Be Now Here

superweeds

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:37:00 +0000

The above graph nicely illustrates what we're up against when it comes to invasive plants. A few species of highly adapted superweeds are being transported across oceans at unprecedented rates. The California Invasive Plants Council estimates that CA spends a minimum of $82million a year on attempting to control these runaway armies of leafy terrorists with very limited success. The plants continue to spread and new species are regularly introduced despite valiant efforts to intercept these illegals at CA's borders ("Any fresh fruits, vegetables, or living plants with you today?")

The top dozen most wanted weeds in california?

Aegilops triuncialis - barb goatgrass
Bromus madritensis ssp. rubens - red brome
Centaurea maculosa - spotted knapweed
Centaurea solstitialis - yellow starthistle
Cortaderia selloana - pampasgrass
Cytisus scoparius - Scotch broom
Delairea odorata - Cape-ivy, German-ivy
Euphorbia esula - leafy spurge
Foeniculum vulgare - fennel
Genista monspessulana - French broom
Hedera helix, H. canariensis - English ivy, Algerian ivy
Lepidium latifolium - perennial pepperweed

in urban areas these are the plants the colonize the cracks and margins where maintenance is minimal. Once established, these plants can be impossible to eradicate. Many of the plants will readily grow in the rugose spaces of architecture and infrastructure, often at edges, seams, or material transitions where an interruption in the impermeable cap creates a micro-swale for collecting nutrients and water. As the plant grows the expansion of roots, stems, and leaves act like small hydraulic jacks slowly and inevitably pushing aside the built environment to increase the potential for growth, survival, and reproduction. The forces at work are enormous, the sun pump driving massive disintegration of urban spaces through the microscopic multiplication of meristematic tissue. If we stopped our constant hacking, poisoning, mowing, pulling, and burning a handful of feral plants would quickly engulf our homes and cities, attacking walls, roofs, rafters, roads, bridges, skyscrapers, freeways, gardens... a smooth green skin appliqued to the city's
bones.

so how do we stop them?

A few options:
manual control: expensive, time consuming, hard, and effective
fire control: dangerous, many invasives surive or are encouraged by fire
chemical control: cheap, fast, easy, and completely ineffective.

broad spectrum herbicide applications for the control of invasive plant species poses the same risks overreliance on antiobiotics does; namely the inevitability of breeding resistance into the target population. This is readily observed in the proliferation of Roundup resistant weeds in areas that rely on Monsanto for their genetically modified herbicide resistant crops. (another reason to buy organic... less risk of GMOs)

the good folks at grist bring us this:

"In the U.S. alone, glyphosate use jumped by a factor of 15 between 1994 and 2005, CFS claims. And this herbicide gusher has given rise to a host of "superweeds" -- weeds that tolerate heavy doses glyphosate. How do farmers deal with superweeds? By jacking up the dose of glyphosate"

Glyphosate... (key ingredient in Roundup) better than atrazine right? Sure, but that's like saying a Hummer is better for the environment than a Hummer limo, not inaccurate but not entirely true. Wikipedia summarizes.
I'm most interested in this paper which suggests that glyphosate may inhibit the ability of soil microbes to protect plants against pathogens, causing higher incidence of plant diseases in fields treated sprayed with Monsanto's magic SAFE weed killer.

uh oh...

There are now confirmed cases of herbicide resistant weeds in 13 states, reporting a total of 63 different weed species. At this rate Roundup ready crops will be completely useless despite the millions of gallons of glyphosate saturating our soil. This points to a larger problem of herbicide resistance in invasive plants and suggests that it's only a matter of time before English Ivy, pampas grass, and japanese knotweed figure out our chemical tricks.

I imagined a sort of high-tech government facility deep in the Ozarks where top-notch plant breeders are hard at work developing the most virulent and unstoppable weeds imaginable. The vigor of Arundo donax, the taproot of knapweed, the rhizome of bamboo, the seeds of a thistle, the thorns of himalayan blackberry, the roundup resistance of Monsanto's weeds, and the speed of kudzu.
Weaponized weeds.

So what can we d0?
biomass production seems like an obvious solution. these plants can be converted into compost or energy (or both via biochar) and used to increase soil fertility in the degraded zones that often have both the absence of maintenance and competition that incubate these over-zealous castaways.

(example showing Jean Pain's biomass experiments)

This requires, like always, a ton of maintenance and given the tendency for machines to make the problem worse via incomplete removal and meristem shattering, it will probably have to be done the old fashioned way, by hand. This, of course, is radically expensive and would seem to encourage more creative incentives for invasive control, such as exchanging space for time (the homestead approach).

