{ James Rosenquist, Pink Condition, 1996 | Beverly Hills Cop, 1984 }

{ Focus. The stairs will change direction every ~10 seconds. }

{ Midjourney is getting crazy powerful }

The cells that make up our body are constantly making new cells by dividing. A biological technicality causes us to lose a bit of DNA at the ends of our chromosomes (structures made up of DNA and proteins) after each replication. DNA contains the blueprint for our lives, so in order to make sure we aren’t losing crucial information during these divisions, the long molecules of DNA are protected by shorter segments of DNA at their ends called “telomeres.” An analogy would be the plastic tips on a shoelace that prevent it from unraveling. When a cell multiplies, the only part of the chromosome that is lost is a piece of the telomeres. But as we age, our telomeres get shorter, until they reach a critical point where the cell can no longer replicate without damage to its essential DNA. When this occurs, the cell becomes inactive or dies. Shortening of telomeres is linked to senescence and increased risk of disease. Other contributors to aging include oxidative stress (hence the appeal of antioxidants).

Lobsters have a perpetual supply of telomerase – the enzyme that can restore telomeres, helping cells avoid that fateful end. Humans also have telomerase, just not enough to overcome the constant shortening of telomeres. In fact, telomerase is often found in cancer cells, giving tumours a survival advantage.

[A] large supply of telomerase can be a double-edged sword. Lobsters are still more likely to die with age because their hard-shell exoskeleton moults and has to be regrown. This requires reams of energy, eventually too much. As a result, common causes of death for lobsters are exhaustion, immobility, and shell disease, although the leading cause is still predation.

{ McGill | Continue reading }

{ YassifyBot }

{ Reagan and Gorbachev wearing worn shoes, November 19, 1985 }

{ Interview with Copenhagen model and knitwear designer Laura Hagested }

Before coronavirus shuttered the world, a typical month for Connecticut native Zac Mathias was packed with appointments for microneedling (a collagen-stimulating process that involves repeated pin-pricks all over the face), regular resurfacing hydrafacials, rejuvenating laser treatments and the occasional red-light therapy session.

The beauty influencer particularly misses his weekly infrared saunas, where light is used to heat the air instead of traditional steam. The technology has been praised for reversing the effects of photo-aging. Mathias is 18. […]

“Skin care was always a self-care time; that’s how I decompress at night.” […]

“Premature aging at 16. What are my options?” […]

“I’m 15 in 2 days and I’m already using retinol, vitamin C and gua sha with my sunscreen.” […]

Brands have made the fear of looking older into a lucrative business, with the anti-aging market predicted to pull in over $88 billion in global sales by 2026. […]

“There’s a new beauty persona called the Skinvestors, a next-gen, science-first beauty consumer who sees skin care as an investment.

{ CNN | Continue reading }

There are more real estate agents than actual houses for sale in the United States.

Any given day, you’re likely to see about half a million homes for sale, and there are 1.5 million members of the National Association of Realtors.

{ NPR | Continue reading }

images { Jerry Lewis, The Ladies Man, 1961 | Georges Perec, La vie mode d’emploi, 1978 }

The most widespread use of augmented reality isn’t in gaming: it’s the face filters on social media. The result? A mass experiment on girls and young women.

{ Technology Rreview | Continue reading }

{ Ora-ïto, Gucci Villa, 1999 | Kleindienst, Floating Seahorse villa, 2015 }

{ International Hairdressing Awards® 2020 }

{ Maria Forqué aka Virgen Maria | Censorship (video) | Interview | Instagram: eyes, more eyes, more }

Some luxury brands have started adding surveillance to their arsenal, turning to blockchains to undermine the emergence of secondary markets in a way that pays lip service to sustainability and labor ethics concerns. LVMH launched Aura in 2019, a blockchain-enabled platform for authenticating products from the Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Marc Jacobs, and Fenty brands, among others. Meanwhile, fashion label Stella McCartney began a transparency and data-monitoring partnership with Google for tracking garment provenance, discouraging fakes and promising to ensure the ethical integrity of supply chains. Elsewhere, a host of fashion blockchain startups, including Loomia, Vechain, and Faizod, have emerged, offering tracking technologies to assuage customer concerns over poor labor conditions and manufacturing-related pollution by providing transparency on precisely where products are made and by which subcontractors. […]

Companies such as Arianee, Dentsu and Evrythng also aim to track clothes on consumers’ bodies and in their closets. At the forefront of this trend is Eon, which with backing from Microsoft and buy-in from mainstream fashion brands such as H&M and Target, has begun rolling out the embedding of small, unobtrusive RFID tags — currently used for everything from tracking inventory to runners on a marathon course — in garments designed to transmit data without human intervention. […]

According to the future depicted by Eon and its partners, garments would become datafied brand assets administering access to surveillance-enabled services, benefits, and experiences. The people who put on these clothes would become “users” rather than wearers. In some respects, this would simply extend some of the functionality of niche wearables to garments in general. Think: swimsuits able to detect UV light and prevent overexposure to the sun, yoga pants that prompt the wearer to hold the right pose, socks that monitor for disease risks, and fitness trackers embedded into sports shirts. […]

According to one potential scenario outlined by Eon partners, a running shoe could send a stream of usage data to the manufacturer so that it could notify the consumer when the shoe “nears the end of its life.” In another, sensors would determine when a garment needs repairing and trigger an online auction among competing menders. Finally, according to another, sensors syncing with smart mirrors would offer style advice and personalized advertising.

{ Real Life | Continue reading }

related { Much of the fashion industry has buckled under the weight of the coronavirus — it appears to have sped up the inevitable }

ambigram { Scott Kim }

{ Ormond Gigli, Girls in the Windows, New York, 1960 |Jean-Paul Goude, Chanel Egoiste commercial, 1990 }

{ Thanks Thomas! }

[Thanks Tim!]

[Thanks Rachel!]

When privately owned land vanishes under the water, who does it belong to?

The problem is a result of the state’s rapidly changing landscape. About 80 percent of Louisiana’s coast is privately owned. But, under an old law, as coastal erosion and sea level rise turn the land into open water the area becomes property of the state, including the mineral rights underneath.

Private landowners have become more adamant about restricting access to water on their property in order to assert their claim to the minerals underneath it. But boaters often have difficulty figuring out where private property ends and public waterways begin. Since 2003, Louisiana law does not require landowners to post signs demarcating their property. The resulting confusion led the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, or BASS, to announce in 2017 that it would no longer host professional fishing tournaments in Louisiana tidal waters, where fishers risk being arrested.

{ NOLA | Continue reading }

{ Scott Kelly and Ben Polkinghorne, Signs of the Times, 2017 }