Polyps, polymers and participation

Mrs Polly Mer and I are pretty excited to hear that Margaret Wertheim is presenting the 2013 Templeton Lecture at Sydney University on Monday the 18^th of March.

The title of Margaret’s talk, ‘We are all polyps now: a meditation on art, science and collectivity in the age of global warming’, gives you an idea of the breadth of her work as a science writer and exhibition curator.

One piece of work Margaret is perhaps most well known for is the Crochet Coral Reef project. This involves getting people involved in crocheting pieces that mimic coral as a way of addressing global warming – a hands-on informal fashion of collective engagement. We love to practice this ourselves in our underwater home.

As we amphibious water-loving ones well know, coral reefs are fragile ecosystems. Small increases in sea temperature, murky run-off from the land, violent storms or cyclones and the flippers of snorkeling humans reaching for a foot-hold can cause irreparable damage to the coral polyps that make up the reefs.

Like a single nerve cell in the amphibian brain, each coral polyp is insignificant on its own. Yet when networked these minute creatures collectively produce structures like the Great Barrier Reef – like networked nerve cells creating consciousness in a brain. 

Margaret, and her twin sister Christine, founded the Institute For

Figuring, a 'Los Angeles-based organisation devoted to public engagement with the aesthetic and poetic dimensions of science and mathematics’ – check it out www.theiff.org

Yours collectively

Mrs Polly Ester