There is the possibility that the proliferation of exotic invaders that destroy our human-made environment are a sort of built-in mechanism for biosphere regulation. Invasive plants are the land's attempt at fighting back against the suffocating cap of impervious surface, a bioclimatic reflex. Combined with crazy rasberry ants: eating electrical devices throughout the southern U.S.(!), H1N1, and zebra mussels it would appear that the control we believe we have over our environment is a wayward delusion persisting from the mechanistic roots of enlightenment science. Maximum control only pushes the inherent energy of the system into other channels (why fences are always hopped). We exist at the mercy of our fellow lifeforms and rather than fighting them we need to focus more of our energy towards developing complex probiotic solutions to our abiotic actions.

weeding exercise

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:45:00 +0000

visiting tilden park is something we love to do
our dog can be off leash, there are rock outcrops and big oak trees.
we went up to the quarry trail and i spent a few minutes pulling out weeds before we went on our hike. According to the law this is an illegal act. We have collectively entrusted the management of our public lands to government agencies who protect us from ourselves by outlawing resource tampering. Tilden is overgrown, muddy, choked by eucalyptus and blackberry. The forest could use some maintenance, but the law would seem to limit the power of the individual to make a difference.

FROM East Bay Regional Park ORDINANCE 38, Chapter 8 "Park Features Protection" (M/I ) SECTION 804 "Damage to Plants"
No person shall damage, injure, collect or remove any plant or tree or portion thereof, whether living or dead, including but not limited to flowers, mushrooms, bushes, vines, grass, turf, cones and dead wood located on District parklands. In addition, any person who willfully or negligently cuts, destroys or mutilates vegetation shall be arrested or issued a citation pursuant to Penal Code Section 384a.

SECTION 807 "Special Permission" however, says...
Special permission (Section 103) may be granted to remove, treat, disturb, or otherwise affect plants or animals or geological, historical, archaeological, or paleontological materials for research, interpretive, educational, or park operational purposes.

weeding in tilden from Nathan Hodges on Vimeo.

the nomadic city

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:32:00 +0000

an interview with constant nieuwenhuys by linda boersma at bombsite
http://www.bombsite.com/issues/91/articles/2713

has images CN made around his imagined urban environment "New Babylon" (text) a city for Homo ludens freed to romp in their creativity. Inspired by a gypsy camp near Alba Italy, CN saw the ceaseless wanderings of people as attempts to
realize a need "for playing, for adventure, for mobility."

His answer was NB:

"where, under one roof, with the aid of moveable elements, a shared residence is built; a temporary, constantly remodeled living area; a camp for nomads on a planetary scale."

Symbolische voorstelling van New Babylon (detail) (Symbolic Representation of New Babylon), 1969, collage on paper, 55×60”. Photo: Victor E. Nieuwenhuys.

He envisaged a system where all work would be fully mechanized and, living within the meta-construct, we would be free to drift in a timeless state, space becoming an effortless media through which we could move, manifesting our creative spectrum.

"Mobility, the incessant fluctuation of the population -- a logical consequence of this new freedom -- creates a different relation between town and settlement. With no timetable to respect, with no fixed abode, the human being will of necessity become acquainted with a nomadic way of life in an artificial, wholly 'constructed' environment"

While fully in the Situationist's camp CN was, however, criticized by Debord. (excerpt from "Non-plan" by J. Hughes)

i think this is a valid critique of the project, which reaches just a bit too far past the present to ever get any closer to now, but ad-campaigns do change the way people live. Maybe by comparing NB to a Coca-Cola ad Debord was slyly congratulating CN on creating an alternate future that was so rich and compelling that people wanted to live there.

the deliverables are great anyway

Secteur Jaune (detail) (Yellow Sector), 1958, wood, metal, Plexiglas, 9×37 x 35”

http://rebeccareilering.wordpress.com/2009/10/10/metabolic-city/

maintenance

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 08:28:00 +0000

these are people that the government is forcing to do land maintenance, usually for vegetation suppression around roads and airports.
They're being forced to actualize a cultural belief about how land is supposed to function.

These are vegetables planted in the parking lot of a Chinese food drive through in Fort Bragg CA. It looks like it was recently converted from a mass of junipers, a prickly tough shrub. The owners removed the junipers, created small berms and planted bok choi, squash, cucumber, and beans. A single juniper was left in the beds and when we walked by a man was carefully pruning away the dead branches to reveal the trunk.

