Unterbahn

Different plant species can be compatible with the same species of mycorrhizal fungi1,2 and be connected to one another by a common mycelium3,4. Transfer of carbon3, 4, 5, nitrogen6,7 and phosphorus8,9 through interconnecting mycelia has been measured frequently in laboratory experiments, but it is not known whether transfer is bidirectional, whether there is a net gain by one plant over its connected partner, or whether transfer affects plant performance in the field10,11.

via Access : Net transfer of carbon between ectomycorrhizal tree species in the field : Nature.

Thanks, Caroline!

To test this idea, we gave people sets of pictures that showed some kind of temporal progression (e.g., pictures of a man aging, or a crocodile growing, or a banana being eaten). Their job was to arrange the shuffled photos on the ground to show the correct temporal order. We tested each person in two separate sittings, each time facing in a different cardinal direction. If you ask English speakers to do this, they’ll arrange the cards so that time proceeds from left to right. Hebrew speakers will tend to lay out the cards from right to left, showing that writing direction in a language plays a role.3 So what about folks like the Kuuk Thaayorre, who don’t use words like “left” and “right”? What will they do?

The Kuuk Thaayorre did not arrange the cards more often from left to right than from right to left, nor more toward or away from the body. But their arrangements were not random: there was a pattern, just a different one from that of English speakers. Instead of arranging time from left to right, they arranged it from east to west. That is, when they were seated facing south, the cards went left to right. When they faced north, the cards went from right to left. When they faced east, the cards came toward the body and so on. This was true even though we never told any of our subjects which direction they faced. The Kuuk Thaayorre not only knew that already (usually much better than I did), but they also spontaneously used this spatial orientation to construct their representations of time.

via Edge: HOW DOES OUR LANGUAGE SHAPE THE WAY WE THINK? By Lera Boroditsky.

A mobile data collection kit that’s been deployed in quite a few places. See code here: Open Data Kit

Polygonal labs has done something very clever with EPS postscript exports of font sets:

TextField vs. Graphics

...
graphics.beginFill(0, 1);
new Arial(10.0).print("Hello World", 100, 100);
graphics.endFill();
...

TextField vs. Graphics

via polygonal labs » Goodbye, TextField!.

Teaching @ NYU this Fall: “Social Activism Using Mobile Technology” (Nathan Freitas)

For those of you trying to write Rails applications around a FrontlineSMS database in MySQL:

rails-frontlinesms.txt

$8 microscope + iSight.

Natalie Jeremijenko’s GreenLight on Flickr.

CartoType.com: presenting at State of the Map