http://www.hackteria.org/wiki/index.php?title=Homo_Photosyntheticus&feed=atom&action=historyHomo Photosyntheticus - Revision history2024-03-29T10:58:30ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.28.0http://www.hackteria.org/wiki/index.php?title=Homo_Photosyntheticus&diff=44442&oldid=prevMamind: Created page with "link http://thiscouldbeyourlink.org/ ==Homo Photosyntheticus== '''A DIYBIO APPROACH TO COSMIC AND MICROCOSMIC PERCEPTION OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD OF PROTISTS''' A devotion to L..."2021-08-13T13:24:45Z<p>Created page with "link http://thiscouldbeyourlink.org/ ==Homo Photosyntheticus== '''A DIYBIO APPROACH TO COSMIC AND MICROCOSMIC PERCEPTION OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD OF PROTISTS''' A devotion to L..."</p>
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==Homo Photosyntheticus==<br />
'''A DIYBIO APPROACH TO COSMIC AND MICROCOSMIC PERCEPTION OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD OF PROTISTS'''<br />
A devotion to Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock Gaia Hypothesis<br />
<br />
Lynn Margulis’ and James Lovelock‘s Gaia Hypothesis are our starting<br />
point to dig into a more complex comprehension of the world we are<br />
inhabiting. Planet Earth with its exuberant nature and connection<br />
of forests, rivers, water basins and ocean, we are especially interested in the research<br />
on the potential of the so called protists world, the cyanobacteria, micro- and macroalgae in particular. <br />
The idea is to display a ciritical thinking between cosmic<br />
and microcosmic connections through the lense of photosynthetic beings<br />
like cyanobacteria as smallest unit to micro- and macro algaes and finally<br />
touch the speculation of Homo Photosyntheticus.<br />
We will dive into the scope and scape of micro and macro by getting familiar<br />
with a more-than-human encounter, to sharpen our perception<br />
and our capability to grasp it. The tools we apply is DIYbio approaches<br />
and will be explored as workshops within the group on site by artist<br />
Maya Minder.<br><br />
On the macro level space ecology scientists help us to explain the<br />
world and its cosmic relations. We intend and anticipate inviting scientists<br />
from IPNE to give us presentations on satellite environment monitoring<br />
(macro).<br />
<br />
<br />
The starting point of this project is our current research and film project<br />
on the „Homo Photosyntheticus“ topic (which we describe more in<br />
detail inside the project proposal): How can we get more familiar with<br />
the cosmic interconnectivity of our bio- and hydrosphere, water and<br />
environmental variables that affect the habitability of Earth?<br />
We will discuss the connectivity of agriculture and the effects of deforestation<br />
on the hydrosphere of global growth of algae blooms.<br />
What are the fears and dangers of this microbial world and how can<br />
we relocate the fear into a positive notion. All the practices will be<br />
collectively documented (transparency) to<br />
make them accessible (open source). We will follow the methodes wiki<br />
of hackteria.org 1<br />
<br />
==Proposition:==<br />
===Field trip:===<br />
How to sample: Collecting protists in the forests and aquatic basins,<br />
get familiar with the microbial world surrounding us. What are protists?<br />
How can we perceive them by our human perception? Where are the<br />
interesting spots to collect microbes, learn inside a collective DIWO<br />
(Do-It-With-Others), learn how to sample and collect, make descriptions<br />
and protocol, keep things transparent and open source. We will<br />
document the material on the wiki of Hackteria.org<br />
½ day workshop<br />
<br />
<br />
===Microscoping and creating a microbial Atlas:===<br />
The collected material will be protocoliced and examined under the<br />
microscope. Becoming familiar with the invisible world of the protists,<br />
how to sample, how to create a catalogue, how to work with a microscope.<br />
½ day workshop<br />
<br />
===Make Visible the Invisible - DIYbio Workshop:===<br />
Create petri dishes: steps to learn how to make nutrient medium and<br />
create our own microbial cosmic world. We will take samples from our<br />
bodies, the samples we collected, food and plants to see that all is alive<br />
and all has a holobiont. Practically: learn how to work sterile, learn how<br />
to work with invisible microbes, learn how to autoclave, first steps into<br />
DIY-biology. We can create easy protocols on the interaction of microbes<br />
with the use of antibiotics, pesticides, hormones, etc. to compare<br />
samples.<br />
<br />
1 day workshop<br />
<br />
<br />
===Cooking class:===<br />
Eat your sidewalk or forest food. foraging and cooking. Can we learn<br />
from indigenous practice of the edible not industrial food to get connected<br />
more with the locality and the common of the in situ space.<br />
Connected to my project with Green Open Food Evolution I will talk<br />
as well on the edible seaweeds and the things you can cook with them,<br />
the nutritional values and benefits of vegan food. Share your experience<br />
