Quills made from bird feathers were some of the earliest writing instruments.
We graduated to fountain pens, which then gave way to disposable ball points.
A project on Kickstarter has raised way more money that requested.
And the strange thing is that it replicates the ancient way of writing with modern day machining techniques.
The instruments of inspiration go beyond the simple act of transferring thoughts to paper.
We've gone all the way from tactile to virtual keyboards and then, some of us have hit the pause button.
It's as if we did not want a world in which everything was done within an environment you couldn't touch and feel.
It's not just writing. Vinyl records may not be the best reproductions of music. But they have a sound quality missing from the audio streams and the sales have been rising again.
In spite of E readers being so convenient, book lovers still want the tactile feel of books.
And back to pens. Here, artists can wield control again. The tip is available in 2 sizes and the choice of the body holding the modern 'quill' represents experiments with finishes and textures that give it a tactile quality suited to the artist's own sense of touch.
And that's the point - we should switch between the virtual and the real.
Keep that divide alive because it keeps us in touch with the real world - and that's essential.
This fertiliser factory has millions of workers
But you can't see any of them
Some of the world's most essential crops - rice, and wheat require huge amounts of synthetic fertilisers.
Which is essentially nitrogen.
And over decades, farmers have had to steadily increase the number of fertilisers used to get the same yield.
The process of making nitrogen artificially is an energy-intensive process creating massive amounts of carbon dioxide.
The search for a natural alternative has been underway for decades.
When nitrogen is made by natural microbes, plants absorb it better. And there's simply no waste to dispose of.
The technology to create this at scale has been elusive.
But a company called Pivot Bio has found a way to get natural microbes to make nitrogen in the quantities that farmers require.
They had to isolate the microbes from the millions that are found in a single teaspoon of soil and determine if they were up to the task. Then create the conditions for them to replicate it in the lab.
The results have been impressive. The company has just raised $430 million in another funding round. And investors don't make such bets unless the technology is proven to work.
This may signal the move towards several bio-generated manufacturing processes, rather than the complex chemistry we've had to deploy.
It's as if we traveled a long way away from nature and are slowly finding our way back.
This could work far better than several carbon sequestration projects on the anvil.
How do you make it rain on stage, on cue?
We are in awe of amazing movie special effects but it's much harder to create real illusions on stage.
If you haven't heard of Es Devlin, here's an introduction.
She's a stage designer and the portfolio of work as well as the events she has conceived are almost unbelievable.
Watch Episode 3 from the series Abstract on Netflix (Season 1) and you'll understand how much goes into making things happen behind the scenes.
The amount of planning and split second execution required is surreal.
And the rain on stage did happen on cue - it wasn't even for a big name play. Just a small theater with an audience capacity of less than 100 people.
But she has also created spectacles for the big music stars.
She distils it beautifully when she explains how every minute has to be scripted but the audience will never know.
To paraphrase - The challenge is to focus the attention of an audience numbering tens of thousands of people on a single point - the performer. And the only way to do it is to play with light.
In the late 90s, I had watched a play on the Broadway stage - Miss Saigon. In the climax of the play, a helicopter descends on stage to rescue people on the ground.
The feeling was incredible - something no movie special effect has ever had.
I never Googled to find out how it was done. Some things are best left as mysteries.
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