He was actualizing a cultural belief about how land should function.

data boom

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:17:00 +0000

The above two images show an aerial view of the Ashby fleamarket that happens every Saturday and Sunday in the parking lot of the Ashy Bart Station. The top photo is from the USGS Seamless database and is 0.33' for Alameda County, the bottom is from Google Maps. The GM aerial seems to be taken at an earlier date, based on how the shrubs along the north edge of the parking lot have grown in the USGS aerial. (or were they pruned?) Despite this the similarity in the layout & temporary structures of the flea market itself make it seem like images could have been recorded on the same day, perhaps just a few hours apart. Why do I only have access to aerial images that were taken on the weekend?
these and other questions, weekly and biweekly.

knowing snails

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:31:00 +0000

Back in 2005 I was working on an undergraduate thesis at Portland State University, studying terrestrial mollusk species diversity in a Portland Oregon urban forest.

It was a fairly straightforward piece of research that wanted to answer the question: what species of slugs and snails live in this patch of woods?

26 sample sites, 844 square feet per site, 21944 square feet total. 1004 total terrestrial mollusks found, 16 species, 1 range extension for Cryptomastix germana germana, 1 possible threatened snail, Megomphix hemphilli.

I crawled around in the rainy woods looking under leaf litter & sword ferns for a few small slugs or snails that I would temporarily corral, identify, photograph, then release.

I brought a few home with me, boxed them up, and sent them to the BLM offices outside Roseburg, where Nancy Duncan preserved them and stored them in their Oregon Mollusk collection.

I also took samples of the leaf litter, baked all 26 liters in the oven in our small apartment, then sorted through the detritus with a hand loupe looking for microsnails about the size of a pinhead.

the thesis is here, the associated field guide is here

The thesis process was great and the results typically "scientific" but they both lacked, in retrospect, any kind of discussion of the subtle character of the snails & the environment. There is no subjective information, information without numbers, or purely intuitive data in this kind of product. (Journal of Irreproducible Results which has some real oddities)
Snails are full of character, and spending time in their habitat gave me a lot more information than I could package up and put in the report. The literature seems to suggest that snails have favorite foods, preferred & avoided trails, repeat acquaintances, memories, can live for 20(+?) years, and make their way back to their nest even when picked up and moved (no slime trail to follow, how do they know which way to go?) Through my observations and sensing I began to understand how each snail was different, some were gregarious, recalcitrant, feisty, or gentle. Some were strong for their size, some were very curious. Slugs and snails seem to have individual personalities informed by their genetic code and their life experiences. They make choices.

The science that attempts to get at this holistic view is behavioral ecology. This research tends to focus on explaining the evolutionary origins of behaviors rather than finding patterns or meaning in how/why a plant or animal responds to its environment. What is the organism's nature? This is an extremely difficult question for science to answer and would require mountains of data just to establish action, nevermind motive (Do you know why you do what you do? Do you know the snail does what it does?).

Maybe the better method is to use intuition to establish a relationship with a given life form. Perhaps we could all be assigned a creature, like a zodiac, that we are responsible for observing closely. I think we would find that every organism has the potential to invoke empathy in a human. The ability to feel what it's like to be that plant, animal, or (archae)bacteria. While we call this "projection" and dismiss it as a human artifact we simultaneously labor under the belief that other means of knowledge production are objective and can create a reality divorced from individual experience, with repeatable results, and no fingerprints. A myth, that we believe in to guide our actions.

The explanation many indigenous indians in California gave for how they knew which plants were good to eat, weave baskets with, heal wounds, calm babies, make rope, was much the same; the plants told them what they were good for. A dialogue. Trial and error over long periods seems a likely way to have this conversation, but keeping the records would be no mean feat. Most California tribes had names for each plant, but also a more refined name that depended on where the plant grew. Perhaps our capacity for empathy is great enough that, if trained and valued, we can intuit our relationship to other organisms.

We're currently driving many species extinct without understanding what they can do. Human action has outpaced the system we have of establishing cultural limitations for those actions; science. Eliminating variables before we know what they are, erasing unknown knowledge, foot shooting. catch up quick! it's an emergency.