and culture, learn from others, discuss the ingredients, a dish is like<br />
a dinner table; the conversations are only as good as its participants.<br />
cooking for staying together<br />
1 day workshop:<br />
<br />
<br />
===Scientific discussion:===<br />
Invitation of a Scientist from INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas<br />
Espaciais - located in São José dos Campos) to tell us more about the<br />
practice and tools of environmental monitoring of deforestation and<br />
its connections to algaeblooms. Through the contacts we receive from<br />
Ewen Chardronnet we would like to invite a scientist or person from<br />
the INPE, this can be arranged pre-headed by the SACi-E platform<br />
(Space Culture Platform & Artistic Residency program at INPE), we are<br />
considering taking E. Chardronnet (SACi-E pilot committee) or Fabiane<br />
M. Borges (SACi-E program coordinator) into account but would need<br />
help to establish a schedule. We are mostly interested in the tools of<br />
satellite environmental monitoring of deforestation, agriculture and algae<br />
blooms.<br />
1 day presentation and discussion and dinner<br />
<br />
<br />
===Visual display of research & its narrative asthetics:===<br />
All the workshops and discussions will be filmed and edited to a film.<br />
We will develop the final storytelling as well as the filmic language during<br />
the residency. The narrative language will be two folded to engage<br />
with the 2 different realms of the project: the micro and macro view.<br />
Mainly we focus on two filmic styles: On one hand the factual world<br />
of history and contemporary issues of algaes which will be captured<br />
through documentary technics and approaches as well as guided interviews.<br />
This part could be referred to as the «overwater aesthetic». It is<br />
a scientific look through the microscope as well as filmic investigations<br />
of the environment. It’s goal is to present scientific information in a<br />
comprehensive way.<br />
<br />
The second dimension portrays the speculative world like the potentials<br />
of Homo Photosyntheticus. This «underwater world» connects with<br />
the unknown, the subconscious, the fantastic elements of the film.<br />
Thus diving into the underwater could be as well a dive into the subconscious<br />
realm, bridging real facts with the speculative aspects of the<br />
potential of becoming Homo Photosyntheticus.<br />
The audio will be closely developed with the visual style. Endformat<br />
will be installations and films as well as the continuance of the interview<br />
series.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Homo Photosyntheticus - Filmsynopsis==<br />
In 1972, the atmospheric scientist James Lovelock undertook a scientific<br />
voyage on the ship Shackleton to measure the atmospheric content<br />
of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) at different points on the globe. He concluded<br />
that marine organisms have a major regulatory role in the diffusion<br />
of DMS, revealing a climate feedback loop correlating DMS production<br />
by marine phytoplankton and cloud albedo. This observation drove<br />
him to publish the first article on the Gaian mechanism in the same<br />
year: “Gaia as seen through the atmosphere”. Moreover it is estimated<br />
that 50-80% of the oxygen production on Earth comes from the ocean:<br />
from oceanic plankton, algae, and some bacteria that can photosynthesize.<br />
One particular species, the smallest photosynthetic organism on<br />
Earth, the cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus, produces by itself up to 20%<br />
of the oxygen in our entire biosphere. That’s a higher percentage than<br />
all of the tropical rainforests on land combined. This shows how important<br />
phytoplankton and algae are to the balance of the biosphere.<br />
However, with the increasing number of green tides, sargassum oceans<br />
and algae blooms, algae have acquired a bad reputation. Even if the<br />
causes of these algae blooms are climate change, ocean acidification<br />
and global warming, chemical and nutrient discharges from deforestation,<br />
petro&chemio industries, nitrate discharges from animal farming<br />
and other anthropogenic causes. The urgency of the environmental crisis<br />
requires a shift towards a low-carbon society, towards sustainable<br />
energies,food alternatives and the way live<br />
Yet algae promise immense potential to overcome the environmental<br />
catastrophes of the Anthropocene. Algae can be used as biofuels, biomaterials,<br />
pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. Their nutritional role is recognised,<br />
algae are rich in proteins, minerals, fatty acids and vitamins.<br />
Micro-algae such as spirulina or chlorella are promising food alternatives<br />
and the food cultures of North-East Asia did not wait for the environmental<br />
crises of the twentieth century to integrate macro-algae<br />
such as Kombu, Wakame, Nori, into their diets. The Umami flavour of<br />
Kombu seaweed was discovered as early as the beginning of the 20th<br />
