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Ecovative, a company that grows mushroom-based materials, is on a roll. Started by two college students in upstate New York eight years ago, today its working with brands like Dell, Crate and Barrell, and Steelcase to replace perhaps the most unsustainable of all materials—styrofoam—with mycofoam, its biodegradable alternative made from mycelium and agricultural wastes like corn husks. Lately its been expanding into other materials, releasing Myco Board a “grown-not-glued" alternative to plywood—without the formaldehyde. It also created 10,000 grown bricks for a massive art installation last summer at a museum in New York City—work it hopes to eventually expand into a commercial product—and just released a "Grow It Yourself" kit, so other inventors can experiment with its materials. On its own list next will be mushroom-based home insulation.

Artist Manipulates 48 Pools of Water with Her Mind

Brain power” takes on a literal meaning when it comes to EEG painting, mind-responsive furniture, and the work of Lisa Park. Park combines EEG scanning with speakers and pools of water to visualize her thoughts and emotions. Last year, she exposed her brain patterns to the world with Eunoia, in which she placed five water-filled metal plates atop speakers designed to respond to her real-time brain data. In that project, Park sorted the data into five emotions—sadness, anger, desire, happiness, and hatred, one per plate. But the latest iteration of the project takes the experiment to the next level:

Eunoia II is outfitted with 48 vibration pools, inspired by the 48 emotions philosopher Baruch Spinoza outlined in his book, Ethica, like frustration, excitement, engagement, and meditation. Each speaker vibrates according to Park’s brain wave-interpreting algorithm, which tranforms intense signals from Park’s Emotiv EEG headset into intense vibrations in the pools of water. Here, Park is literally putting her inner struggles on display, and the whole show depends on how she deals with her feelings.

"I believe that human emotions come with corresponding waves of energy that we carry within," Park says in the video above. Eunoia II metaphorically gives those waves faculty and visibility, continuing the exploration she began in her first Eunoia performance.