From Mālama Honua to Manaiakalani Schools | High Tech Legacy and Future in Polynesia

A fusion of ancient futures is apparent in this story from ʻŌiwi TV about the arrival of the Mālama Honua crews in Aotearoa at Pt. England Beach near Aukland. Students from the Manaiakalani School Cluster (a group of 12 schools that share the vision of future-focused learning in connected communities that embrace the digital world) met the Mālama Honua crews with songs and ceremony.

Russell Burt, principle of the Pt. England School referred to the journey of legend of Maui-tikitiki-a-tāranga and his journey to Aotearoa in which he used the Manaiakalani constellation to navigate and called it "ancient wisdom with high-end Polynesian tech". He went on to say, "ancient wisdom applied to new technology equals fantastic opportunity and future and a happy outcome, an outcome of enormous endurance of incredible epic proportions."

Later in the video, David Lassner, President of the University of Hawaii System adds "its not traditional versus modern, its using modern and traditional together to prepare these kids for the future."

Manaiakalani: High-end Polynesian Tech from Oiwi TV on Vimeo.

Design Idol | Vivienne Westwood

Dame Vivienne Westwood (born Vivienne Isabel Swire) is an English fashion designer and activist.

Westwood studied fashion and silversmithing for a short time at the Harrow School of Art in the University of Westminster and then took a job in a factory before becoming a primary school teacher and beginning to design jewelry. She married Derek Westwood in 1962 but the marriage ended when Westwood met musician, artist, and band manager Malcolm McLaren. Together with McLaren, Westwood would help define the punk and new wave fashion period, partly by designing clothing for some of the leading punk bands of the era.

Westwood and McLaren opened a boutique together in 1971 called Let it Rock, known today as Worlds End following several other names. The two had their first runway show, The Pirate Collection, in 1981 and Westwood continues to show today.

Westwood now has owns several shops in London and MIlan, has multiple franchise stores throughout England and in New York City, and has showrooms in Milan, Paris, Los Angeles and Honolulu. She has designed the British Royal Family and celebrities.

Westwood was named British Designer of the Year in both 1990 and 1991. In 1992, Westwood was awarded the Officer (OBE) class of the Most Excellent of Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth. She was later awarded the higher level Dame Commander (DBE) for her accomplishments in fashion in 2006.

In addition to her fashion accomplishments, Westwood is well known for her political activism for causes such as nuclear disarmament, human rights, climate change, and consumerism. She is also passionate about the role of culture in shaping the future referring to culture as "the anchor that holds us together as a people and gives life greater meaning" in the 2011 Canadian television documentary, Vivienne Westwood's London.

Westwood was added to our PISA List in 2013.

Below is Westwood's 2011 TEDxObserver video in which she also talks about the importance of history, heritage, and culture:

A Cappella Encore | Bohemian Gravity

A cappella is all the rage. It’s been around for centuries and will be around for centuries to come. No matter how advanced music gets, awesome harmonies and instrument emulation can hold their own any day. We share some of our favorite a cappella finds in our A Cappella Encore series.

For our first dispatch in the series we actually found a great a cappella piece that happens to also feature a science topic. Bohemian Gravity by acapellascience (Tim Blais) was posted on YouTube in September 2013 and already had over 2 million views by the end of November of that same year. Understandable...it is kinda brilliant.

HexWatch | Amazing in Motion by Lexus

Amazing in Motion is a visionary project by Lexus to explore the beauty of motion through technology and film. The short film below, Steps, tells the story of a two figures finding each other in a bustling city. The website itself is fully innovative it its interactive elements but the many sub-elements and supporting videos help demonstrate the creativity and complexity of the project. Perhaps most impressive is the puppetry skills that bring the figures in the project to life.

Steps appears below but be sure to go to the full website for more interactive features and videos.

SeanChron | The Björk-Attenborough Collaboration

My worlds are colliding again. Björk and Sir David Attenborough recently collaborated on her recent project, Biophilia. I've long been a big fan of Björk for her music, fashion, and design. In my conservation biology life, I've read and seen a lot of Sir David Attenborough. The collaboration goes back to 2011 when the album was released but this behind the scenes video (see below) makes the whole thing even cooler.

SeanChron | The Sartorialist Dinner

The world is full of stylish women. Whether they find items in downtown boutiques, the mall, or secret 2nd hand stores, women seem to have no problem expressing themselves and their individuality in their fashion and other lifestyle choices.

Finding stylish men can be more challenging. Luckily, Scott Schuman (aka The Sartorialist) has been chronicling stylish women and men around the world for many years. Even more impressive is that Schuman recently once again gathered some of the men in his many sartorial photos for a dinner in Florence (below is the video from 2012). Without a doubt, these are some of the most stylish men in the world. What I love is that there may indeed be some designer pieces here and there on these gentleman, but most of what they are wearing are items that they've found independently and put together to be personal expressions of their very own and unique sense of style.

RobotWatch | Achilles Walks the Walk

University of Arizona robotics engineers Theresa Klein and Anthony Lewis published a paper in the July 2012 issue of Journal of Engineering on their robot Achilles that has mastered the art and science of walking. Achilles doesn't just walk like a human though, the the robot has neural and musculoskeletal features that are based on human biology and mobility as well. That's one small step for man, one giant leap for robots.

