As the world mourns the death of golgi, a species of bird that is an iconic symbol of human culture, an Italian scientist has come up with a way to recreate it using plastic.
In a study published in the journal Nature Communications, Giulio Tresca used plastic to recreate the distinctive appearance of the bird’s head and neck.
The new plastic body and the new head of the Golgi is like a replica of the one of the birds in the real life of the creatures, he said.
“The Golgi has a human face, a human neck, and a human tail, and they have a human body, which is like ours, and we have to recreate that,” he told Al Jazeera.
The researchers have also been able to replicate the natural body of the species.
“There is nothing else like it,” he said, explaining that the new plastic will be more than 50 per cent lighter and stronger than the original.
Tresca says the plastic will only last for a few months, and he hopes to replicate it in museums, but the goal is to make plastic to last more than 100 years.
“There are many reasons why plastic will have a long lifespan, including corrosion, UV exposure, and the fact that plastic is more flexible than metals,” he explained.
“In the end, it is a matter of preserving our own cultural heritage.”
Trescha said he believes that people will soon use plastic as an alternative to metals, and that the future will look like this: “We will be able to make the plastic that we have in our pockets, or we can create plastic to survive in the oceans.”