Hybrids of Art and Science

Artist to watch - Kate Hendrickson: surgery series (*which probably has a better title)

2011-12-18T00:51:00.000-06:00

Mixed media local artists accumulate, reduce, reuse, and make awesome art

2011-12-02T02:59:00.000-06:00

what do whales and humans have in common? Music

2011-12-02T01:08:00.001-06:00

http://vimeo.com/staffpicks#24884553
Song of the Spindle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZRwbEwHRpM

The crab Fisherman's Daughter: http://vimeo.com/27644272

Nerd it up - i love Symphony of Science

2011-11-14T01:10:00.001-06:00

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this series
http://symphonyofscience.com

MARS - it is a world of wonders
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ5sWfhkpE0

We're all connected
http://youtu.be/XGK84Poeynk

Owed to the brain
http://youtu.be/JB7jSFeVz1U

To download and watch more videos visit http://symphonyofscience.com.

Enjoy!

~John
john@symphonyofscience.com

[Robert Winston]
It's amazing to consider that I'm holding in my hands
The place where someone once felt, thought, and loved
For centuries, scientists have been battling to understand
What this unappealing object is all about

[Vilayanur Ramachandran]
Here is this mass of jelly
You can hold in the palm of your hands
And it can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space

[Carl Sagan]
The brain has evolved from the inside out
Its structure reflects all the stages through which it has passed

[Jill Bolte Taylor]
Information in the form of energy
Streams in simultaneously
Through all of our sensory systems

And then it explodes into this enormous collage
Of what this present moment looks like
What it feels like
And what it sounds like

And then it explodes into this enormous collage
And in this moment we are perfect
We are whole and we are beautiful

[Robert Winston]
It appears rather gruesome
Wrinkled like a walnut, and with the consistency of mushroom

[Carl Sagan]
What we know is encoded in cells called neurons
And there are something like a hundred trillion neural connections
This intricate and marvelous network of neurons has been called
An enchanted loom

The neurons store sounds too, and snatches of music
Whole orchestras play inside our heads

20 million volumes worth of information
Is inside the heads of every one of us
The brain is a very big place
In a very small space

No longer at the mercy of the reptile brain
We can change ourselves
Think of the possibilities

[Bill Nye]
Think of your brain as a newspaper
Think of all the information it can store
But it doesn't take up too much room
Because it's folded

[Oliver Sacks]
We see with the eyes
But we see with the brain as well
And seeing with the brain
Is often called imagination

[Various]

[Robert Winston]
It is the most mysterious part of the human body
And yet it dominates the way we live our adult lives
It is the brain

and other Great nerding to music:

MC Hawkings "We need more science"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89jt7zJzkNQ

and my favorite part of calculus, which i could never do today without hitting the books hard - derivitives
"I will Derive"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9dpTTpjymE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRuydYkkRzI

There are lots of reasons to love Math... but Matheleates are my favorite reason

2011-11-13T13:45:00.000-06:00

I Will Derive!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9dpTTpjymE

NOW this is a way to pass an bill - Method's soap commercial

2011-11-09T03:12:00.000-06:00

now this is the way to create a public service announcement! making people aware of toxic chemicals in our products doesn't have to be a daunting task.... sometimes humor can get at the point far more effectively

Currently, a company does not have to list all the really toxic things in their products, but hide them under "trade secrets' and not have to list them under their ingredients. In 2009, they were working to get this passed... did it... hummmm doubtful :(

see this article where I'm taking my information from: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2009/11/a-dirty-commercial-via-the-method-folks/

“Method’s campaign offers a call to action for viewers to support the Household Product Labeling Act of 2009, a bill that has been introduced in Congress and would require household cleaning products to be clearly labeled with complete ingredient disclosure. Method supports this bill and encourages companies to be transparent in their product labeling."

http://youtu.be/3ONVUdYjDwM

Great Hybrid things at the science museum

2011-10-30T22:07:00.000-05:00

I think i've referenced these pieces to my 3D kids too many times this week so here are the image I keep trying to find

Carol Fisher's sebatical art opening

2011-10-22T01:54:00.000-05:00

Dj. Spooky turns science into sound, vision into action with his tripto Antartica

2011-10-21T01:00:00.000-05:00

Wonderful description of the universe, chemistry, and you - Neil Degrass Tyson

2011-10-05T02:56:00.002-05:00

Wonderful description of the universe, chemistry, and you.

Does Neil Tyson think we are alone in the universe?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opuQwEdZ6gA

My favorite video version of why does the sun Shine (by they might be giants)

2011-09-08T16:04:00.001-05:00

This is a great example of visual information

are your kids wound up because it's August ??? try paper dolls

2011-08-19T20:44:00.000-05:00

http://kiddley.com/2006/06/09/making-paper-doll-chains/

Dear parent figures. It is August - is your child is nerping out? Isn't this a good time to teach them how to make paper dolls - but make them all different... or paper cars, or fish, or what ever they like that you can sillouette & that has a LOT of variation. Your welcome - your summer time prof.

Big Bang and other Cosmic adventures - videos of use

2011-08-10T03:53:00.000-05:00

History Channel - The Universe - Edge of Space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWqh9WBJT18

The Universe - Multiverse Parallel Universes (History Channel ®: 2008)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wbt3tEc1pw

science and Mariachi.......

