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I first read about tree shaping in a Readers Digest magazine in the 1990s. It featured a man who would shapes trees into chairs and other sculptures. Even since then I wanted to do it. I got started on a white cherry tree that started growing in my yard. Once it got large enough, I would braid and weave the branches every spring. I didn't do anything as complicated as a chair. I would try to create loops by braiding…
I have dozens of volunteer red maple trees about shoulder to head height in my yard. I have been trying to find information about training them at this size. Do bonsai methods for Japanese maples work? Can two red maples be joined together to make an arch? I need to learn more about plants
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Would you like me to reveal my Angolia-fu?
Please do!
This field is called Tree Shaping[1] and while it has been tried throughout history, I think there's still a lot of cool stuff that has never been tried. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_shaping
The living bridges were new to me. I like the concept, would probably also work in more cold areas, but with more effort. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_root_bridge
Imagine an alien species comes here and sees all this totally fucked up human centric thinking. They put fish in small fish bowls, for their own enjoyment. They deform trees for their own enjoyment... and the list goes on. Bleh.
Why do you think they would be so bothered by what humans do, when the same kind of thing is done across the animal world? Read about ants milking aphids, for instance.
Imagine an alien species comes here and sees all this totally fucked up human centric thinking. They put fish in small fish bowls, for their own enjoyment. They deform trees for their own enjoyment... and the list goes on. Bleh.
I assure you, any species capable of interstellar travel will have a capacity and willingness to bend their environment to their will that absolutely dwarfs our own.
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Why do you think they would be so bothered by what humans do, when the same kind of thing is done across the animal world? Read about ants milking aphids, for instance.
That's a mutual thing since ants give them protection.
I've been thinking since the 1970s that we'd decrease the 2nd biggest use of petroleum, plastic, using genetic engineering.
Many biological substances could replace plastic, such as chitin and cellulose.
But "lab grown meat", like "full self driving" and "artificial intelligence", is a name that's a giant leap of faith beyond the actual technology.
Lab grown meat is still only the flesh protean cells grown in a mold to look like a fish fillet. None of the structural components of the real thing are reproduced.
To use this tech as a structural plastic replacement, we'll have to reach the point of controlling the shape of the material as the cells proliferate.
Of course, before that, we'll have to overthrow the petro mafia's control of the US.
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That's a mutual thing since ants give them protection.
The topic here is a mutual thing, too. You can see that people sculpting trees are keeping the tree alive when it might otherwise be cut down. Possibly taking pains to ensure it gets enough water, too. After all, the sculpting process relies on the tree continuing to grow.