Hasta La Ideas

A surprise live performance from a folk icon, cover versions and new songs in this week’s musical round-up

Rodrigo y Gabriela: Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi (Radiohead Cover)

Mexican acoustic guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela have applied their virtuoso talents to an exquisite instrumental rendition of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi.” Rodrigo shares in a statement that, “When I was young, I never took a close look into Radiohead’s music…It was not until we met John Leckie, who produced our first album in 2006 and Radiohead’s The Bends, that they got my attention.” True inspiration for the cover song came when Rodrigo heard the original “Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi” playing in a restaurant. He went home, looked it up and, “As soon as I listened to it loud and clear I knew we had to make a Rodrigo y Gabriela version of it.”

Brian Eno: There Were Bells

Penned for a 2021 performance at the Acropolis and officially released today, “There Were Bells” is set to appear on legendary recording artist and producer Brian Eno’s forthcoming album, ForeverAndEverNoMore, his first solo release in five years. The entire LP directly addresses the ongoing climate crisis. “Like everybody else—except, apparently, most of the governments of the world—I’ve been thinking about our narrowing, precarious future, and this music grew out of those thoughts,” Eno says in a statement. “Perhaps it’s more accurate to say I’ve been feeling about it… and the music grew out of the feelings.”

Joni Mitchell feat. Brandi Carlile: Both Sides Now (Live at Newport Folk Festival)

At a surprise performance during this year’s Newport Folk Festival, appropriately entitled Joni Jam, the legendary Joni Mitchell returned to the stage for her first full set since 2000. Mitchell, who previously played the Newport Folk Festival in 1969, was joined by singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, who offered vocal contributions to many tracks, including a moving rendition of “Both Sides Now.” Since suffering a brain aneurysm in 2015, Mitchell has rarely made public appearances. This star-studded return from the 78-year-old artist will be long remembered.

Jesse Harris: The Hanged Man

“The Hanged Man” makes for a moody, macabre and offbeat lead single from Silver Balloon (out 21 October), the forthcoming album of Grammy-winning, NYC-based songwriter and producer Jesse Harris. The song’s ribbony sonic texture is owed to a process where Harris runs guitar through an H3000 Harmonizer processor. “People have asked me and [collaborator] Kenny [Wollesen] what we did to the guitar on ‘The Hanged Man’ and the honest answer is we don’t know,” Harris says in a statement. “Often the H3000 would seem to make decisions on its own, and we began to see it as a kind of medium.” It’s strangely alluring and melodic—and an exciting glimpse of what’s to come.

Djo: Gloom

Djo (aka Joe Keery, who is best known for his portrayal of Stranger Things‘ Steve Harrington) has released the frenetic synth-pop track, “Gloom.” It’s the third single from his upcoming album Decide (out 16 September) and builds with strong percussion, rapid guitar and unexpected alto-notes. The soundscape feels slightly nostalgic with Keery’s shifting vocals recalling Talking Heads, however, off-center lyrics and frantic energy land the song squarely in its own lane.

Listen Up is published every Sunday and rounds up the new music we found throughout the week. Hear the year so far on our Spotify channel. Hero image courtesy of Rodrigo y Gabriela

We’ve seen a number of concept bikes featuring outlandish designs – some are genuinely cool while others are penned just for the sake of it. The WAYRA EV-03 electric cruiser motorcycle is a 100 percent no gimmick concept that’ll please every kind of rider – be it a cruiser enthusiast, performance lover or off-roading fanatic.

Keeping in mind the transition towards a cleaner future for vehicles, the rugged yet elegant-looking motorcycle is inspired by the perfect blend of nostalgic memories, definitive styles and the cult favorite tendencies ignited by great brands. Things like the overall frame construction, shape of the powerful engines or the length of the exhaust pipe.

