Technology Review: “Etienne Boulter walked into his lab at the Université Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, one morning with a Lego Technic excavator set tucked under his arm. His plan was simple yet ambitious: to use the pieces of the set to build a mechanical cell stretcher. Boulter and his colleagues study mechanobiology—the way mechanical forces, such as stretching and compression, affect cells—and this piece of equipment is essential for his research. Commercial cell stretchers cost over $50,000. But one day, after playing with the Lego set, Boulter and his colleagues found a way to build one out of its components for only a little over $200. Their Lego system stretches a silicone plate where cells are growing. This process causes the cells to deform and mimics how our own skin cells stretch. Sets like these are ideal to repurpose, says Boulter: “If you go to Lego Technic, you have the motors, you have the wheels, you have the axles—you have everything you need to build such a system.” Their model was so successful that 10 different labs around the world contacted him for the plans to build their own low-cost Lego stretchers. Boulter is one of many researchers turning to Lego components to build inexpensive yet extremely effective lab equipment.”
FT: “In The Anxious Generation, published this spring, American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt confirms many fears for those children who have transitioned from a “play-based” childhood to a “phone-based” childhood in a phenomenon he calls “The Great Rewiring” — one that he associates with a range of mental health issues. Haidt suggests simple but radical reforms including no smartphones before high school, no social media before the age of 16, and more time spent on unsupervised play. That, to my mind, is also a call for a return to reading, not as a niche activity, but as an essential part of growing up. If access to books is increasingly limited, with library closures widening the equality gap, the single biggest challenge for parents, librarians and schools is this: how do you make reading attractive to children?”
Freya India: “And so, many of us don’t have friends anymore; we have followers. We don’t deeply care about each other’s lives; we consume them as content. We don’t have people we can be vulnerable with; we have people who view our Stories. It’s hard to tell if we have loyalty, or just people hoping we like their photo back. Nowadays we meet someone new and immediately exchange socials and end up committing to scrolling and skipping through each other’s lives, forever. Friends are for keeping up Snapstreaks. Friends are for forwarding each other memes that our algorithms sent us first. Friends are numbers. Sometimes it feels like the only one left asking us “What’s on your mind?” is Facebook.” [via Arnold Kling]
W.H. Hutt: “The consumer is sovereign when, in his role of citizen, he has not delegated to political institutions for authoritarian use the power which he can exercise socially through his power to demand (or to refrain from demanding).” [via Art Carden]