maintenance

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:00:00 +0000

a beautiful, healthy, and abundant landscape requires a lot of it at small spatial scales
replacing humans with machines may also mechanize the ecology
but for maximum resiliency use maximum diversity
we just have to start tending every square inch

photo from peter sucheki: 1/2 mastermind behind redstart
taken in blake garden

Back to the Land

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:39:00 +0000

After a long summer away from the Doghouse I've been putting energy into the garden, testing out some ideas and research I've been doing about taking care of the soil. What I've done thus far:
1. Fork up the beds whose summer crops had died back.
2. Mix in some composted horse manure bought at a premium from Berkeley Horticulture (the guilt)
3. Seed a variety of cover crops into areas that I'm not quite ready to plant. Fava beans, Austrian Winter Vetch, and some Red & White Clover. I sprung for the innoculant.
4. Seed a bed with a few varieties of radish and some turnip.
5. Seed a six pack of broccoli & cabbage for transplant once the soil is ready.
6. Transplant in giant chard, italian parsley, sage, and peas.
6. Snag a few bales of straw from David's house via PARK(ing) Day: "Hollywood Hoe-Down"
7. Harvest the forest of Arundo donax that regularly springs up along the fence and prop it to dry for eventual chipping via Anida's chipper (Assuming it's still up for use.)
8. THE CHLORAMINE ISSUE. Treating garden water with aquatic life protector & a few teaspoons of quality liquid fertilizer with no industrially processed nutrients.
9. Trap out 5 rats, all five clean kills, buried in corner by comfrey.
10. New garden gate: 1 redwood post, wire.
10. General weeding, raking, trimming, pruning, hacking, spading, picking, chopping.

Things learned:
1. Rats are suckers for peanut butter with a small piece of bread and a raisin stuck in it.\
2. Leave No Trace ethic is incorrect, it should be "Choose What Trace To Leave".
3. Deferred maintenance is often more difficult, time-consuming and tedious than daily maintenance.
4. Using weeds in the garden is tricky, my field mint was getting out of control but seemed to be keeping the ants out of the NW bed.
5. The distinction between and ecological decision and an aesthetic decision is constantly evolving.
6. The three primary elements are Camper, Campsite, and Campground
7. Started the 1859A Log, a journal of activities related to the house & garden that stays with this place the next tenants.

After a few months away from this project I decided that I should never be too busy to have a garden. Everytime I work around the house I have a sense of immense satisfaction and feel good physically and mentally. I also receive the added benefit of good food and increasingly healthy soil. I always have the time to garden but I often choose to spend it doing other things and pay farmers to do my gardening for me somewhere else. I think I have to put the same amount of calories into land as I take out or other energy sources have to be tapped to make up for the deficit, like fossil fuels. With all that extra energy we go the moon, make hollywood blockbusters, and build helicopters.

POLL

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 03:16:00 +0000

Insufficient turnout at the poll prohibits statistical conclusion analysis.

Photo Copyright. Shared Territory. 2009. HODGES & CO. all rights revealed

Utility Sleeper

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:35:00 +0000

The Utility Sleeper utilizes a ubiquitous urban infrastructure skin to camouflage a small homespace so that a human can sleep without getting hassled by the cops. Solar panels embedded in the skin provide power to a small fan that draws cool air from beneath the Sleeper and into the homespace to ensure adequate ventilation. click to enlarge or go here for mouseover version.

UPDATE!:!:! HISTORICAL POLL RESULTS E-RAZED!

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:28:00 +0000

attempting data recovery. sad loss but everything begins, middles, and ends. RIGHT?

Photo Copyright. territorial dispute. 2009. HODGES & CO. all rights revealed

plumbing the depths

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:09:00 +0000

Humans, despite our obvious shortcomings, are phenomenally good at pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone in search of larger, often obscure meanings. The elasticity of both the mind and body continually punch holes in the gypsum board of cultural history and reach through to the unknown. Michel Siffre is a favorite and recently the voyage made by Jacques Piccard & Lt. Don Walsh has floated past and captured the old imagi-nathan.

On January 23, 1960, Piccard and Walsh, made a dive in the Trieste to the deepest known point on Earth. The team descended 35,810 ft (10,916 m) to Challenger Deep. Piccard and Walsh sat in a 6-ft-diameter (1.8-m) steel bubble tucked underneath an enormous tank of gasoline (a buoyant fluid that does not compress) while the vessel made the a five-hour dive to the ocean floor. The Trieste provided completely independent life support, with a closed-circuit rebreather that used soda-lime to scrub CO2 from the air. Power was provided by batteries.
As the sphere passed 9,000 feet the thick plexiglass window suddenly cracked, shaking the entire sphere, but remaining water tight. The two men spent 20 minutes on the ocean floor, eating chocolate bars and staring out into the deep sea, lit up by quartz-arc light bulbs, watching small fish swim by.

This is the only time that humans have been this deep. In the years since no one has come within 10,000 feet of their record.

