Saco-Indonesia.com — Sebuah Perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan selalu menarik untuk disimak. Penemuan-penemuan baru semakin memudahkan hidup manusia di mana depan. Tampaknya, hasil desain Tashia Tucker juga akan memberikan efek serupa.
Dengan menggunakan teknologi yang dibayangkan oleh Tucker, bangunan di masa depan dapat menggunakan lantai yang mengandung bakteri sintetis. Bakteri ini dapat memakan kotoran dan membersihkan kaki orang yang melintas di atasnya.
Tucker menamai teknologi yang dibayangkannya ini dengan Synthetic Biology: The Future of Adaptive Living Environments. Proyek tersebut mengeksplorasi kemungkinan penggunaan biologi sintetis yang bisa digunakan dalam bidang arsitektur. Teknologi ini bisa menciptakan permukaan "cerdas" mengandung bakteri.
"Saya pikir dalam 10 tahun ke depan, kita akan mulai melihat pengembangan permukaan yang didesain secara biologis di laboratorium. Dalam kurun waktu 15 sampai 20 tahun mendatang, tersedia bagi masyarakat," ujar Tucker.
Sebagai seorang mahasiswa jurusan desain di Universitas Drexel, Philadelphia, Amerika Serikat, Tucker menampilkan simulasi cara kerja permukaan, penutup lantai "cerdas" yang berisi bakteri hasil modifikasi. Tidak hanya mampu memakan kotoran dan membersihkan kaki penggunanya, permukaan ini juga memberikan peringatan jika ada bahan-bahan berbahaya menempel padanya.
"Proyek ini menggunakan fabrikasi digital, proses-mikro, proyeksi video, teknologi game, dan lainnya untuk menstimulasi bagaimana bakteria yang sudah di-hack ini mampu berfungsi sebagai permukaan dan material di masa depan," imbuh Tucker.
Meski masih dalam bentuk simulasi, Tucker mengajak masyarakat dunia membayangkan berbagai kemudahan yang ditawarkan oleh penemuan semacam ini. Ia mencontohkan lantai yang dapat mendeteksi kotoran dan secara otomatis membersihkan kaki penggunanya dari berbagai bahan berbahaya. Bakteri dalam permukaan hasil desain Tucker akan mengeluarkan warna tertentu dan menunjukkan jenis toksin yang menempel di kaki penggunanya.
Dia juga mencontohkan permukaan serupa yang secara khusus didesain bagi permukaan meja dapur. Untuk simulasi ini, Tucker menggunakan permukaan silikon di atas sensor tekan yang dioperasikan oleh Nintendo gaming mat dan dihubungkan dengan prosesor mikro Arduino dan sebuah proyektor.
Permukaan hasil desain Tucker ini akan mengeluarkan warna tertentu yang akan menjadi indikator bagi penggunanya. Misalnya, penggunanya alergi terhadap kacang, maka ketika ada kandungan kacang pada makanan yang diolah di atas permukaan tersebut, bakteri di dalam permukaannya akan berubah warna menjadi kuning.
"Aplikasi ini juga berpengaruh pada industri kesehatan. Rumah sakit, peralatan bedah, dan perlengkapan medis bisa secara visual memberi amaran jika lingkungan di sekitarnya aman dan bersih," ujarnya.
Tucker bahkan membuat dinding responsif dari selulosa. Karyanya ini mendemonstrasikan bagaimana bakteri dapat diprogram untuk merespons gerakan manusia dan membentuk pola tertentu.
Hasil desain Tucker ini adalah sebagian kecil dari produk The Design Futures Lab, sebuah grup penelitian trans-disiplin ilmu yang ada di Westphal College of Media Arts & Design di Drexel University. Principal Investigator, Assistant Professor Nicole Koltick merupakan direktur laboratorium tersebut. Koltick-lah yang menyediakan berbagai visi dan membimbing proyek-proyek di bawah agenda penelitian kohesif.
Jadi, mampukah material cerdas seperti ini memudahkan hidup di masa depan? Tentu saja. Namun, kita semua masih harus menunggu, menurut Tucker, setidaknya 15 sampai 20 tahun mendatang untuk mendapatkan teknologi semacam ini.
