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X Marks the Spot: Painted people in Washington, morality pills in Spain, and shark repellent wetsuits in Australia

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Human-Canvas-ProjectWhat would happen if artists Art Wolfe and Liu Bolin stepped into the same room? It’s possible that the space around them would melt into paint. While Wolfe is best known for his documentary photography, charting locations from Madagascar to New Zealand, for his latest series — called The Human Canvas Project — Wolfe painted black and white geometric backgrounds and human subjects to match them. At TEDxRainier, Wolfe reveals these whimsical photographs and talks about the process of transforming people into art.  The series reminds us a lot of the work of TED2013 speaker Liu Bolin, known as “The Invisible Man,” because he paints himself into intricate backgrounds. Perhaps the two could collaborate on something?

Across the world at TEDxBarcelona, neuroethicist Julian Savulescu gave a talk called “Pills that improve morality.” In it, he makes a pretty bold claim: that if human beings have the opportunity to use biological and psychology advancements to improve morality, we should take it. Check out a bold quote from his talk below.

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Speaking of biology, at TEDxToulouse Audrey Dussutour introduces us to a truly bizarre organism called the sticky mushroom, which she has affectionately nicknamed “the blob.” The blob can be any color, and while a single cell, can grow to a very large size. They move fairly quickly — and they can swallow an entire other mushroom in a single motion. See a fun fact about the blob below and watch her talk for much more.

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And while we’re on the subject of scary creatures: sharks! But you won’t have to worry about them if you wear a shark-repelling wetsuit, created by Hamish Jolly. At TEDxPerth, he revealed this very cool invention and shared how it was inspired by nature. The suit is colored blue, because sharks aren’t actually able to see it.  Meanwhile, stripes inspired by the pilot fish signal to sharks, “Better not to eat!”

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These are some of the highlights on the TEDx Blog this month. Much more from the TEDx universe »