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Lena Kuzmich's avatar

Hi Laura,

I just came across this entry and felt compelled to reach out. I’m currently collaborating with Paolo Bombelli, Joshua Lawrence, and Alberto Scarampi—the authors of the paper Powering a Microprocessor by Photosynthesis—on a project that builds on their research.

Together, we are developing a musical instrument that generates compositions from environmental light, using the photosynthetic activity of cyanobacteria. I am contributing to this collaboration as visual and sound artist, exploring ways to translate the biochemical processes into sensory experiences.

We co-published a related research paper in December last year, which I’d be happy to share with you.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26388081.2024.2434476

If you're interested, I’d love to exchange thoughts and stay in touch.

kind regards, Lena

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Laura Tripaldi's avatar

This is such an interesting development of the technology I was completely unaware of, thank you for sharing Lena! I just emailed you, I hope we can keep the conversation going. 🦠

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Kirk Gordon's avatar

Loved this piece all the way through, and really hopeful (for technology’s sake and our own) in the turn of language you mention—in shifting away from mechanical or computer narratives to understand humans, and thinking of our technologies as organisms and assemblages. Thanks for writing!

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Laura Tripaldi's avatar

Thank you for your kind comment Kirk!

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Brenden O'Donnell's avatar

Thank you so much for sharing your work here. I’m punching way above my rank — no science training (I’m an English teacher — be gentle!). But not long ago, I read that mitochondria were originally their own thing and our cells used them for long enough that they’ve become the only way our cells know how to function. That really changed how I saw the world. I’ve been thinking about the artificiality of the boundaries between living things. I think you’re taking that to the next level here by talking about not just mutual dependencies but whole “consortiums.” It’s so cool and inspiring.

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Iman Nadeem's avatar

I am interested in doing Mictobiology at university and was just searching for related wider reading and I just wanted to say WOW this is so amazing. The ideas you have explored really solidified my decision to pursue microbiology.

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Laura Tripaldi's avatar

I’m so happy to hear Iman, best of luck with your studies 🦠

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