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Continuing the line of cheap and useful scientific apparatus, hostprods are proud to announce the launch of the Hostprods Daylight Satellite Locater (TM).

The device features a compass for orientation to the correct bearing, a spirit level to ensure a true horizon and a precise angle measurement device with sighting rod. Used in conjunction with Calsky there is no reason to miss a passing satellite just because its daytime.

Orders can be placed via comments to this blog. Each unit costs £20 and comes with a 48 hour guarantee.

Another adapted gadget I’m pretty pleased with - ‘the hostprods ™ pocket microscope light and image enhancer’.

For the Bioarama Hike I got hold of a bunch of these 60x to 100x pocket microscopes so that we can have a look at the bits and bobs and bugs we encounter as we go around. I took one out for a field trial when I tested the route the other day and wasn’t too impressed as they just don’t give enough light to penetrate any vaguely murky sample. So I’ve built a little light table to provide a strong a focussed light from below as well as above. In the test run I gave it I was able to see nematodes clearly in a few drops of water from the nematode extractor at 100x.

Its simple to make. You will need:

1 x pocket torch (the kind that comes on when you rotate the end with the bulb in it)
1 x CD case
1 x translucent plastic film for a diffuser ( I cut a circle from a plastic CD sleeve)
1 x plastic petri dish
super glue

remove the lid from the CD case and cut the plastic to fit snugly inside
carefully cut the petri dish lid in half
super glue its open side to the inside of the CD case lid
super glue the torch to the flat base of the cut petri dish so that there is room to turn the head to turn on the torch

you’re done.

And to think I nearly spent 25 quid on a light plate in Jessops.

The time is upon me when I need to start thinking about what sort of concrete results I can take from the time that’s left on this residency. I tend to think that the development of some sort of system, or a prototype of that system, that I can carry on working with would be a good idea. Maybe the apparatus I was imagining I could use to etch the landscape images whilst monitoring bacterial behaviours and states will be reworked as a general investigative fermenter.

A fermenter is a piece of laboratory equipment used for the intensive culture of microbes in quantities from a litre at smallest to many hundreds at biggest. The device is normally hooked up to a biocontroller to monitor and control the inputs and outputs and a PC to log the data over time. We have one hooked up at the moment in the lab where we’re trying to build up the quantities of our thiobacilli.

The logging computer is out of shot to the right but we can see the business end of the thing here. The machinery on the right is the biocontroller which is the primary interface receiving data from the sensors and controlling the stirrer and any necessary environmental conditioning devices.  On the left is the actual fermenter vessel which has a number of ports in the lid for the placement of air lines and sensor probes - in this one we have Ph, dissolved oxygen and temperature - as well as housing the stirrer motor. Inside the vessel are the air manifiold and the stirrer arm and blades. Its all very scientific and rigorous.

So I’m considering building one of these for artistic use. Apparently I can commandeer a flask from the science department, I’m ordering a couple of probes and a stirrer can be built using a cheap dc motor. The air supply and manifold is easy for someone with my experience of cobbling together apparatus from cheap aquarium gear and I can hook the whole thing up to the Muio board to read the sensors and control the motor. That would be enough to get a similar level of data out of the system and a basic level of environmental control in.

The addition of a couple of speakers,  a small LCD screen and some LED arrays should give me enough to begin testing the developing microbial colony’s reactions to information overload. A satellite hook up feature can be added at some point in the future alongside radio receivers and transmitters.

After too many hours of messing about and getting nowhere very fast I took the decision to limit myself to the 256 values and to work with that. It means I’ve had to seriously reduce the pixle dimensions of the images within the max patch which pretty much rules out any ideas of conveying the romantic style I’d been hoping to work with. Now what I end up with look more like abstract versions of those invader mosaics you see on buildings around the world these days.

No matter, it just gives me several other avenues of cultural resonance I can work with. The space invader thing for a start, the problems inherent in broadcasting meaningful image data to the future etc, the compression of data for transmission etc etc, the modern pixel/icon representation of landscape etc etc etc.

So here’s the new patch:

I added a mechanism by which the image could be converted to audio with the 1s generated a click/pulse and the zeros nothing. A tone playes for the whole length of the image audio to demonstrate where the code begins and ends.

click here for audio because I haven’t worked out how to embed it yet….

I like the sound that is coming off this thing and would like to do something with it. Maybe I’ll build a sonic attack mode for the artist version ‘forget real science’ fermenter I’m planning to build and see what effect it has on the culture of bacteria, algae and nematodes.

 

Had a bit of a reality check today when Paul informed me that what I was trying to develop was actually a tricorder and was pretty much impossible with current technological and microbiological techniques. I don’t know why but my idea of building a device that would consist of a microcontroller and a few well selected lab probes to plug into any organic system to record meaningful data didn’t seem to way out at first. As it turns out the reality is that a slow, laborious process in the lab will yield very specific information and that the fuller picture is built piecemeal with further experiments and measurements. Now I have the problem of discovering ways of creatively using very specific and non spontaneous data from the stuff I’m doing. I’m still going to build the device and thanks to Steve Symons I have a Muio board on which to base it, next week I should have a couple of probes - most probably Ph and dissolved oxygen - and I’ll be able to do something. But I guess I’m still some way away from finding the way to tap into that pervasive netwroked information system that is out there.

There is hope, however. In 1996 Vital Technologies Corporation sold a portable device which they called the “Official Star-Trek Tricorder Mark 1″. The device featured an electromagnetic field meter, a weather station with thermometer and barometer, a colorimeter, a light meter, and a clock and timer. They claimed it was a serious scientific instrumentand sold 10,000 of them before going out of business.

