Respecting the prize-winning dignity of plants, in Barcelona

Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house perhaps demonstrated, better than has ever been demonstrated, a principle that is part of the legal system in Switzerland: the principle that plants have dignity. We strongly urge you to watch the performance. CNN reports: Barcelona opera house reopens with performance to 2,292 plants It’s not uncommon for […]

Of talking plants (and paperclips) [study]

Microsoft – the company that created ‘Clippit’ (a.k.a. ‘Clippy’) the conversational paperclip, is continuing its research into non-human communication – with a project that encourages talking with plants. “If plants could talk to us, what would they say? Equally important how might they respond to us if we could converse with them?” – asked a […]

Sharp shaped vegetation lifts property prices (new study)

Residential property owners who want increase the sale price of their property can try a new way of adding value – plant some palm trees out front. See: ‘Money in your palm: Sharp shaped vegetation in the surroundings increase the subjective value of houses.’ Journal of Environmental Psychology, Volume 46, June 2016, Pages 176–187 “We […]

PotPet – potted plants which follow you and ask for water

“PotPet acts autonomously like pets: it automatically moves to sunny places or approaches people when it requires water.“ Details of ‘PotPet: Pet-like Flowerpot Robot’(from Ayumi Kawakamim Koji Tsukada, Keisuke Kambara and Itiro Siio at Ochanomizu University, Tokyo) were published in Proceedings of 5th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, January 22–26, 2011, Funchal, […]

The new opera about each and every species of life

A new opera, called “The Best Life“, will premiere next week — as part of the Twenty-Fifth 1st Annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. Here’s the story line of “The Best Life“, as explained in the program that will be handed to all 1100 audience members in Harvard’s Sanders Theatre: The story: It’s the day before the greatest competition […]

Introducing a concept: Hortiporn

What is Hortipornography? We can do no better than consult the word’s coiners – Dr. Paul Hewer, now Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Strathclyde University, Scotland, and Professor Douglas Brownlie, at the University of Stirling, Scotland, who originated the term in their paper ‘Constructing Hortiporn: On the Aesthetics of Stylized Exteriors’ (in: Advances in Consumer […]