Sumber :www.dezeen.com/kompas.com
Editor : Maulana Lee
Ditemukan INOVASI, Pelapis Lantai Pembersih Kaki Manusia!
From sea to shining sea, or at least from one side of the Hudson to the other, politicians you have barely heard of are being accused of wrongdoing. There were so many court proceedings involving public officials on Monday that it was hard to keep up.
In Newark, two underlings of Gov. Chris Christie were arraigned on charges that they were in on the truly deranged plot to block traffic leading onto the George Washington Bridge.
Ten miles away, in Lower Manhattan, Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the New York State Senate, and his son, Adam B. Skelos, were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on accusations of far more conventional political larceny, involving a job with a sewer company for the son and commissions on title insurance and bond work.
The younger man managed to receive a 150 percent pay increase from the sewer company even though, as he said on tape, he “literally knew nothing about water or, you know, any of that stuff,” according to a criminal complaint the United States attorney’s office filed.
The success of Adam Skelos, 32, was attributed by prosecutors to his father’s influence as the leader of the Senate and as a potentate among state Republicans. The indictment can also be read as one of those unfailingly sad tales of a father who cannot stop indulging a grown son. The senator himself is not alleged to have profited from the schemes, except by being relieved of the burden of underwriting Adam.
The bridge traffic caper is its own species of crazy; what distinguishes the charges against the two Skeloses is the apparent absence of a survival instinct. It is one thing not to know anything about water or that stuff. More remarkable, if true, is the fact that the sewer machinations continued even after the former New York Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, was charged in January with taking bribes disguised as fees.
It was by then common gossip in political and news media circles that Senator Skelos, a Republican, the counterpart in the Senate to Mr. Silver, a Democrat, in the Assembly, could be next in line for the criminal dock. “Stay tuned,” the United States attorney, Preet Bharara said, leaving not much to the imagination.
Even though the cat had been unmistakably belled, Skelos father and son continued to talk about how to advance the interests of the sewer company, though the son did begin to use a burner cellphone, the kind people pay for in cash, with no traceable contracts.
That was indeed prudent, as prosecutors had been wiretapping the cellphones of both men. But it would seem that the burner was of limited value, because by then the prosecutors had managed to secure the help of a business executive who agreed to record calls with the Skeloses. It would further seem that the business executive was more attentive to the perils of pending investigations than the politician.
Through the end of the New York State budget negotiations in March, the hopes of the younger Skelos rested on his father’s ability to devise legislation that would benefit the sewer company. That did not pan out. But Senator Skelos did boast that he had haggled with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, in a successful effort to raise a $150 million allocation for Long Island to $550 million, for what the budget called “transformative economic development projects.” It included money for the kind of work done by the sewer company.
The lawyer for Adam Skelos said he was not guilty and would win in court. Senator Skelos issued a ringing declaration that he was unequivocally innocent.
THIS was also the approach taken in New Jersey by Bill Baroni, a man of great presence and eloquence who stopped outside the federal courthouse to note that he had taken risks as a Republican by bucking his party to support paid family leave, medical marijuana and marriage equality. “I would never risk my career, my job, my reputation for something like this,” Mr. Baroni said. “I am an innocent man.”
The lawyer for his co-defendant, Bridget Anne Kelly, the former deputy chief of staff to Mr. Christie, a Republican, said that she would strongly rebut the charges.
Perhaps they had nothing to do with the lane closings. But neither Mr. Baroni nor Ms. Kelly addressed the question of why they did not return repeated calls from the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., begging them to stop the traffic tie-ups, over three days.
That silence was a low moment. But perhaps New York hit bottom faster. Senator Skelos, the prosecutors charged, arranged to meet Long Island politicians at the wake of Wenjian Liu, a New York City police officer shot dead in December, to press for payments to the company employing his son.
Sometimes it seems as though for some people, the only thing to be ashamed of is shame itself.
Finding Scandal in New York and New Jersey, but No Shame