California’s Bristlecones are the Oldest Recorded Trees in the World

Located in California’s Inyo National Forest, the most ancient tree on record—a bristlecone pine named ‘Methuselah’—is over 4,800 years old. Dendrochronologists (researchers who study the science of dating tree rings) discovered bristlecones are some of the oldest individual trees by taking core samples from trunks, which indicate the tree’s chemical, climate and growth history. This method is especially fruitful for future planning. “What we’re seeing …

Scientists Created a Regenerating Bacterial Ink for 3D Printers

A new study published in the journal Nature Communications revealed that scientists created an ink from the toxic microbe E coli. These researchers found that when growing and feeding E coli bacteria, it secreted an ink made of living cells, which they then they used to plug into 3D printers. This project, while still underway, holds greater implications with regard to the future of sustainable, self-producing …

First-Ever Realistic Humanoid Robot Writes Dante-Inspired Poems

Last week at the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum, Aidan Miller unveiled the world’s first highly-realistic humanoid robot artist, Ai-Da, who wrote poetry inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. Using algorithms programmed with Dante’s epic, the robot integrated his speech patterns alongside her lexicon of vocabulary to produce her own deeply moving work. The poetry debuted in conjunction with Eyes Wide Shut, an exhibit on surveillance, which …