Interestingly enough the depths of the ocean below 1000 meters form the largest habitat on the planet by volume and also happens to be the least explored. Recently a remotely operated submersible off the coast of California spent a few hours in this zone and came back with a treasure trove of new species. The earth is fantastically thick with life, thicker than we can ever imagine due to our limited spatial and temporal scale. From the film of bacteria, yeast, and spores that coat every surface on the planet to the giants of the deep that we dismiss as myth without ever having taken a peek into their world. Here's to our constant (and increasingly forgotten) companion, the unknown.

Packgoats

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:11:00 +0000

Packgoats are apparently a fantastic method of material transport in rugged areas.
Usually it seems packgoats are castrated males, quite friendly, even tempered, and a good pal too.
Could you pack with milk goats and make cheese with their milk and their body heat as you move through mountainous terrain? What's the average rate of travel for nomadic goat herding?

back in school

many wondorous happonings app-ear-ing natturally

photos from here

how to build a tree

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:38:00 +0000

how to build a tree from Nathan Hodges on Vimeo.

design tourism

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:13:00 +0000

in thailand
regular programming to return momentarily.
in the meantime...

all the news in 1000words or less

taco flat

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 05:36:00 +0000

new squatter communities are springing up like mushrooms throughout the west. for a good rundown check out this article

and

these photos

is access to land a right? is territory the basis of action? can these places create new solutions? or are they problems?

the ability of the capitalist system to satisfy the demand for low-rent informal housing is clearly nonexistent. so thousands of people are sidestepping the dollar and squatting land that does not belong to them. new types of stories are unfolding, new policy is forming to either eradicate or metabolize these growing communities. but what if they're allowed to stay? would the security of tenure encourage squatters to make a greater investment in their homes and community? (dignity village is a good example)

flickr here

this land is our land and we've never been able to live on it without paying for that privilege. but through the courts we seem to be deciding that sometimes that's okay. recently in colorado a couple were awarded a 1/3 share in a million dollar vacant lot because they had used it continually for 20 years. They planted a garden there and stacked their firewood. They say they held parties there and walked the land so often they wore a path in the grass (latimeshere).

all it took to make the land theirs; using it.

i suggest that a new era of property rights is being phased in, where if land is not being used it can be taken by people who can use it without paying for it. We'll be joining a host of other countries where self-built squatter communities are becoming seen as solutions to homelessness and a way to build community capital. (boston globe here)

and to end, a quote

The expropriation of the mass of the people from the soil forms the basis of the capitalist mode of production. The essence of a free colony... consists in this—that the bulk of the soil is still public property, and every settler on it therefore can turn part of it into his private property and individual means of production, without hindering the later settlers in the same operation.

KARL MARX AND YOU LIKE IT

from here

and finally the amazing ben peterson who is trying to imagine how it will all feel

more here (thank you to david godshall of the nurserymen for sending me this link)

Dreams Are the Sun & the Earth Speaking to Us

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:12:00 +0000

An still image of the earth's magnetic field, a dynamic system wiki here

A very odd study recently published in the Medical Hypotheses journal correlates the bizarreness of dreams with local fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field.

Darren Lipnicki kept meticulous records of his dreams for 8 years and then scored them on a 5-point ranking of strangeness.

On the low end were mundane dreams - "I am sitting at a table doing some maths or physics homework."

In the middle of the scale were the possible but unlikely - "A friend is in the backyard of my house, building a wooden platform atop of 7-foot high stilts."

And into the zone of being unlike Darren's waking reality - "I was stranded on a foreign coastline with a monkey that spoke English and a woman that suddenly became small, almost doll-sized. Then I was at home."

He found that it was during the times when geomagnetic activity was least that he had the strangest dreams.

An image of the sun's solar wind bombarding the earth's magnetic field. wiki here

Geomagnetic activity is caused by solar wind bombarding the earth's magnetic field with supercharged plasma. Fluctuations in the magnetic field, in turn, affect the Telluric currents. Telluric currents are the vast rivers of electrical energy that flow through the ground. They make earth batteries work and powered the telegraphs. They are used by industrial prospectors to find oil, ore, water, faults, and magma chambers. It's like the sun's energy is being sung by the earth. These giant fields of magnetic and electrical force swarm all around us and buzz, zapp, and frazzle our brains, just like a big solar storm could wipe out the electrical grid. In addition all of our electrical appliances and power infrastructure emit electro-magnetic fields, potentially further affecting our dreams.

BUT it was only when the geomagnetic activity decreased that Darren's dreams turned strange. And what are strange dreams? Many people do not consider the dreamworld any less real than our waking world. Isn't it strangest of all to dream a world just like the one you're awake in?

this is all too silly, but i would suggest not sleeping with your laptop under your pillow.