Designer: Pablo Baranoff Dorn

WAYRA EV-03 is a bike high on personality, created keeping in mind the heritage of fat-bikes and cruiser-length bikes, while also having those minimal eye-catchy modern touches to create visual appeal. The presence of café racer aesthetics can also not be denied owing to the low-slung rider positioning. The element of drag racing is evident courtesy of the stretched rear, but the high ride height gives off that dirt bike racer vibe too. The designer drapes the ride in red and silver over the black matte, with an intent to avoid decals for gimmicky looks. The curved body embraces the tank, and the lines that follow the shape are colored – thereby everything centers on the logo and what lays below the tank.

Keeping in with the fusion of retro and modern, the bike gets an onboard display that has a retro digital typeface and interactive screen with the GPS map. The app on your phone mirrors onto the bike display so that everything stays in sync when you have a busy lifestyle. Since we are talking of a cleaner future, the cocktail bike has an optimized battery pack that keeps all your gadgets charged without compromising the bike’s performance or economy.

The fog lights are placed low and get a ring of LEDs with a diffuse area so as to prevent blindness for oncoming drivers. The focused light from the headlights is dispersed so that oncoming traffic sees it as a bigger lit shape coming towards you rather than an irksome light source.

The post This performance-centric electric motorbike is a café racer, cruiser bike and dragster all-in-one first appeared on Yanko Design.

Record-setting diamonds, prehistoric reptiles, a supernova discovery and more from around the web

Mushroom-Inspired Ring Breaks World Record for Most Diamonds

By setting 24,679 diamonds into one ring, Kerala, India-based jewelry company SWA Diamonds broke the world record for most diamonds in a single ring. The shimmering piece of jewelry features nearly double the number of diamonds as the previous record holder (12,638) thanks to its mushroom-inspired design. Modeled after a pink oyster mushroom, the ring incorporates 41 intricate layers of “petals” that are each covered in diamonds. The jewelry-makers poured liquid gold into a plastic mold to form each petal, and then adorned every one of them individually by hand with natural diamonds. The resulting ring weighs 350 grams and is valued at $95,243. Learn more about the unique piece at CNN.

Image courtesy of SWA Diamonds

Scientists Hack Fruit Fly Brains to Remote Control Them

Scientists at Rice University have successfully used a remote control to operate the wings of fruit flies, after hacking into their brains. To achieve this, the researchers genetically modified flies to express a specific heat-sensitive ion channel. Then they inserted a heat trigger—magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles that heat up in the presence of a magnetic charge—into the flies’ brains. When a magnetic field is switched on, it warms up the particles, triggering the ion channel and causing the flies to spread their wings in less than a second. This experiment is a part of the researchers’ larger quest to study human brain functions in order to better treat neurological diseases. “Remote control of select neural circuits with magnetic fields is somewhat of a holy grail for neurotechnologies. Our work takes an important step toward that goal because it increases the speed of remote magnetic control, making it closer to the natural speed of the brain,” says coauthor of the study Jacob Robinson. Read more about the innovative project at Futurism.

Image courtesy of Getty Images

Marina Abramović’s First NFT Project, “The Hero 25FPS”

On a new episode of tech entrepreneur Kevin Rose’s podcast, PROOF, Marina Abramović and Pussy Riot founding member, artist and activist Nadya Tolokonnikova discuss endurance and feminist art as well as Abramović’s first NFT project, The Hero 25FPS. Currently available on the digital art platform CIRCA, the project revisits her 2001 film, The Hero, which sees the gallant-looking artist atop a horse with a white flag in commemoration of the artist’s father who fought against Nazis. As a gesture toward a future with uncorrupted artists and thinkers, Abramović edited and divided scenes from the film into hundreds of frames that can be minted as either individual, still frame NFTs or in multiples to creating a moving image. “It is incredible for me how young the kids who are doing blockchain are. We’re talking eight years old; we’re talking 12 years old; 14; 15—this is the future,” the artist says. Listen to the full interview at PROOF.

