Art is Science. Science is Art.

Chromogenesis

[chromogenesis]

Extracted from article by Elsa Fong 

Clockwise from left: The blood-retinal barrier in a mouse, the cerebellum of the brain; and a tissue section of the human small intestine. Image: Gretchen Ertl

A flower-like image depicting the blood-retinal barrier in a mouse is now on view in the lobby of the Countway Library. This striking image, by Bryan Chow, a graduate student in the laboratory of neurobiology professor Chenghua Gu, is part of an exhibit of 16 images selected from among the 23 entries to the 2018 Quad Photo Contest.

The exhibit runs through October 22 and features images from research done on the HMS Quad in fields such as neurobiology, microbiology and systems biology.

Chow’s blood-retinal barrier image, which captured first place in the contest, magnifies the delicate network of blood vessels that nourish and protect the retina.

The vibrant second-place image, by David Brann, a graduate student in the laboratory of neurobiologist Sandeep Robert Datta, depicts a section of the brain’s cerebellum.

The third-place image, by Zoltan Maliga, a senior research scientist working with Peter Sorger in the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology, shows a tissue section of the human small intestine.

The photo contest ran from April 24 to May 30, providing an opportunity for HMS researchers to capture science at its most breathtaking and show the beauty of the microscopic worlds they study to their colleagues and the world.

After the three winners were announced in early July, their images were featured on the HMS Instagram feed and have garnered more than 12,000 likes. The images are also individually featured on the covers of the Autumn 2018 issue of Harvard Medicine magazine.

The contest was open to all faculty, trainees and students conducting research in the HMS Quad’s basic and social science research departments. Submissions were reviewed and evaluated by a selected panel of judges based on originality, visual aesthetics and scientific significance.

The contest and event were organized by Harvard Medicine magazine and science and media relations in the HMS Office of Communications and External Relations.

[chromogenesis]

"Fabricated" is a biomechanical stop-motion film directed by Brett Foxwell that took ten years to make, clearly demonstrated in the fastidiousness to detail by the bfophoto team. This animation is not to be overlooked.

[chromogenesis]

I had the pleasure of attending Michelle Lougee & Kay Hartung’s “Biomorphic Alchemy” show at ArtSpace Maynard in April 2018. The show will be open to the public until May 18, 2018.

Michelle Lougee's Artist Statement: 

"The Anthropocene is a proposed epoch that began when human activities started to have a significant global impact on Earths's geology and ecosystems. This work reflects our increasingly precarious relationship with the planet during the Anthropocene. The pieces follow themes and share iconography that flow from one panel or piece to the next. I use my signature material, crocheted post-consumer plastic bags, for a new look at our habits, ourselves, and our precious planet. The material is not only relevant to the subject matter, but collecting bags for use in artwork prevents them from finding their way to our oceans. 

A large installation entitled "Ubiquitous" occupies two walls and envisions the abstract microscopic inhabitants of a drop of water. The vibrant, textural forms want to wiggle and stretch out, eager to colonize their surroundings. These works elicit a tension with nature. Produced from collected post-consumer plastic bags that would otherwise find its way to a landfill, they are easy to look at, cheerful even, but they represent deep problems in our culture and environment. Since the human body is 60% water, it quickly becomes personal."

Kay Hartung is a mixed media artist from Acton, MA and has a studio at ArtSpace Maynard; her artist statement follows. "My work is abstract, though influenced by observations of microscopic imagery. Colonies of cellular shapes migrate, flow, and multiply. Clusters of orbs are tethered together in unknown universes. Larger forms seem to invade the space occupied by small forms, and appear to consume them. Colors set the tone, greens of pond life, blue of the cosmos, and reds of blood. A mystery is created by concealing layers, and windows through the layers reveal teasing glimpses of what is hidden below the surface. Movement and energy are expressed as shapes rapidly flow off the face of the paintings and onto the sides, randomly or in unison. Biomorphic forms travel freely or are captured and tangled in sinuous webs. Tension is created by competing organisms that are struggling to coexist. Revealing the beauty of this mysterious world, I invite the viewer to contemplate the impact these minute cellular forms have on our lives."