Snail Farm Cart - UPDATE

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:52:00 +0000

the nice folks at the Food For Thought Competition awarded the Snail Cart 6th out of 100 entries.
check out the other winners at http://www.24-7sandwichshop.org/
order yours now.

Snail Farm Cart

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:50:00 +0000

A recent project for the SFFlower&GardenShow Sculpture Contest & the Food For Thought Design Competition.
A mobile integral unit for growing, preparing, cooking, and selling snails.

PDF HERE

the ecosystem model of everything

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:00:00 +0000

(image of antiobiotc resistant Staphylococcus aureus subsp. aureus original here)

A flurry of recent news items and newly minted research consortia have drawn unprecedented attention to the nether world of microorganisms that exist within and upon us middle-of-the-universe humans. I've discussed this before. The most significant is the Human Microbiome Project, a multi-disciplinary research group with the goal of cataloging all the flora and fauna that lives in and on the human body. The research thus far makes it uncertain if this is even possible, but does open up an entirely new can of worms where the boundaries between humans and their environment are increasingly blurred.

One of the first papers to come out of this collaboration details the unique tribes of bacteria that dwell on the skin of your inner elbow (nytimes article here). The skin, in general is loaded with microorganisms, even after you wash there are approximately 1 million of these tiny creatures on every square centimeter of your body. For the most part these hitchhikers are commensulate, feasting on our dead skin cells in return for keeping us clean and moist. On the inner elbow a team of researchers sampled five people and found that everyone had 6 major tribes of bacteria in common, with a few specific tribes depending on the individual. This was good news for the researchers; it meant that developing a general model of human microorganism communities could be possible. A general model in turn could be used to detect abnormalities in an individual's microbiota and create a sort of standardized probiotic regimen that could correct deviations in the profile. Making us healthier and more resistant to the bacteria that make us sick. However, a separate group of researchers that focused on an area of the forearm a few inches away from the inner-elbow study had a very different outcome...

"We swabbed the forearm skin of six people. There were 12 arms. We found 182 species of microbes representing seven different phyla,” he said. “Recently, another group studied skin from the crook of the elbow, just a few centimeters away from the site of our study, and found an entirely different microbial population. In our studies, we found 91 different genera, but only five of them were present in all six individuals. Sixty-one were present in just one individual, indicating a very high level of intrahost variability. Further, we looked at the same individuals eight to 10 months later and found that their microbial populations were no more similar to their own arms than to somebody else’s arm.” original here

in another study at University of Colorado Boulder, researchers swabbed the hands of 51 undergraduates. They detected and identified more than 4,700 different bacteria species but only five species were shared among all participants. Even more surprising, the right and left palms of the same individual shared an average of only 17 percent of the same bacteria types.

This research suggests that everybody has a unique microbiotic "signature." This signature varies both in space on our bodies and in time as we move through new environments, seasons cycle, and our diet changes. Understanding how this signature is related to health, behavior, and our evolution as a species will help us understand each human not as an isolated organism acting in space, pursuing an individual agenda, but as complex and densely populated ecosystems that are in constant flux and flow, disturbances in the community creating moods, diseases, thought patterns, rashes, glow, love, tumors etc. Known as a superorganism, our human cells are outnumbered 10 to 1 by microbiotic partners, and we are constantly exchanging these creatures with our environment.

(photo of bacteria colonies on a cell, original here)

The primary tool that has unlocked this new mode of understanding is metagenomics. A rapid DNA/RNA sequencing technique that rather than amplifying an isolated genome to identify a single species, takes a large sample of many different genomes and parses out individual genes. A sort of gene frequency map for a given scoop of earth or skin swab, where function is defined not as a single organism but as a suite of genes that blur boundaries between organism and ecosystem.

This is a new way of thinking, where the individual is superceded by the community, where function can be found in an overall ecosystem genetic profile rather than trophic webs. What are the primary genes in this system and what function do those genes carry? A way of viewing the world as a series of concentrated microbial activity nodes, each node corresponding to a function or an organism. Co-evolution seems logical, but given the incredible variation between microbial communities on/in individuals a sort of human-as-garden (bacteria being the gardeners) seems more appropriate. We evolved the capability to play host to almost anything that comes along, and the first-come-first-served concept seems to play out nicely as our friendlies circle the wagons and battle back the invaders, who of course have another host (pig, goose, rat, etc) in which they are the good guys. In this light every plant and every animal is an ecosystem maintained by microorganisms. The genus/species model based on the individual is very poor resolution, akin to viewing Earth as a single species. To give some perspective, humans have approximately 4305 square feet of surface area that is speckled with microbiota at a density of (+/- 1,000,000) one million per square inch. If you were the size of an average bacteria, that would be like living on a planet 51 times the size of earth (a finger is the area west of the Mississippi) where everyone had 135 acres of prime real estate to call home. A strange world.

