Connected World ~ International Collaborations

Nature shares Connected World infographic spotlighting patterns of international collaborations from 1 February 2018 to 30 January 2019 as captured by the Nature Index...

Ant Architects ~ Cool Properties & Capabilities...

Ants are collective creators of remarkable homes and temporary structures. To explore this further, check out when a fire ant colony is filled with molten aluminum and the cast is dug up and cleansed... See more lovely example casts at Anthill Art! Fire ant groups also demonstrate remarkable hydrophobic properties... This means they can self-configure into massive rafts... Curiously enough, as a collective they also behave like a fluid... A different species creates a giant ant hill which is here filled with concrete and excavated... To get a better sense of how ants live and organize, here's the investigative BBC show, Planet Ant ~ Life Inside The Colony of Central American leafcutter ants... Maybe that whets your appetite for the BBC's Ant Attack! And NatGeo's City of Ants too...

Inspiring Uhura ~ Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek!

I've been thinking about inspiring media recently, especially how great stories with heroes and heroines resonate with an audience and provoke them onwards or in better directions. Few television shows have had greater impact in this regard than Star Trek: The Original Series and the SF crew of a future USS Enterprise. Whether Spock and his logic, or Bones with his bedside manner, or Scotty with his can-do engineering spirit, the characters -- and their ensemble of future-world, multi-ethnic collaboration and competency -- really struck a chord with many viewers. Of these all, one of the most remarkable was the presence and role of Uhura...

Here actress Nichelle Nichols describes how she and creator Gene Roddenberry came up with her character's name... ..."Uhura" -- the feminine spin on "uhuru" which is Swahili for "freedom" -- and also helped shape the backstory for her character who would come from a future United States of Africa! Nichols next reveals her decision to quit the show prematurely... Wow, talked out of it by her "biggest fan" -- no less than Martin Luther King! The show also cracked through the self-censorship of American television of that time by portraying the first inter-racial kiss... ...and pioneering all kinds of costumes and alternative-worlds!-)

Collaborative Economy ~ Chase @ TEDxHarlem

Here's Zipcar and Buzzcar co-founder Robin Chase's TEDxHarlem slides on her Collaborative Economy talk...

Mezzanine ~ Oblong Gesturizes Collab Rooms!

MIT Media Lab alumnus from Tangible Media group John Underkoffler (of Minority Report gestural interface fame) shares his Oblong company's latest goods -- Mezzanine 1.0 -- a collaborative workspace stitching together multi-user experiences across all relevant computers and screens. This promises far more engaging, intuitive, and effective discussions, ideation, and decision-making...