Tag: Science Art

Microbial music: Christine Lavin and the Amoeba Hop

Always searching for science-art-music combinations.  Especially ones that focus on some aspect of science I work on, like microbes. And, well, though this recording is less than ideal, and you need to wait a minute and a half or so, once you get to the song it is worth it.

The song is “The Amoeba Hop” and the singer is the brilliant Christine Lavin.

I have had this song in my head on and off for years and wanted to post about it for a while.  I finally remembered to Google it tonight after reading a tweet about combining music and biology.  I used to listen to Lavin all the time in college and even went to a show of hers in 1989 in Ft. Collins, CO with my brother and my friend Saul Jacobson.  As a side note – we saw Lavin at some music hall type of place the the night after seeing Killdozer at a VFW post.  As a second side note – the Killdozer show was crazy (and I even found someone else who wrote about it here).

Anyway – not only did I find the video posted above but I discovered she wrote a book in 2002 based on the song – and the book even got a review in the New York Times.   Gonna probably have to get that book at some point …

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This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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Most unusual use of #microbes of the week: fermented fashion

Fermented clothing on mannequin from
http://bioalloy.org/o/projects/micro-be.html

Well, this is certainly unusual: The Genteel | Fermented Fashion.  I found out about this from a Tweet from Irene Kim

Anyway the article describes the “Micro’be'” project for which more details are available here.  Some interesting details at that site include a description

Imagine a fabric that grows…a garment that forms itself without a single stitch!
The fashion that starts with a bottle of wine…
Micro’be’ fermented fashion investigates the practical and cultural biosynthesis of clothing – to explore the possible forms and cultural implications of futuristic dress-making and textile technologies.
Instead of lifeless weaving machines producing the textile, living microbes will ferment a garment.
A fermented garment will not only rupture the meaning of traditional interactions with body and clothing; but also raise questions around the contentious nature of the living materials themselves.
This project redefines the production of woven materials.
By combining art and science knowledge and with a little inventiveness, the ultimate goal will be to produce a bacterial fermented seamless garment that forms without a single stitch. 

So – in essence they are trying to grow clothing as a side product of wine fermentation.  Not sure what it is like to wear such clothing – or to be around someone wearing it – but it is a fun idea.

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——–
This is from the “Tree of Life Blog”
of Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist and Open Access advocate
at the University of California, Davis. For short updates, follow me on Twitter.

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