century. Mastering the life cycle of Nori seaweed saved its food industry<br />
in the wake of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima nuclear disaster. A recent<br />
scientific study even described how the microbiota of the Japanese had<br />
undergone an evolutionary lateral gene transfer to better digest Nori<br />
seaweed. So how can algae be further integrated into the world diet?<br />
How can we bring more algae to our tables?<br />
<br />
In marine life, many species (Elysia Chlorotica, Zebra fish, Sea sheep,<br />
etc.) have even managed to integrate micro-algae into their tissues during<br />
their evolution in order to benefit from their photosynthesis. Evolutionary<br />
biologist Lynn Margulis likes to mention the Roscoff marine<br />
worm in Brittany, a fully photosymbiotic species that ingests but does<br />
not digest its symbiotic micro-algae, keeping it in its tissues to live entirely<br />
on its photosynthesis. Lynn Margulis speculates on this animal-algae<br />
and pushes the reflection towards a future „Homo Photosyntheticus“<br />
of the human species, a future of our evolution where the human<br />
would become integrally phototrophic, human-plant without any need<br />
to feed, thus approaching the early speculations of Vladimir Vernadsky,<br />
the scientist who defined the notion of the Biosphere in the 1920s.<br />
More recently these marine photosymbiosis have inspired medical and<br />
biomedical research. Many research teams are trying to take advantage<br />
from this photosymbiotic logic to integrate micro-algae on or inside<br />
damaged human tissues in order to benefit from their photosynthesis<br />
to regenerate them. The speculations of Lynn Margulis and Vladimir<br />
Vernadsky also inspire speculative bio-artists and science fiction writers.<br />
From Adam Zaretsky to Spela Petric, from Ursula Le Guin to Kim<br />
Stanley Robinson, it is a future „Homo Photosyntheticus“ that seems to<br />
be opening up to humankind.<br />
<br />
The Prochlorococcus Marinus<br />
Source: Luke Thompson from Chisholm Lab and<br />
Nikki Watson from Whitehead, MIT<br />
Roscoff worm<br />
Spirulina under microscope<br />
Algae preparation by Maya Minder<br />
<br />
So how do we get inspired from this speculative direction towards a‚<br />
Homo Phtosyntheticus‘? Lynn Margulis envisions it to enable humans<br />
to become multi-planetary, living in orbit around other planets. <br />
European Space Agency‘s MELISSA (Multi-Ecological Life Support System<br />
Alternative) programme is thinking about circular systems for life<br />
in orbit, imagining urea and CO2 recycling together with the cultivation<br />
of spirulina as an alternative food and oxygen source. The Multicellular<br />
Marine Models laboratory at the Roscoff Biological Station is planning<br />
to study the Roscoff worm in space to better understand its photosymbiotic<br />
life cycle and its tissue regeneration capacities. Why? Maybe because<br />
we know yet far too little about the oceans, the holobionts and<br />
the life of algae, these protists that are ‚queering‘ conventional taxonomy.<br />
Is the objective of going from the ocean floor to outer space only<br />
to come back to Earth, the Ocean planet? To finally leave the Anthropocene<br />
and enter this Chthulucene that the philosopher and zoologist<br />
Donna Haraway is calling for?<br />
<br />
===Sicentific & Environmental Politics Context===<br />
===Space Monitoring of Deforestation under Threat === <br />
One of the main environmental problems in Brazil is deforestation,<br />
especially in the Amazon region. The government and other agencies<br />
have made great efforts to monitor this anthropogenic phenomenon.<br />
Important alert tools for monitoring and controlling are the space monitoring<br />
programs of the INPE (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais)<br />
called Measurement of Deforestation by Remote Sensing (PRODES)<br />
and Brazilian Real-Time Deforestation Detection (DETER)1.<br />
These programs are more important than even since deforestation in<br />
Brazil’s portion of the world’s largest rainforest hit a 12-year high in<br />
2020. In 2020 alone, the Cerrado lost 7,340 km2 of native vegetation,<br />
an increase of 13.6% compared to 2019, when 6,483 km2 were deforested,<br />
according to PRODES data. Soy was the main driver, converting<br />
2,078 km2 of savannah into crops in 2020, equivalent to 28.3% of the<br />
total deforested area2.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately Brazil’s government under President Jair Bolsonaro has<br />
proposed in 2021 the smallest budget for environmental protection in<br />
at least 13 years with a 24%3 cut despite soaring destruction of the country’s<br />
Amazon rainforest. Since assuming office in 2019, Bolsonaro has<br />
drained environmental agencies of funding, and today, PRODES AND<br />
DETER, the two deforestation monitoring and remote sensing systems,<br />
run by the INPE, are even threatened. The DETER programme only has<br />
funding until the end of August. Meanwhile, PRODES, the annual inventory<br />
of native vegetation loss, has funds until December.<br />
<br />