[chromogenesis]

Heather Dewey-Hagborg’s new project “T3511″ opens tomorrow May 11th, 2018 at the MU Artspace in the Netherlands. In her fabulous interview with Creative Capital, this "four-channel video installation tells the story of a biohacker who secures saliva from an anonymous donor to extract the person’s DNA, grow their body in a petri dish and proceeds to fall in love with them.” 

Artist's Website

[themounts]

Types of matter

[chromogenesis]

Credit unknown.

[txchnologist]

New Model Builds Complex Shapes Out Of DNA

DNA is a pretty handy molecule. It contains the genetic blueprints that build most organisms from scratch. From a combination of four different nucleotides held together on a backbone of deoxyribose sugar and a phosphate group stems the complexity and diversity of life on Earth.  

The way it is constructed also makes DNA a very stable molecule. It is this stability and the specificity that DNA can be programmed with its nucleotide pairs that has led engineering and biomedical researchers to focus on it. International teams have been working to build structures out of DNA for a number of nanoscale tasks, from using assembled DNA containers to hold and deliver targeted drug therapies to employing custom-built DNA shapes as molds to build tiny metallic architecture.

Now MIT engineers report they have developed a new computer model that is letting them design the most complex 3-D shapes ever created out of DNA. Some of the virtual structures they have cobbled together so far include intricate rings, bowls and geometric shapes like polyhedrons with 20 faces. See a video and read more below.

Read More

[laughingsquid]

‘Locked in the Ether’, Eerie Photos of Flowers Frozen in Ice

[bpod-bpod]

Heart of Life

All living things rely on proteins – the molecular ‘building blocks’ of life, made from smaller chemicals (amino acids) strung together in specific sequences. Different types of proteins form the sturdy structures inside cells that give them their shape, digest food, recognise invading infections and much, much more. And even the simplest biological structures on earth – microscopic viruses – are packed with proteins that package up their genetic material and create a coat, enabling them to infect and multiply in the cells of humans or other organisms. Researchers are using a new technique, known as ‘click chemistry’, to spy on newly-made virus proteins (coloured white in this image) as they’re being assembled from amino acids in living cells. By studying how these proteins are made in real time, scientists can begin to figure out how cells respond to viral infections and develop new ways to help in the fight against them.

Written by Kat Arney

Image by Catherine Teo

Imperial College London, UK

Image copyright held by the photographer

Winner of The People’s Choice Award in Imperial Innovations’ ‘The Art of Research’ competition 2016

You can also follow BPoD on Twitter and Facebook

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

A wall of lava lamps in a San Francisco office currently helps keep about 10% of the Internet’s traffic secure. Internet security company Cloudflare uses a video feed of the lava lamps as one of the inputs to the algorithms they use to generate large random numbers for encryption. The concept dates back to a 1996 patent for a product called LavaRand. The idea is that using a chaotic, unpredictable source as a seed for random number generators makes it much harder for an adversary to crack your encryption. 

With lava lamps, a lot of that chaos comes from the fluid dynamics involved – without perfect knowledge of thousands of variables, it would be impossible to simulate the lava lamp wall and get the same outcome as the real one – but there’s also randomness that comes from the measurement. People walking by, shifts in lighting, and random fluctuations of individual pixels all help make the video feed unpredictable. For those interested in the details of how Cloudflare uses their lava lamps, the company explains things for both technical and non-technical readers. You can also check out Tom Scott’s video for a good overview. (Image and video credit: T. Scott; submitted by Jean H.)

