Forgot About the Carpet Mother

But really, this is the best example of sustainable design that I have ever seen.

Harry Frederick Harlow’s experiments on rhesus monkeys demonstrated primate connection to fuzzy, soft objects in the absence of a real, actual mother monkey. Notice how baby monkey clings to carpet mother. When given a choice between food and terry cloth, monkeys who had soft, tactile contact with their terry cloth mothers behaved quite differently than monkeys whose mothers were made out of cold, hard wire. The carpet babies were healthier and happier because they had formed emotional attachment through cuddling. Herein lies the design challenge. I can’t currently cling to my Prius dashboard, or my Tweet-a-watt. What if I could.

SXSW