The implications are clearly far reaching, and I believe that in the next 50 years this mode of thinking will be highly instrumental in forging a new kind of eco-ethic, where humans are inextricably tied to their environment through the constant flow of microorganisms. A robust ecosystem keeps us (me and my flora/fauna) healthy, clean water keeps us healthy, living food keeps us healthy, but when the environment becomes toxic, or corrupt with antibiotics, and conditions shift to favor a different suite of microorganisms, we get sick, or angry, or depressed, or greedy, and we create a world that favors those creatures that are in us, so they grow stronger, multiply and spread. Good versus evil. The future will be a time where we learn how to live in harmony with the microorganisms, gathering beneficials to combat the superbugs we've bred, washing our crops with pest fighters, clothes designed to encourage not kill, energy from algae, fungi digesting our waste, a world where we fully embrace ourselves as ecosystems, not individuals.

POLL RESULTS

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 07:12:00 +0000

I have never before seen a poll on this blog where the votes were so evenly distributed. The poll received 6 votes, with four of the five answers receiving 1 vote and 1 of the answers receiving 2 votes.
given that poll sought to cut right to the pith of what it means to be alive as a human right now it's remarkable that there was no consensus. our backs are up against the same obelisk but looking out each one of us sees something different.

A.A.R.C.

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:02:00 +0000

HODGES & CO. DESIGN
in association with
Greenishbrown Productions
and
Be Now Here Concepts

PRESENTS...

The Formation of a New Organization:

The Animals in Advertising Royalties Concern (A.A.R.C.)

AARC's mission is to ensure that when a for-profit corporation uses a photographic image or illustrated likeness of a currently extant animal (excluding Homo sapiens) for purposes of advertising, entertainment, or any other activity by which said corporation can be reasonably expected to benefit, either through financial gain or brand identification, the corporation is responsible for paying due royalties to the animal.

AARC will accomplish this mission through a four step process:
1. Identifying ad campaigns that use animals.
2. Calculating royalty rates based on total expenditures for the ad campaign and estimated increase in revenue due to the ad campaign in which the animal was used.
3. Identifying non-profit and private conservation organizations that work to restore, protect, or study the animals featured in the ad campaign.
4. Directly contacting said corporations through publicly available communiques that detail their financial obligation to the animal used in their ad campaign and an appropriate organization to whom they can remit the funds.

For example, the infamous Geico Gecko is a wildly successful ad campaign. Geico has even used the computer generated gecko to promote wildlife conservation efforts and sponsor a travelling gecko exhibit aimed at educating school children about the importance of wildlife conservation. These efforts are commendable yet are thinly veiled ad campaigns aimed at increasing the popularity and recognition of the Geico brand. Their responsibility to the gecko is greater. I suggest a yearly donation of $500,000 to Project Gecko, a non-profit organization with a proven track record of effectively protecting the world's most endangered gecko species.

Other obvious examples of corporations that will be receiving communiques include Coca-Cola for their use of the polar bear

Kellog's use of the tiger to sell breakfast cereal

and the Lunesta moth.

AARC believes in the fair and just treatment of all life and that the exploitation of animals in advertising without due compensation is ethically unjustifiable.

This is of course a large task and the AARC is currently looking for volunteers and interns to assist with the four step process outlined above. AARC does not expect or receive any financial gain from addressing this issue and we are therefore unable to pay our assistants. We are also currently investigating the feasibility of developing a sister organization, PARC (Plants in Advertising Royalty Concern).

If you have noticed any ad campaigns using an animal please contact n.hodges@gmail.com immediately.

short circuit

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 20:15:00 +0000

back from the yearly migration to portland and back with stops along the way.

met dakota who pulls a 6000lb wagon with three horses all across the western US. he's been doing it for 20 years. he has a magic about him that draws people in. he's living proof that you can live any way you want to.

(photo by Chuck Edwards)

for lots more information and a newly minted online presence for dakotah visit his myspace page (!) what follows is an excerpt from the myspace blog by Chuck Edward's, who was drawn into Dakotah's world and is keeping an ongoing chronicle of Dakotah's passage through Northern California.

"The rain gauge on the side of Dakotah's wagon read three inches since he set up camp. The combination of rain, sleet and snow, set the wheels of his 6,000lbs wagon to a depth of five inches.