[chromogenesis]

To commemorate the diversity of naturally-glowing organisms, the US Postal Service released Bioluminescent Life Forever stamps late February 2018. While the stamps do not glow, the series is printed on rainbow holographic paper to “mimic” bioluminescence. Seven of the images are photographs taken by Ocean Research and Conservation Association (ORCA) CEO & Senior Scientist Edith Widder.

The second photo shown above is one of Widder's photographs of the crown jellyfish (Atolla wyvillei). According to the press release by USPS:

"Atop the pane’s selvage, transected by the issuance title, “BIOLUMINESCENT LIFE,” is an image of a transparent deep-sea comb jelly (Mnemiopsis leidyi) photographed under external lighting by Gregory G. Dimijian of Farmers Branch, TX. The firefly squid (Watasenia scintillans) shines a brilliant blue, green and white display of bioluminescence from the darkness of the selvage in a photograph by Danté Fenolio of San Antonio, TX."

[chromogenesis]

“Millefiori” (2012) by Fabian Oefner

Fabian Oefner constructs pop art-like designs by utilizing both the hydrophobic and magnetic properties of ferrofluid, a oil-based liquid with nanofilaments of iron in suspension. Because iron particles are magnetic, this substance will reorganize with respect to the magnetic field. 

Other works from the collection are linked here and previous posts about Fabian Oefner are here and here.

[prostheticknowledge]

The Others

Visual short by Hiroshi Kondo applies time-based motion effects on footage of busy pedestrian traffic crossing:

More Here

Hiroshi also has a tumblr blog [@stnw] here

[amnhnyc]

Containing bacteria, algae and tiny shrimp, this ecosphere, located in the Museum’s Cullman Hall of the Universe, was sealed in 1999 and hasn’t been opened since—it’s a self-sustaining habitat. 

No feeding, no overpopulation, no pollution! These organisms stay alive year after year. How does this sealed ecosphere actually work? Algae make food from sunlight. Shrimp take oxygen from the water and exhale carbon dioxide; algae take in CO2 and give off O2. Microbes feed the shrimp—and the CO2-rich shrimp poop helps the algae and microbes!

Find the ecosphere, and much more information about it, at the Museum with the help of the Explorer app. Download Museum’s Explorer app, now available in Beta, on the App Store and on Google Play.

[the-future-now-deactivated20170]

Follow @the-future-now

[prostheticknowledge]

Hortum machina, B

Project from Interactive Architecture Lab is a robotic sphere that moves via electro-chemical stimulation from plants:

Harnessing the collective intelligence of plant behaviour, the reEarth project explores new forms of bio-cooperative interaction between people and nature, within the built environment. While plants lack a nervous system, they can, much like animals, become electro-chemically stimulated by their surrounding environment. Through the study of plant electro-physiology, we have wired their primitive ‘intelligence’ into the control-loop of an autonomous robotic ecosystem. Half garden, half machine – a new cybernetic lifeform we’ve named Hortum machina, B. 

More Here

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

If you’ve ever bitten into a chocolate-covered bonbon, you may have noticed that the candy’s chocolate coating is remarkably uniform. Inspired by this observation, a group of engineers have investigated how viscous fluids poured over a curved surface flow and solidify; their findings were published this week. 

Rather than heated chocolate, the group used polymer-filled fluids that cure and harden over time. Interestingly, they found that the final shell is quite uniform and that its thickness does not depend on the pouring technique. Instead, they can predict the final shell thickness based on the radius of the mold and the rheological properties of the fluid–specifically its density, viscosity, and curing time. The reason for this is that the time it takes for the fluid to drain and coat the mold is much shorter than the time it takes for the polymer to cure. As a result, the amount of fluid that sticks to the mold depends on geometry and fluid properties - not how the fluid was poured. 

Amateur confectioners rejoice: pouring uniform chocolate coatings may be easier than you thought!  (Image credit: MIT News, video; research credit: A. Lee et al.)

[itscolossal]

New in the Colossal Shop: The Ferrofluid Skull.