Theories about what the lights actually are range from the inevitable UFO and supernatural connotations to marsh gases and tectonic electromagnetic activity. An automated monitoring system in Hessdalen, Norway where there has been a huge amount of earth light activity is still to deliver any concrete analysis and scientists such as Paul Deveraux and Michael Persinger have been working on the phenomenon for years.

This is the crux of the theory from wikipedia;

The theory goes that the strain causes heat in the rocks, vaporising the water in them. Piezoelectric rocks such as quartz then produce electricity, which is channeled up through this column of vaporised water, until it reaches the surface—somehow displaying itself in the form of earth lights. This theory would assert that the majority of earth lights are seen over places of tectonic strain. If it is correct, it would explain why such lights often behave in an erratic and even seemingly intelligent manner, often defying the laws of gravity. Paul Devereux’s explanation, however, is much broader. He thinks that the link between the lights and the landscape is more tenuous. He says that they are probably related to many things: tectonic strain, weather conditions, local geography, ‘ley lines‘, terrain, water table depth and so forth. This explanation, however, is rejected by most experts as highly unscientific.

A recently explained phenomenon of weird lights much higher up in the sky, and another previous UFO theory has been put down to iridium flares. The iridium satellites are part of a communications network and have the unique feature of 3 highly reflective aluminium antenna panels mounted 120º apart which reflect the sun when the satellite performs one of its preprogrammed turns.

Often these flares can be seen in daylight at a fairly high magnitude and there are several websites, widgets and applications that predict when and where these flares will be visible. Maybe the best of these, Heavenly Bodies, predicts that the next one visible from Huddersfield will be on 21st July at 19.07.23 hrs at 239º WSW and 71º elevation. This will be Iridium 35.

Some of my readings and research during this residency that has touched on GPS, messaging and radio communications has led me to want to place a network of small radio beacons on the trig points all over this region of the Pennines. These beacons will broadcast the encoded landscape information from samples taken from the site of the trig point. Maybe these transmissions could be triggered by photocells or other sensors picking up earth lights or iridium flares.

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.

My phone camera doesn’t dock well with the eyepeice of the microscope so you’ll have to take my word for it.

But, to prove lab gear doesn’t all have to cost the earth I’ve built this

behold

It’s a pretty simple device. A soil sample is wrapped up in kitchen paper like a teabag and placed in a small amount of water in the funnel. 24 hours later you draw of some water at the tap at the bottom and it should be rich with nematodes. The next post will probably say if it has worked or not…

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.

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.

Something else I just saw on there were these castings of abandoned ant colonies.

I wouldn’t say these are art but they are very beautiful objects. They make me think of game levels inspired by portugese men of war or baroque wigs.

Here’s a tantalising quote from the 1914 edition of the Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture:

“If all the matter in the universe except the nematodes were swept away, our world would still be dimly recognizable, and if, as disembodied spirits, we could then investigate it, we should find its mountains, hills, vales, rivers, lakes and oceans represented by a thin film of nematodes. The location of towns would be decipherable, since for every massing of human beings there would be a corresponding massing of certain nematodes. Trees would still stand in ghostly rows representing our streets and highways. The location of the various plants and animals would still be decipherable, and, had we sufficient knowledge, in many cases even their species could be determined by an examination of their erstwhile nematode parasites.”

I’m beginning to get interested (again) in nematodes for a number of reasons. Firstly I remember the excitement when I first saw one when I first started to use my biological microscope (which I am missing a lot), secondly I love this idea of their super abundance as an indicator of all sorts of other biological systems (nematode tricorder?), thirdly they are one of the model organisms, a group of organisms of which the most symbolic must be the E Coli bacterium and the fruit fly Drosophila that are used as experimental ‘work horses’, fourthly because C Elegans was the first multicellular organism to  have its genome comletely sequenced and fifthly because they survived the STS-107 mission disaster aboard the Columbia space shuttle.

I have vague ideas about subjecting nematodes out on the moors to amplified signals from GPS satellites…