Imagine being able to grow your own footwear. Yep, we are talking sprouting a pair of bio sneakers in a matter of hours! Footwear designer @23_heels over on Instagram has a concept that takes a page out of nature, specifically the rapid growth of mushroom mycelium. In like manner, the shoe aesthetic bears a striking…
Researchers have developed an incredibly ingenious new method of 3D printing very strong structures using techniques analogous to nature. Researchers at the University of Southern California were inspired by the material called “nacre”. You haven’t heard of nacre? You probably have, as it is simply the scientific name for “mother of pearl”–the substance mollusks use…
Despite more recent efforts to clean up plastic waste in our oceans, a recent prediction by the World Economic Forum forecasted that the total weight of plastics will be larger than the total weight of fish – specifically due to the overall rise of global consumption. But what if at least some of those numbers…
Climate change is a hot topic right now, and there’s no denying that bottled water is wasteful and global temperatures are shifting. One startup decided to do something about it. Meet Ooho!, an edible water ‘bottle’ created by Skipping Rocks Lab. Skipping Rocks Lab was started through the European Institute of Innovation & Technology’s Climate…
While it’s common for blade marketers to use some form of shark imagery or “SharkSaw” terminology in their otherwise metal-based products, we’ve been yet to see an actual saw blade that really is, in biological makeup, real shark teeth. A team of biologists recently built the Jawzall modified power saw to investigate the cutting power…
When appreciating a furniture design, it’s easy to overlook the environmental impact of the various materials said design is made of including a frame, foam, padding, pillows, covers…and not to mention an oftentimes extremely large cardboard box loaded with foam or other packing material. Oh yeah—then there is the transport, too. Furniture is notoriously hard…
Where the soft calls of ocean mammals meet carefully extruded polycarbonate plastic, high-performing and beautiful surfboard fins are born. Boardshaper Roy Stuart has combined two things that will save the world: biomimicry and 3D printing. Most surfers these days ride with three fin, or ‘thruster,’ setups. Thruster fins offer a good balance of performance and…
Recently, SolidSmack reported on this new ad campaign from Scottish whiskey maker DeWars promoting their new Highlander Honey Whiskey recipe. Using 80,000 bees, sculptures were created by bees using pre-shaped templates for hive production. We noted that between the recent MIT Silk pavilion and some other recent projects, the use of natural fabricators in modern…
Neri Oxman just can’t help being Neri Oxman. Always on the forefront of the next big thing, she famously revealed a line of runway-ready 3D printed apparel before 3D printing was even a buzzword. Revealed this week, the latest project to come out of Neri’s innovative Mediated Matter program at MIT centers around the intersection…