Image courtesy of CIRCA and the artist

New Face Mask Material Captures and Deactivates COVID Particles

Researchers have developed a new membrane-based respiratory mask that captures and deactivates the COVID-19 particles it encounters. The mask filters particles the same way N95 masks do, but the new material also features antiviral enzymes that destroy SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins (which are what allow the virus to enter the body). According to the developer’s tests, 99% of targeted particles were successfully filtered out by the mask with coronavirus-sized aerosols stopped and destroyed within 30 seconds. This is even more protective than N95 masks. Plus, the material’s membrane can be changed in thickness and porosity, leaving room for further innovations and implementations down the line. Learn more about this vital safety improvement at Science Alert.

Image courtesy of Krisanapong Detraphiphat/Moment/Getty Images

Jet Fuel Made From Air, Sunlight and Water Vapor

Jet fuel is a large driver of climate change but finding sustainable alternatives has proven difficult since many are less efficient when it comes to long-distance aviation. This is why scientists are hopeful about a new jet fuel that uses air, sunlight and water vapor to make a solar-based, carbon-neutral kerosene (the fuel preferred in aviation). Scientists positioned 169 sun-tracking mirrors that reflect radiation into a solar reactor that sits atop a 15-meter tower. The reactor features windows that let light in and a supply of carbon dioxide, water vapor and porous ceria (a material used to catalyze chemical reactions). When the solar radiation is heated, the ceria reacts with water vapor and carbon dioxide to create syngas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide) that is piped into the tower where it’s converted into kerosene. In nine days, the tower was able to convert 4% of solar energy into 5,191 liters of syngas. Though the technology is still being developed, this fuel is already a crucial step in the quest to create sustainable travel. Learn more about it at Science News.

Image courtesy of Imedea Energy 

Massive 170-Carat Pink Diamond Largest Found in 300 Years

Dubbed the Lulo Rose, a massive 170-carat pink diamond was found in Angola at the Lulo alluvial diamond mine. The Lucapa Diamond Company (which also uncovered a 404-carat clear diamond at the same mine) believes it could be the largest of its kind found in some 300 years—and the mining operation’s CEO notes that, “Only one in 10,000 diamonds is colored pink.” The gem will be sold “by international tender by the Angolan state diamond marketing company, Sodiam,” according to the Associated Press. Read more about the pink precious stone there.

Image courtesy of the Lucapa Diamond Company

James Webb Space Telescope’s First Supernova

While not its primary function, the James Webb Space Telescope might have just found its first supernova. Astronomers have observed a bright object within a galaxy called SDSS.J141930.11+5251593 dimming “just slightly twice (with a couple days between), over five days,” which is “classic supernova behavior.” The galaxy is three to four billion light years away, meaning the stellar explosion occurred three to four billion years ago. Every field of the telescope is “a deep field at this point, so there’s galaxies everywhere,” astronomer Mike Engesser of the Space Telescope Science Institute tells Kiona Smith at INVERSE. “And now we’re thinking, oh, we might have a really good chance of detecting supernovae all the time.” Find out more at INVERSE.

Image courtesy of Virtual Telescope Project/INVERSE

Prehistoric Reptile Fossil Suggest How The Loch Ness Monster Might Have Existed

The fossils of a plesiosaur (a marine reptile with a long neck and four long flippers, that existed in the Mesozoic era) found in a 100-million-year-old riverbed in Morocco’s Sahara Desert contribute to the theory that “saltwater sea creatures may have lived in freshwater systems.” Remarkably, researchers at the University of Bath have applied this theory to Loch Ness and its fantastical monster, Nessie, telling the BBC that the idea of a plesiosaur  surviving in the famed Scottish lake might have been “plausible”—but noting that they did become extinct some 66 million years ago. Read more about the discovery and what it means at the BBC.

Image courtesy of Dr Nick Longrich

Link About It is our filtered look at the web, shared daily in Link and on social media, and rounded up every Saturday morning. Hero image courtesy of CIRCA and Marina Abramović

Volkswagen has thrown its cap in the eVTOL game, announcing their first ever ‘air taxi’ named the V.MO (short for Vertical Mobility). Coming from the VW China team, V.MO was created in partnership with London-based studio Tangerine and Sunward, a China-based aviation manufacturer, helped build the first-ever prototype. “In 2020, Volkswagen Group China launched a Vertical Mobility project to explore the next generation of mobility solutions, including the urban air mobility market and the extension of urban traffic into airspace”, said Volkswagen in a press release. “After intensive research, conceptual work, and development, the project team has now developed its first validation model – the V.MO.”

