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Suspended ‘Halos’ in a Florentine Factory
Earlier this month, dozens of metallic discs suspended from the ceiling of a large industrial space invited viewers to immerse themselves in what SpYdescribes as “a continuous choreography of movement and reflection.” The artist is known for his large-scale installations, often repurposing objects like traffic cones and metallic rescue blankets to create striking urban interventions.
SpY’s most recent room-scale work, titled “Halos,” reimagined the industrial interior of a former railway-related factory in Florence—a place we typically associate with Renaissance elegance as opposed to brutalist design—as part of the city’s Bright Festival.
Three stories high, “Halos” interacts with the natural breeze that flows throughout the space, which is exacerbated by people moving around. Glimmering light further lends a sense of ethereality and even magic. See more on Instagram.
The Siberian wild boar survives winters that would overwhelm many large mammals, but the way it stays warm is what makes it extraordinary.
Most mammals rely on a special tissue called brown fat to generate heat in extreme cold. Packed with mitochondria, this tissue burns energy directly into warmth, acting like a built-in furnace when temperatures collapse. But pigs lost much of this classic cold-defense system long ago.
For an animal living through the brutal winters of Siberia, that should have been a disaster.
Instead, the wild boar adapted differently. Its liver takes over part of the job, pushing energy through alternative metabolic pathways that produce heat when ordinary defenses are missing. Rather than relying on the standard biological solution, its body created a backup strategy—an emergency system powerful enough to keep it functioning in freezing conditions.
That is what makes this animal so fascinating. It is not simply enduring the cold because it was perfectly equipped from the beginning. It is surviving because evolution found another path when the obvious one was gone.
Nature often appears efficient, but sometimes its greatest strength is improvisation. When one system fails or disappears, life searches for another way forward.
If an animal can survive one of Earth’s harshest climates using a biological workaround, how many other hidden backup systems exist in nature that we still barely understand?
A 4+ minute video, Ugly Snail, here.
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Saturday's Smiles ...
Hoping you see all the good things in your day.
