing this through a glass, which might also explain the temperature differences, the condensation and the visuals we enjoy!!
Ok, might be very silly and simple and physically impossible my guess… no prob.
It’s a beautiful picture anyway.
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That looks like the plasmodium stage of a slime mold to me. The droplets are fruiting bodies full of spores.
There’s a lot of interest in this stuff at the moment, and it has to do with the emergent behaviour that Gisela mentioned. The way the mold sets up a network of tendrils between food sources establishes a highly energy-efficient design that maps to other applications like the Tokyo railway system!
And it’s a nifty photo, too. 🙂
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Seen on my Flickr home page. (?) -
Dewy silk or stringy fungus. Almost looks like the fungus growth inside a old camera lense.
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I am seeing some neurons here…new stain someone is trying out.
OR;
Artificial cortex ? -
Aha !!
Hydroponic fruiting spiderdog hair mold…in salsa.
Grown in zero gravity,…obviously….It was on the tip of my tongue all morning.
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Zero-gravity indeed – I was about to comment that the "droplets" are close to perfect spheres and not tear-shaped or oblate as one would expect if there was some G-force hanging around. Or else they are so small that surface tension is strong enough to overcome any droop.
I think it is the output of a new prototype engine (still in beta test) that combines a cotton-candy machine with an automated coffee-flavoring dipper, and that was demonstrated recently to some VC’s in hope of raising second-round funding. At the last minute the developers decided to switch the OS (from Linux to Android or vice versa maybe) and the God of Demonstrations struck and the whole damn thing went berserk. What you see is the result, and funding was not forthcoming.
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Bingo Shamagu, right out of the chute, and a new winner I believe. I was following a coyote through a horse pasture, when I came across this poo flower blooming in the mist.
So, Solerena, I would resist the urge to lick! Jeany – kitty is gagging at the thought now…
It is a sprouting fungus with the oft-overlooked beauty of a dandelion. The puzzle photo is a macro zoom from the side. Here it is from the top:
I did not take a sample, so I can’t say for sure what the species we have here. It looked a bit like Pilobolus:
This phototropic zygomycete is a sun loving fungus that can shoot a spore bag over a cow like a clown out of a cannon (0 to 45mph in the first millimeter of flight). The capsule builds up to 100 psi before it pops, tracking the sun and waiting for it to dip to the horizon to maximize the flight distance.
Why? “Microscopic coprophilous or dung-loving fungi help make our planet habitable by degrading the billions of tons of feces produced by herbivores. But the fungi have a problem: survival depends upon the consumption of their spores by herbivores and few animals will graze on grass next to their own dung. Evolution has overcome this obstacle by producing an array of mechanisms of spore discharge whose elegance transforms a cow pie into a circus of microscopic catapults, trampolines, and squirt guns.” From Science Daily
(400x faster than a blink of the eye)
“The researchers used high speed cameras running at up to 250,000 frames per second to capture these blisteringly fast movements. Spores are launched at maximum speeds of 25 meters per second–impressive for a microscopic cell–corresponding to accelerations of 180,000 g. In terms of acceleration, these are the fastest flights in nature.” (video)
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I feel honored to have guessed the answer to your recent puzzle, poo and all. I have participated before (Moffet hangar, meteorite striations and the BrightSource reflecting solar array).
Thank you Steve for putting in the effort to share these images and then responding to the guesses with careful and enlightening answers. You have access to so many techie things, a didactic visual journey indeed!
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Shamagu – I just emailed you for a shipping address. congrats!
sol – the sense that it is pressed up against glass is some kind of depth-of-field illusion here. I had the camera on the ground, and the lens was perhaps 2 or 3 inches away. I think the large droplets are mainly on the surface, like a dandelion
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