Designers: Tangerine & VW Group China

Internally referred to as the Flying Tiger (to mark its launch in 2022, the year of the tiger), the V.MO is targeted toward China’s elite as a high-end travel concept made for travel between Chinese megacities for business and leisure. Volkswagen and Tangerine interviewed as many as 100 potential clients who fit the V.MO’s target audience description, which helped inform the overall eVTOL’s design.

The prototype concept is based on existing autonomous driving solutions and battery technology for emission-free mobility. With a luxury X-wing configuration of 11.2m in length and a span width of 10.6m, the model features eight rotors for vertical lift and two rear propellers that enable horizontal flight. In its final future iteration, the fully electric and automated eVTOL could eventually carry four passengers plus luggage over a distance of up to 200km.

Although VW Group’s just unveiled this one concept, the company has also revealed its ambitious plan to ramp up production and build several other prototypes. The Group will conduct several flight tests later this year to optimize the concept and an improved prototype will undergo further advanced test flights by late summer of 2023. For now, this one-off prototype is targeted at “private ownership”, Volkswagen claims, although future prototypes and iterations will explore different use-cases and ownership models.

The post Volkswagen just announced that they’ve been working on their first eVTOL ‘flying car’ first appeared on Yanko Design.

Buying shoes is often seen as something more related to fashion, especially when it comes to shopping for specific brands or trending styles. On the flip side, some take choosing the right shoes for granted, becoming satisfied as long as the shoe fits or feels comfortable enough. As adults, we have the luxury to choose the shoes we want, but it’s a slightly different matter for kids whose bodies are still rapidly changing and settling in. Young wearers will need footwear that goes beyond just fit and comfort, but one that can also help their feet grow in the proper way, avoiding potential health problems that could arise later in their lives. Such shoes are often labeled “therapeutic” and have expensive price tags, but We|aver+ wants to make this kind of shoes more accessible and easier to make, all thanks to 3D printing.

Designer: Yumeng Li & Zongheng Sun (PEAR & MULBERRY)

3D printing has undoubtedly changed the manufacturing landscape, both for individuals and even for companies. It opened the doors to more efficient prototyping of designs and made it easier to bring ideas to life. More recent development even allows for different kinds of materials to be used when 3D printing forms and structures, giving creators more freedom in the designs they want to implement.

We|aver+ or Weaver+, for example, 3D prints something that is akin to knitted fabric, except it uses elastic TPU as the material. The shoes that it prints out actually look more like chainmail rather than conventional fabric, and it’s not without reason. The hollow-loose knitting structure gives the shoes the flexibility necessary for supporting the growing feet of children. At the same time, however, the shoe also offers stable support to make sure the heels don’t lose their suppleness in the long run.

The therapeutic shoes also use 3D modeling even before they are printed. A child’s foot can be scanned to generate a 3D model in just a few minutes. This 3D representation is then used to analyze and determine the best combination of designs that will yield the perfect thickness and form of the 3D printed fabric. This is the ultimate customization option, taking into consideration how personal feet can actually be.

The end result is a pair of shoes that are designed to feel great but also look distinctive. It’s definitely easy to spot from a see of designer shoes because of its knitted structure, giving it a bit of a unique identity. More importantly, the design allows the shoes to stretch in one direction while also providing stability in the perpendicular direction.

Weaver+ is a very good example of how 3D printing can significantly change the way even regular people live, whether they have access to 3D printers or not. Shoes can be customized to fit the specific needs and requirements of wearers, and they can use more sustainable materials like recycled TPU. It might be harder to scale this process up to the same level as traditional pipelines, but that too could change in the near future, when 3D printing becomes more widespread and more accessible.

The post These shoes use 3D printed fabric to make sure kids’ feet grow properly first appeared on Yanko Design.