Patterned by Nature: it's big, blocky and earth-approved (video)
![](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/_Fj2CWI719rWDRlunKchCQ--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTUzOQ--/https://s.yimg.com/uu/api/res/1.2/10nGFYKma_7Eu853haj50g--~B/aD0zMzc7dz02MDA7YXBwaWQ9eXRhY2h5b24-/https://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/04/patterned-by-nature-eng.jpg)
Quick quiz: which consumes more power, an "energy-efficient" 55-inch LED TV, or the 90-foot "Patterned by Nature" video installation at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences? It's actually a trick question, because the sculpture does eat less power -- just 75 watts -- but then it only has a fraction of the TV's pixels. Each of its 3600 "dots" is in fact a 6-inch glass pane which can vary its transparency, a decidedly more lo-fi approach than similar tech we've seen before, but no less arresting as a result. As the video shows, it combines an eight channel soundtrack with twenty Mario-like animations on its serpentine skin -- ranging from bacteria to flocking geese -- to bring mother nature to the viewer without sapping her energy.