Category: Art

Impact Lab > Art
Animals, Art, Culture, Current Events, Entertainment, government, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues

China Bans Satirical Bunnies

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnw5BvxSDmM[/youtube]

As China gears up for the Year of the Rabbit, the nation’s Communist authorities have censored a bunny cartoon with political overtones. The Chinese New Year – which falls this year on February 3 – is the country’s biggest holiday. Families come together for several days of feasting and gift-giving. But, this year, a New Year-themed cartoon posted on a popular Chinese website seems to have rankled officials. Censors have deleted the video, in an apparent reaction to its biting political satire.

The three-minute animation begins with rabbit babies being poisoned, a blatant reference to a recent toxic milk scandal that left six children dead…

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Analysis, Art, Food, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Latest News, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints

First-Ever Global Map to Delve Deep Into Earth Surface Helps Reveal Water Supply

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Water, water everywhere?

Questions such as how much fresh water we have left on Earth, where it is located, and how we can access it are all nearly impossible to answer. However, scientists working on understanding and revealing the planet’s surface structure are helping to hone in on an answer. University of British Columbia researchers have created a world’s-first with their new map that outlines how fluid flows through Earth’s various porous surfaces. Information gleaned from the map can help us discover more about water supplies worldwide.

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Fashion, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives

Color-Changing Shirts Sniff Out Air Pollution

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Thermochromatic Fabric Shows Off Air Pollution

What if detecting urban pollution was as easy as looking down at your neighbor’s chest? It is–if your neighbor is wearing one of the high-tech sweatshirts designed by NYU grad students Sue Ngo and Nien Lam. The shirts, designed for a class on wearable technologies, feature internal organs that change colors depending on the levels of carbon monoxide in the atmosphere…

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Architecture, Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, New Viewpoints

Blobitecture – The Rise of Organic Architecture

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Blobitecture example in Selfridges, Birmingham UK

Yet what is blobitecture?  It is a term for an architectural school in which organic shapes are the aim, bulging, cellular, amoeba-like buildings its expression.  Although the term did not appear in print until 2002, blob architecture had been used as an expression in architectural circles since the middle of the previous decade.  Notably it was the New York Times which first brought it to greater attention, as part of William Safire’s On Language column. (Pics)

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Animals, Art, Crazy Photos, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Humor, Photo Perspectives

Top 10 Photos of the Week

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When spies attempt to infiltrate the ranks of PETA, nothing can be left to chance

“People say New Yorkers can’t get along. Not true. I saw two New Yorkers, complete strangers, sharing a cab. One guy took the tires and the radio; the other guy took the engine.”
David Letterman

“People say New Yorkers can’t get along. Not true. I saw two New Yorkers, complete strangers, sharing a cab. One guy took the tires and the radio; the other guy took the engine.” – – David Letterman

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Architecture, Art, Breakthrough Thinking, New Discoveries, New Inventions, New Viewpoints

Circular Walking Bookshelf

Circular-Walking-Bookshelf

A new twist on circular reasoning?

DAVID GARCIA STUDIO is an experimental architectural platform and has put forth some pretty awesome and thought provoking creations including this circular walking book case. From the site:

The Archive Series are investigations on space and books, aiming to blur the borders between art and design. Clearly non functional, they aim to appeal to the senses, creating a narrative which more often than not, reaches the absurd…

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Analysis, Art, Big Problems, Culture, Current Events, Globalism, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Hot Issues, Latest News

The Plight of Female Drug Addicts in Afghanistan

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Addiction strikes many women in Afghanistan.

Photographer Rafaela Persson has lived in Afghanistan since 2008, and spends time getting to know her subjects.

I had an idea to photograph female drug addicts. Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of opium, from which heroin is derived. According to a study made by U.N. Drugs and Crimes Office in 2010, the rate of drug addiction in Afghanistan is twice the global average; Afghans have become the leading consumers of their own opium.  Approximately one million Afghans, or eight percent of the war-shattered country’s total population is suffering from drug addiction, a 75 percent increase since 2005. What is even more alarming is that studies show that 50 percent of Afghanistan’s opium-using parents give the drug to their own children…

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Animals, Art, Crazy Photos, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Humor, Photo Perspectives

Top 10 Photos of the Week

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He didn’t have brainstorms often, but when he did, they were a doozy

What does a squirrel do in the summer? It buries nuts. Why? Cos then in winter time he’s got something to eat and he won’t die. So, collecting nuts in the summer is worthwhile work. Every task you do at work think, would a squirrel do that? Think squirrels. Think nuts.
David Brent

“What does a squirrel do in the summer? It buries nuts. Why? Cos then in winter time he’s got something to eat and he won’t die. So, collecting nuts in the summer is worthwhile work. Every task you do at work think, would a squirrel do that? Think squirrels. Think nuts.” – – David Brent

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Architecture, Art, Award Winner, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Current Events, Globalism, Human Behavior

Street Artist Wins $100,000 TED Prize

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27-year-old Parisian street artist JR just won the $100,000 TED prize for 2011

TED, the progressive California nonprofit that brings luminaries of technology, entertainment, and design together for the sake of world betterment, has made an unexpected choice for its seventh annual $100,000 TED Prize: JR, a 27-year-old street artist who, under a mysterious cloak of semi-anonymity, has been pasting monumental black-and-white photographs across the urban infrastructure of the world’s poorest slums…

(more award winning art after jump…)

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.