Variety

PostNatural history: organism of the month

PostNatural Organism of the Month: American Chestnut Tree July 2009

From a series of artworks from the Center for PostNatural History. The caption reads:

This variety of American Chestnut Tree is engineered by a small team of researchers at the SUNY Environmental Science and Forestry program to be resistant to the chestnut blight that is responsible for reducing this American icon to a shrub. In selecting the genes to create a blight-resistant tree, researchers paid unusual attention to selecting genes from organisms that would not be seen by the public as controversial. For example, researchers chose a blight-resistant gene from wheat rather than a more commonly used toxin gene from frogs. This consideration of public perception as well as the environmental ecology is significant as this tree is among the first transgenic organisms to be designed with the intent to proliferate in the ‘wild’.

Thanks to Groundswell blog.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Mammut Magazine // Exploring the intersection of art and nature

 

 

 

ISSUE #2 SPRING 2009: LIVING WITH THE CITY

 

As the world’s population is increasingly concentrated in urban centers, how we choose to interact, develop and live in these cities will only become more important. With a variety of perspectives but by no means comprehensive, we hope this issue offers new ideas, directions and ways of understanding urban life.

 Mammut Magazine // Exploring the intersection of art and nature.