Below is a video of Achilles in action:

Planet Gazing

Ever wondered what the planets in our solar system might look like if they were as close as the moon?

Scale from Brad Goodspeed on Vimeo.

Chipotle's "Back to the Start"

A recent TV ad by everyone's favorite sustainable fast food burrito chain, Chipotle, has created quite a stir. Some say it upstaged the Grammy Awards during which it aired and it has now won several awards. The ad/short film, produced by Creative Artists Agency and Nexus Productions and directed by filmmaker Johnny Kelly, Back to the Start, supports Chipotle's long running position on developing a sustainable food system. As an animated farmer learns about the gritty details of industrial farming, Willie Nelson covers Coldplay's tune The Scientist, the perfect soundtrack to make the spot hit home all the more.

In a June 2012 interview with Matt Lauer on TODAY, Matt Miller, President and CEO of the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), commented on the ad, winner of AICP's best commercial for 2011,

"it says that you can sell and have a social message, that's kind of what advertising is going towards right now".

We agree on all fronts, sometimes shaping the future does require going back to the start...to do things right from the beginning.

SeanChron: Happy [Beyond Earth] Birthday to Me

NASA, you shouldn't have...you've outdone yourself! I couldn't think of a better present than my birthday going down in history as the day that commercial space flight began. Today, SpaceX, the private commercial space flight company lead by Elon Musk of PayPal and Tesla fame, partnered with NASA to launch the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule on a historic mission. It truly is a milestone in history. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden summarized it well:

"We're now back on the brink of a new future, a future that embraces the innovation the private sector brings to the table. The significance of this day cannot be overstated.

Watch the launch here:

Cocktail Astronomy | Cassini Mission

Here at Future-ish, we love astronomy and we love cocktails. So to prep our fans (and ourselves) for those stellar weekend cocktail conversations, we are pleased to offer our Cocktail Astronomy post each Friday.

If there was an Oscar for best space footage (or perhaps we should say WHEN there is an Oscar for best space footage), Cassini Mission by Chris Abbas would win it. Furthermore, Abbas - along with Nine Inch Nails - might just get best score too since the track '2 Ghosts' from their album Ghosts I-IV provides the pitch perfect soundtrack to the stunning video. Cassini Mission features remixed Cassini Solstice Mission NASA and ESA images of Saturn and its moons jockeyed together by Abass, a Seattle-based designer/director. Abass also throws in a Carl Sagan quote in the video description:

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."

So mix up your favorite cocktail, turn on the stereo and put this on the big screen, we can't think of a better way to get the weekend rolling than a fab video like this.

Onward to the Edge, a Symphony of Science

What? WHAT? When did science get so frickin cool? The latest episode of John Boswell's Symphony of Science, Onward to the Edge takes us on a melodic tour of the amazing worlds in our very own solar system and in Boswell's words "reflects upon the importance and inspirational qualities of space exploration, both human and robotic." Neil deGrasse Tyson is center stage with cameos from Brian Cox (one of our 2011 Stylish Scientists) and Carolyn Porco. The release, on November 9th, just so happens to coincide with the birthdays of both Boswell and the legendary science popularizer and communicator Carl Sagan, one of our heroes here at Future-ish.

Fab Facets | Canopy Light Sculpture

Canopy is a 90-meter long light sculpture spanning across the Maple Leaf Square building in Toronto, Canada. Designed by London-based United Visual Artists, it is inspired by the geometry of cells within a leaf. A soul-soothing art instillation in the heart of a city...we could watch the video below over and over again.

Canopy from United Visual Artists on Vimeo.

SeanChron - Chris Jordan's Midway Project

This video comes via photographer Chase Jarvis who is actually commenting on a video by a Riley Morton about the work of another photographer, Chris Jordan. I happen to be a big fan of all of them.

The topic is Jordan's multi-year effort to document the fate of albatross chicks on Midway Atoll who are dying from ingesting large amounts plastic detritus collected by their parents in the Pacific Ocean. The video and project are poignant reminders of the impact human activities have on both human health and the environment. Jordan and Morton's creative work on the natural history of the albatross and how our culture of consumption and waste is affecting the birds is particularly profound to me given my background in conservation biology. It is a great example of the kinds of projects that occur at the intersection of science, design, and culture.

Nuclear Testing Tableau

A picture is worth a thousand words but an infographic may be worth many more. Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto created short video that chronicles the number of nuclear explosions conducted around the world from 1945 to 1998. Find more on Hashimoto and the video here.

SeanChron - Brad Paisley's "Welcome to the Future" video

10.28.10 - I'm a Nebraska farm boy at heart so I was pretty excited about Brad Paisley's 2009 song, "Welcome to the Future". Check out the video above. In addition to showcasing science, design, and culture shaping our future around the world, the video features children from the many and diverse communities and cultures across America talking about what they want to be when they grow up. Can't wait to line dance to this one. Yee haw!

Danica McKellar on Kiss My Math

Actress Danica McKellar talks about her latest book Kiss My Math and 'making math girly'. Apologies to Danica for the tragically unflattering image above for this YouTube video.