Like it or not, we’re all just a species of primates lucky enough to have evolved into creatures with highly developed brains. Lest we forget our roots – and our speculative future – Argentinian art group DOMA created Involucion Primate, a simple but elegant sculpture.

The installation depicts our rise from primitive primates to the modern human forms we take today. But it then continues to illustrate our eventual devolution back to a more primitive form. Small black figures march along a revolving belt, creating a never-ending parade of evolution and devolution.

At the midpoint of the belt’s travel across the top of the sculpture, a light illuminates one figure at a time. In the right conditions, this creates a rather beautiful shadow display of the sculpture’s primate subjects, marching one after the other through the inescapable cycle of changes.

The post The Human Factor: Sculpture Sees Homo Sapiens Rise + Fall first appeared on Gajitz.

The world has a long-standing love affair with bicycles. Most of us grew up riding them around the neighborhood, and plenty of us still use them today for fun or exercise. But have you ever thought about how that fancy mountain bike you’re riding came by its current shape and function?

The very first bicycle precursor was the “dandy horse” above, invented in the early 19th century by a German baron. It was the first human-propelled two-wheeled vehicle and faced a number of complications in its short life, not the least of which being that pedestrians really didn’t want to share the streets with it.

Fast-forward a few years and the velocipede (“fast foot”) became the newest thing on two wheels. It had pedals attached directly to the front wheel and, because its hard metal or wooden wheels made it uncomfortable to ride outdoors, it became an indoor novelty with dedicated riding facilities much like modern skating rinks.

This simple animated history of the bicycle from Danish media firm Visual Artwork shows all of the wonderful (and baffling) iterations of the bicycle from its inception to today. There is, of course, a moment dedicated to the pennyfarthing (pictured at top), arguably the most ridiculous mode of two-wheeled transportation ever conceived.

The post Sweet Ride: A Visual Evolution of the Humble Bicycle first appeared on Gajitz.

For the first time in more than a century, a new species of river dolphin has been discovered. A team of scientists from Federal University of Amazonas in Manaus, Brazil took to the Araguaia and Tocantins rivers to collect DNA from the dolphins there. What they found was big news: these dolphins didn’t belong to any known river dolphin species. They are smaller than the currently-recognized species in the area and have fewer teeth, but most of the differences exist in the dolphins’ DNA.

The team, headed by Tomas Hrbek, bestowed the name Inia araguaiaensis on the newly-discovered species. Their research suggested that the species formed more than 2 million years ago when the Amazon river landscape changed dramatically. The river dolphins are slow swimmers and were unable to navigate the newly-formed rapids and waterfalls. They were cut off from other river dolphins and thus evolved into this separate species.

While it was natural environmental changes that spurred the species’ evolution, further environmental changes caused by humans are putting I. araguaiaensis in danger of extinction. Hrbek believes that there are less than a thousand of them living currently. Their precarious situation is largely due to human-built dams on the Araguaia and Tocantins rivers. River dolphins are already quite rare, with three of the four currently-recognized species already recognized as endangered. This newly-recognized river dolphin species may very well be listed as endangered almost as soon as it was discovered.

The post New Species of River Dolphin Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight first appeared on Gajitz.

Koshik, an Asian elephant living in a zoo in South Korea, can speak five words of Korean – and according to native Korean speakers, the words are highly recognizable. Koshik has been studied for several years by researchers from the University of Vienna in Austria. Their goals were to determine how the elephant mimics human speech and whether he actually understands the words he is saying.

Koshik spent the first part of his life in the exclusive company of humans, a fact that the researchers think was crucial in his unique story. Without other elephants around to socialize with, Koshik sought out opportunities to bond with his human companions. He apparently did this by figuring out how to imitate his trainers’ speech. Although elephants’ physiology does not allow to them to speak in exactly the same manner as humans, Koshik developed a work-around method. He puts his trunk into the corner of his mouth to change his elephant sounds into people sounds.

So far, Koshik can say five words in Korean: good, sit down, hello, lie down, and no. In the video above, he only displays his mastery of one word: “choah,” which is the Korean word for “good.” According to the researchers studying the fascinating pachyderm, Koshik does not understand the meanings of the words he says. They believe that he developed this mimicry in order to strengthen social bonds with the humans around him rather than to communicate with them. Still, the fact that he was able to modify his natural sounds to copy the sounds of the creatures around him is a fascinating example of the animal’s intelligence and learning ability.

The post He’ll Never Forget it: Elephant Learns to Speak Korean first appeared on Gajitz.

Gecko feet have fascinated materials scientists for decades. Their amazing non-slip sticking power has inspired a team from the University of Massachusetts to invent Geckskin, an extremely powerful reusable adhesive that leaves behind no sticky residue. The device is 16 inches square and can support up to 700 pounds on a smooth surface such as glass or a wall.

The square piece of Geckskin is woven like a stiff piece of cloth and it’s flexible to maximize surface contact between the wall and the object being stuck to it. No exotic materials were used in making it, just regular chemicals found in any lab – making it possible to develop and market the adhesive for an affordable price.

Some of the biggest selling points have to do with Geckskin’s ease of use. It requires very little effort or force to remove an object from the adhesive, and one piece can be reused over and over without any loss of function. The research was funded partially through DARPA, so it could be interesting to see what types of crazy spy gadgets they eventually use Geckskin for.

The post Sticky Fingers? New Adhesive Tape Based On Gecko Feet first appeared on Gajitz.