Microbial Temper Tantrums

March 22, 2014 By arne hendriks 0

In stressful conditions, cells must prevent the initiation of replication and shift their priorities to protective functions. In other words: they must stop division and growth. Experiments in bacteria at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have uncovered the mechanism that translates stress into blocked cell growth.…

Cell Culture

March 17, 2014 By arne hendriks 1

The central problem with curbing the growth of the average human body is the deeply embedded desire of each cell to become two cells. This process of division, known as mitosis, represents the essence of our challenge. Cells don’t want to limit themselves. They want to…

Abundance Fantasies: The Alasitas Pathway

March 7, 2014 By arne hendriks 0

From an early age the miniature teaches us to want. During childhood toys in all sorts and shapes create the pathways for  a grown-up desire for material abundance. The promise is right there, in the palm of your hand: toy cars, doll’s houses, miniature cattle and…

Degrowth

February 15, 2014 By arne hendriks 1

Degrowth is a political, economic, and social movement based on ecological economics. Degrowth thinkers and activists advocate for the downscaling of production and consumption arguing that overconsumption lies at the root of long term environmental issues and social inequalities. It is considered an essential economic strategy responding to the…

The Fear of the Gods

February 3, 2014 By arne hendriks 1

In The Food of the Gods and how it came to Earth, the British writer H.G. Wells presents Herakleophorbia IV, a nutrient that makes anything grow to about six times its regular size. The story takes the reader, rather uninspired, through the regular motions of such…

The Hayflick Limit

January 20, 2014 By arne hendriks 0

In 1961 microbiologist Leonard Hayflick demonstrated that a population of human fetal cells in a cell culture will divide approximately 50 times before they stop. With each cell division in our body the ends of our chromosomes, the telomeres, get slightly shorter. This process continues until they shorten to a critical…

Paradoxical Frog

January 14, 2014 By arne hendriks 2

Pseudis Paradoxa is a common frog living in the region between Colombia and Surinam. Its development however is far from common and serves as a reminder that growth doesn’t necessarily have to do with becoming larger. Like most frogs Pseudis Paradoxa starts out as frogspawn…

Pit-1

January 13, 2014 By arne hendriks 0

Human height is the result of how genetic height potential is turned into reality by circumstance. From the first whispers of life in the womb, the DNA in the nuclei of the embryo’s cells ‘monitors’ what situation to expect at birth, and develops the body…

The Namazu

January 1, 2014 By arne hendriks 0

In 19th century Japan earthquakes were often represented by and even attributed to an enormously oversized catfish, the namazu. According to popular folklore under normal circumstances this large fish was kept under control by a deity. If the god however, was not managing his worldly affairs,…

Turtle Tears

December 16, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

Size strongly influences our ability to recognise and benefit from specific small scale possibilities that would be available if man was a lot smaller. The act of shrinking promotes the Feynmanian awareness that our large size keeps us from a much richer experience of reality, as well…

Japanese Miniatures: Pygmy Squid Bukkake

December 9, 2013 By arne hendriks 3

Bigger males, both human and animal, are generally more successful in attracting and being selected by females. But not in all species. The Incredible Shrinking Man seeks inspiration from those few species where females favour the small, like Idiosepius paradoxus, the Japanese Pygmy Squid. The mating rituals…

Tall Tales: Tall Men

December 1, 2013 By arne hendriks 6

Most women prefer tall men over their shorter rivals. Over a century of feminism hasn’t changed much about that. Unfortunately this preference is one of the forces that leads to a global increase in human height. Because of women’s preferences tall men have more children and…

Tall Tales: The Well-Heeled Wobble

November 16, 2013 By arne hendriks Off

Tall Tales investigate signs, stories and tropes on how our obsession with tallness became so culturally embedded that we experience it as natural, normal and inevitable. One of the most accepted and visible products of our desire to be taller are high heels. Throughout history men,…

7up 7down

November 5, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

Over the years science has put forth innumerable explanations as to why women outlive men. Of all people over 100 years or older 85% are women. Some think it is because men work harder than women. Others suggest it’s because women are more sociable and better at dealing…

Dreadlocked Cryptids

November 4, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

The Jakarta Post reports that rangers patrolling the Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra Indonesia claim to have sighted dozens of unknown pygmies in a number of areas across the park on at least two different occasions. According to them, the pygmies had waist long dreadlocks,…

Abundance Fantasies: Spherical Soup

October 30, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

The Disproportionate Restaurant investigates how downsizing the human species will affect our relationship with food. Over the past years we did a number of experiments, including abundance fantasies such as the Ostrich BBQ and Sunflower Table and explorations of new ingredients and possibilities such as…

Growth Antagonists: Estrogenic Gadfly

October 25, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

Estrogens are the primary female sex hormones. They play a pivotal role in growth, especially during puberty when estrogen modulates growth in coordinance with growth hormones and IGF-1. But estrogen plays an equally important role in ending the growth cycle. It stimulates the closure of…

The Puppet in your Eye

October 18, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

You’ll find that in most, if not all, European languages the black spot in the middle of the eye is known as the pupil. Etymologically, pupil is derived from the Latin word pūpilla which means puppet, or small child. The meaning of the word pupil…

Tall Tales: Lange Kerls

October 10, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

Tall Tales is a new series of stories that investigate our obsession with height. Throughout history there have been iconic moments, stories and situations that shaped the fundamental yet unfounded belief that taller is better. First up; the Potsdam Giants. The Potsdam Giants was a Prussian infantry regiment composed…

Celebrate Lactose Intolerance

October 5, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

Exaggerated consumption of milk stimulates an undesirable increase in human height through stimulation of the production of growth hormone. Milk cows also have a considerable environmental footprint because they’re fed high protein diets. One of humanity’s defense mechanisms against these two undesirable effects is lactose…