The three horses of Dakotah's team pulled gallantly to free the wagon; but, to no avail. I received a call from Mr. Nathan Hodges Sunday afternoon. Dakotah's satellite phone was unable to connect to the network as he sat alongside Highway 101, and without the ability to reach the outside world, Dakotah sent a request for help via Mr. Hodges. Mr. Hodges was traveling from the Bay Area on his way to Oregon for Christmas when saw Dakotah and stopped after he saw the wagon and horses."

so that's that. stay tuned for non-stop blogging action and a big sense x2 FUN GUN POLL.

Photo Copyright. a disaster of precise proportions. 2008. HODGES & CO. all rights revealed

seasonal searching

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 17:02:00 +0000

I spent some time last night with google trends, if you haven't played with it go check it out, there's a lot of data to mine.
I was interested in the seasonality of searches, here's the graph for "planting"

and here's the result 5 months later.... "canning"

some are less clear, for example "trees" had an obvious spike around christmas, but a more mysterious bump around may, perhaps arbor day?

The predictability of internet search terms is sort of astounding and i like how the massiveness of the data creates a sort of cultural consciousness repository. sometimes i bemoan how our modern culture is disconnected from the cycles & seasons of our planet, but in reality those connections are still there as revealed by trends. i think more than anything the source of seasonal information has changed. rather than ask my neighbor how to make pickles, i google it. the other piece of valuable information here is the news volume graph which may point to longer term trends and the popularization of concepts. if you notice on the above canning graphs, news volume has steadily increased for four years. is this a sign of a renewed cultural interest in reviving the domestic skillset so helpful for sustainable living?

others are just beautiful, here's "snow"

and of course more people than ever are searching for happiness on the web

iGoogle Stickynote Gadget Current Contents

noreply@blogger.com (Nathan R. Hodges) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:28:00 +0000

"Thank Heaven for the open space of the Presidio and for Golden Gate
Park!" was the unspoken thank-offering of many hearts. The great park,
with its thousand and more acres of area, extending from the thinly
populated part of the city across the sand dunes to the Pacific, seemed
in that awful hour a God-given place of refuge. Near it and extending to
the Golden Gate channel is the Presidio military reservation, containing
1,480 acres, and with only a few houses on its broad extent. Here also
was a place of safety, provided that the forests which form a part of
its area did not burn.

THE GOLDEN GATE CAMP

LUCI

weed seeds paint by numbers
real camping in traffic islands, freeway median strips, etc.

joe knowles -naked in the woods
amish
biospheres
houseplants

the way certain plants switch growth patterns immature/mature leaves

balloon seeding
weed matrix to spell a word
filter pitcher
backpack
vroomba landscaping
landscape IBI
man on the street web audio stream
line project at blake garden
music videos

arboretum america
past tents
paths/trails
albany bulb
film in landscape design
james rose
gardens of 1920's berlin
modern russian work
hunters point set up camera let people know they could say something if they wanted
take a video, play it on my camera, install "TV" in the hill for chip

video of the ecosystem that used to be on that spot. swamp?

is a natural form necessary for ecological function?

landfill parks

camping in the redwoods (develop site plan & renderings)

www.calflora.org

Synergistics: the place is derived from the environmental forces on site

synaesthetics: place is sa psychological perception of environment.

email mom about avast

24hr Serpentine Gallery Interviews

The "terrifying" the "dynamic" and the "serene & sublime"

FORMAL WEED PATCHES

Truffaut garden store

Las Palmas Parasite

MATERIAL LIST: gabions, logs, timbers, rocks, boulders, stumps, vines, cattails, willows,

eschew machinery in construction. what limitations does that place on the site?

Declaration of Delos, journal Ekistics, ed Doxiadis

IVAN SHALMIN

ICED ARCHITECTS

BRODSKY

ATRIUM ARCHITECTS

MEGANOM

SAVINKIN/ KUZ MIN

TIMUR BASHKAEV

ideas: soft stone, eroded by water. eroded by footsteps. reveal patterns underneath. houses made of wood. quickly decomposed by fungus, plants, termites... to reveal hidden stone structure underneath.
pollinator - plant webs... two parallel axis with lines connecting points of interaction.

floating garden, designed to detach and become a floating community when seawater rises

two rocks ground against one another

algae/bacteria growth tank

balance with stones/sticks/etc. but the objects are trickily weighted to create unnatural relationships. smaller rocks

LIbrary search terms:
architect*
duchamp
marcel
intentional
randomized
supergraphic

Think about the sound these indentations will make.
site sound map.

eskimo fjord map

ant farm

dolphin embassy

Photo. a space time continuum 2008 . HODGES & CO. all rights revealed.