Currently under development is a device known as “lab on a chip” (LOC) or Micro Total Analysis Systems. LOCs combine multiple laboratory processes on a single chip and are capable of  a number of experiments and processes simultaneously.

Obviously NASA are seriously investigating this technology. If I can just get my hands on one I should be able to do many of the things I was hoping to do - I’m off to check eBay…

Despite being pulled really strongly to the various masts and transmitters that surround the high moorlands of the Pennines I’m still not entirely sure what I want to do with them. They tie into my ideas of history of networks and of the informational ether which blankets the landscape as well as just plain turning me on. I’ve found a bunch of seven of them which form a loose ring around the Marsden moor area - Vicar’s Lot, Cop Hill, Moorside Edge, Rock Stones (not sure if this is the correct name), Crow Knowl (ditto), Saddleworth and Holme Moss. Its a shame to have to leave out the incredible Emley Moor mast but its jusy too far away to be of any use - even though I just realised you can see it from many parts of Huddersfield.

The latest thing I’ve done is to add them all to my Google Earth map and join the dots to see where the straight lines between masts intersect the paths of walks I have done or plan to do. Aswell as remind me of my hippy days with an OS map and a ruler hunting ley lines its given me a series of crossing points which may serve as good locations to take earth samples to culture the microbes that they contain. Its a lot less arbitrary than just choosing a location because it looked nice or because it was time for a rest like I was before. Maybe I could even get the calcite producing bacteria to build models of the masts they are located near, or of the two they were between.

It would be a joy to transmit one of my encoded landscapes from one or more of the radio masts however briefly but I’m not entirely sure thats going to be possible…

The red diagonal line is the rough course of the Standedge tunnels.
I’ve also been finding out a little more about what the various masts actually do and how to tell thanks to the wonderful http://tx.mb21.co.uk

For example I now know that Moorside Edge is a MW radio transmitter and will have little or no trouble spotting others of its kind for the rest of my days. Here’s a few others to help others with their spotter’s badges.

Experiment number 1:

To use Thiobacilli cultured from the soil samples from walk 1 on Marsden moor to generate enough acid to etch into copper sheet.

The soil samples have been mixed with ground sulphur as a food source for the bacteria and are currently on the shaker in the lab to see what happens. Initial Ph testing of the samples has shown them to be between 4.2 and 5.5, a lot lower than was expected and low enough to cause possible difficulties in seeing the effects of the Thiobacillus. Anyhow, there is still a chance that they’ll pull the Ph further down to around 2 or 3 and we’ll be able to confirm their presence and do something with them. Otherwise I’ll just go and get some new samples from more reliable Thiobacilli rich areas.

-

Ph testing

flasks on the shaker

Experiment number 2:

To use calcium precipitating bacilli species to lay down tracks of hardened calcite.

We aim to isolate and culture these bacilli (rod shaped bacteria) from the soil samples from walk 1 and immobilise them in alginate, a reaction between Sodium alginate and Calcium chloride. The cultured bacteria will be mixed into the sodium alginate and mixed with Calcium chloride which rapidly produces the thick jelly like substance alginate. Using a fine syringe we can lay this into tracks which will eventually be turned into stone like calcite but there is also the possibility of creating cast 3D objects. Alongside creating some nice stone visualisations of the landscape I quite like the idea of models of Pioneer, Voyager, Sojourner and the Arecibo dish made by moorland microbes.

Experiment number 3:

To encode the data and drawings produced by the bacteria in quaternery (4 base) and synthesise it into DNA.

The information and ‘cultural’ activities generated by the bacteria can be synthesised into DNA and placed into an E Coli carrier. Using basic bacterial transformation techniques the new DNA can be spliced into the DNA of the bacteria and cultured on form there. I’d love to build a mobile robot that presents the data and images on its screen while carrying a sort of time capsule containing all the data encoded into the genetic make up of the E Coli.

The problem with this experiment is that its pretty expensive, time consuming and notoriously hit and miss outside of expert labs. We’d be looking at spending around £500 for enough kit to have 40 goes at making it work without the guarantee that it would. Might have to leave this one on the back burner for a while. At the very least, though, I should be able to encode the data into quaternery and work out the DNA base pairs from there – and possibly even find out if there are any functioning genes hidden away within them.

Thanks to Celestia I will now be spending the whole 3 months flying at many times the speed of light only occasionally slowing down to take in the sights. I’ve made a couple of images to justify my time in deep space and have managed to find a way to upload to my blog from a distance of 80 quintillion parsecs.

here i am just sailing past Voyager 2:

and this is the globular cluster M13 - target of the Arecibo transmissions:

The plan of action, or the current idea for what to try and build to answer the research and conceptual questions i have is as follows.

- Find out exactly what kinds of microbes will do the job. i.e. will produce sufficient acids to etch metal sheet. then find a way to make them etch only certain areas (maybe some kind of antibiotic resist?)
- Get up to the area around Marsden and Standedge to ‘get the feel of the place…’
- Sample and culture the microbes and get them to work.
- Find out how to get ‘meaningful’ data off them while they etch and develop ways to encode it.
- Find out how it might be possible to transmit this data, and to where.
- See if i can tie in any of the radio and other transmission masts around the moors
- Develop a device – like the one in the diagram perhaps – which will provide a bio-digital environment in which the process/es can take place.

key to diagram:
a - fermenter for growing cyanobacteria or other alga to provide oxygen for acid production process
b - large ‘petri dish’ type vessel to culture bacteria
c - metal (copper?) sheet to be etched
d - tubes carrying oxygen to culture vessel
e - video observation device / microscope
f - data probe to record information from cultures
g - a useful gadget of some description