===Sargassum Ocean and the Amazon Deforestation === <br />
Since the start of the last decade, sargassum, which clumps together to<br />
form large buoyant mats of plant life, has hugely proliferated. By mid-<br />
2018, they had formed a 5,600-mile living bridge between the Caribbean<br />
Sea and the African coast, swamping coastlines and beaches with<br />
noxious macro-algae invasions.<br />
<br />
The latest investigations4 have identified the principal culprit in the<br />
growth of sargassum as the discharge of nutrients and pollutants from<br />
mighty rivers such as the Amazon in Brazil and the Orinoco in Venezuela,<br />
as prevailing ocean currents, altered by climate change, sweep the<br />
effluent north to the Caribbean.<br />
With the deforestation of the Amazon, water washes soil and chemical<br />
elements into the rivers. Nitrogen is a nutrient of sargassum, and its<br />
main sources are agriculture, industries and sewage disposal. Therefore,<br />
the explosive macro-algae growth could also be considered a warning<br />
sign about increased deforestation in the Amazon basin. Deforestation<br />
is causing more erosion and sediments to run off into the rivers and<br />
eventually out to sea.<br />
<br />
1 Amazônia 1 is the most recent satellite of the DETER system and the first developed by Brazil.<br />
Launched February 28, 2021, „Amazon 1 will provide images for environmental and agricultural<br />
monitoring throughout Brazil (...). It will also be used to monitor the coastal region, water reserves,<br />
environmental disasters, among other applications,“ explains INPE.<br />
<br />
2 https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/brazil-cuts-environment-spending-one-dayafter-<br />
us-climate-summit-pledge-2021-04-23/<br />
<br />
3 https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/brazil-cuts-environment-spending-one-dayafter-<br />
us-climate-summit-pledge-2021-04-23/<br />
<br />
<br />
===Algae blooms in Sao Paulo Region's Reservoirs=== <br />
Climate change is transforming aquatic ecosystems. Coastal waters<br />
have experienced progressive warming, acidification, and deoxygenation<br />
that will intensify this century and will have many effects on freshwater<br />
and marine environments. These effects, along with nutrient pollution,<br />
might cause harmful algal blooms to occur more often, in more<br />
waterbodies and to be more intense. Algal blooms endanger human<br />
health and the environment.<br />
Moreover, human activities on a global scale have significantly contributed<br />
to the degradation of the water quality of inland aquatic systems<br />
by increasing their nutrient levels. Particularly, reservoirs are under high<br />
pressure due to the increasing water demand for urban areas, including<br />
irrigation, industrial use, and energy production, while still needing to<br />
maintain their ecological function. The quasi-lentic nature of reservoirs<br />
leads to a higher phosphorus accumulation, which may trigger phytoplankton<br />
production, abundance, and frequency of algae blooms.<br />
Algae bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of<br />
algae, characterized by the blue-green water coloration caused by algae’s<br />
pigments, that can cause serious consequences to human health<br />
and aquatic biogeochemistry due to the production of toxins. Due to<br />
increasing algae bloom occurrence and water degradation on a global<br />
scale, there is a demand for water quality monitoring systems based on<br />
remote sensing imagery. Scientists at INPE5 have developed an Earth<br />
Engine App, entitled Algae Bloom Monitoring Application (AlgaeMAp)6<br />
and applied it to better understand algae blooms in reservoirs and water<br />
sources of Sao Paulo area.<br />
<br />
A recent satellite-based investigation has been conducted into the<br />
algae bloom variability in large water supply urban reservoirs during<br />
COVID-19 lockdown. Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and phycocyanin (PC - a<br />
pigment-protein found in spirulina among other micro-algae) concentrations<br />
were estimated for the Guarapiranga and Billings reservoirs,<br />
which supply daily water use for over 20 million people and receives<br />
treated wastewater. The study found a significant increase in algae pigments<br />
(Chl-a and PC) in both reservoirs in April 2020, compared to<br />
the same month of 2019. It shows that the episodic algae blooming is<br />
strongly related to the increased inflows of the residential wastewater<br />
from the surrounding watersheds. In the case of Guarapiranga Reservoir,<br />
PC increased nearly 500% in April 2020 compared to April 2019.<br />
<br />
4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02080-y<br />
https://www.nola.com/news/environment/article_8f73ac64-8916-11eb-8ca1-2b9612ea17ff.html<br />
https://infoamazonia.org/en/storymap/the-pollution-of-illegal-gold-mining-in-the-tapajos-river/<br />
https://www.inverse.com/article/59633-amazon-rainforest-great-atlantic-sargassum-belt<br />
5 https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/13/15/2874/htm<br />
6 https://felipellobo.users.earthengine.app/view/algaemapv10</div>Mamind