2011-08-04T23:24:00.000-05:00

well if this isn't science and art.... well then I don't know what this is all worth.

this made me smile

Algae art

2011-08-03T23:58:00.000-05:00

I love this image

Currently at the Winestien Gallery - this work is close up images of Algae / seaweed - and blown up - something about it is so simple and beautiful

Albert Einstein: How I see the world - Parts 1-6

2011-07-20T22:20:00.000-05:00

Part one of "Albert Einstein: How I see the world" - PART 1

Part 2

PART 3

Part 4

Part 5

PART 6

Science visualized by GOOGLE = HELL YEAH

2011-07-20T03:19:00.000-05:00

Here are some of my favorites

(For Mendel)

Chemistry

For Newton

I want to believe - DAMNIT

Translations, Theories and Tesselations Show June 2011

2011-06-25T16:25:00.000-05:00

Since the show just came down - i figured it would be a good time to post as many of these images as possible

Abbi loves Radio

2011-06-22T23:18:00.000-05:00

here's another one of my hybrid activities!!

Art and Human Evolution - for the Beaker and Brush series

2011-06-14T00:07:00.002-05:00

“Our former assumptions that abilities such as creating art, tool use, problem solving, communication and even emotions; can no longer be attributed to humans alone. So what is it that makes Homo sapiens so different from the other species we cohabitate the Earth with? I believe, that it is our desire to ask and act on “What If?” - to visualize and create something that does not yet already exist. Humans can plan for the future and modify our surroundings. It was this creative revolution that brought humanity to the present day, but what about our future?

By observing what Janine Benyus refers to as “3.8 billion years of product felid testing” we can appreciate and learn from ecological solutions that have been potentially overlooked in solving our current industrial dilemmas. We should increase our opportunities to utilize our somewhat “underappreciated” right hemispheres of our brains. We should place added value to skills such as imagination, empathy, and respect. This same practice of asking “What if” (but on a global scale) is what will allow for humanity, and fellow planetary species, to persist further into our foreseeable evolutionary future.”

-Abbi Allan

June 13, 2011

MONSTER not by birth or achievements (or lack there of) Stephen Jay Gould

2011-06-10T01:03:00.000-05:00

NONE OF THIS TEXT IS MY OWN!!

I took this from a PDF Download that is not giving me a link (*BOOO) - except this:
aplit.phoenix.wikispaces.net/file/view/nature.pdf

I hope this all copies.
this was written by Stephen Jay Gould - one of my heros.....
it makes such a critical statement about humanity, art, and - well so much else, I needed to share it.

NONE OF THIS IS MINE - IT IS STEPHEN JAY GOULD'S WRITING
I took this from a PDF
copied and pasted
I OWN NONE OF THIS - JUST WANT TO SHARE WHAT THE INTERNET HAS TO OFFER YOU.

--------

and he was on the Simpsons:

Image taken from: http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/sep10.html

Interesting supplementary texts – http: //metalab.unc.edu/schools/rls/garner/index.html
Click on English Department.

1
The Monster’s Human Nature
by
Stephen Jay Gould

An old Latin proverb tells us to “beware the man of one book” – cave ab homine unius libri. Yet
Hollywood knows only one theme in making monster movies from the archetypal Frankenstein of 1931 to
modern works. Human technology may not go beyond an intended order decreed by God or set by nature’s
laws. No matter how benevolent the purposes of the transgressor, such cosmic arrogance can only lead to
killer tomatoes, very large rabbits with sharp teeth, giant ants or even larger blobs that swallow entire cities.
Yet these films often use far more subtle books as their sources and in doing so, distort the originals beyond
all thematic recognition.

The trend began in 1931 with Frankenstein, Hollywood’s first great monster talkie. Hollywood
decreed its chosen theme by the most upfront of all conceivable strategies. The film begins with a prologue
featuring a well-dressed man standing on stage before a curtain, to issue both a warning about the potential
fright and to announce the film’s deeper theme as the story of a man of science who sought to create a man
after his own image without reckoning upon God.

In the movie, Dr. Waldman, Henry’s old medical school professor, speaks of his pupil’s insane
ambition to create life, a diagnosis supported by Frankenstein’s own feverish words of enthusiasm: “I
created it. I made it with my own hands from the bodies I took from graves, from the gallows, from
anywhere.”

The best of a cartload of sequels, The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) makes the favored theme even
more explicit in a prologue featuring Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (who wrote Frankenstein when she was
only nineteen years old and published the story two years later in 1818). In conversation with her husband,
Percy, and their buddy Lord Byron, she states: “My purpose was to write a moral lesson of the punishment
that befell a mortal man who dared to emulate God.”
Shelley’s Frankenstein is a rich book of many themes, but I can find little therein to support the
Hollywood reading. The text is neither a diatribe on the dangers of technology nor a warning about
overextended ambitions against a natural order. We find no passages about disobeying God – an unlikely
subject for Mary Shelley and her freethinking friends (Percy had been expelled from Oxford in 1811 for
publishing a defense of atheism.) Victor Frankenstein (I do not know why Hollywood changed him to
Henry) is guilty of a great moral failing, as we shall see later, but his crime is not technological
transgression against a natural or divine order.

We can find a few passages about the awesome power of science, but these words are not
negative. Professor Waldman, a sympathetic character in the book, states, for example:

(*An Image I am (Abbi) - using in my own art) - I TOOK THIS IMAGE FROM & IT IS NOT MY OWN:
http://frankensteinia.blogspot.com/2009/01/dr-frankenstein-colin-clive.html

They [scientists] penetrate into the recesses of nature, and show how she works in her hiding
places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates and the nature of the
air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers.

We do learn that ardor without compassion or moral consideration can lead to trouble, but Shelley
applies this argument to any endeavor, not especially to scientific discovery. Victor Frankenstein says:

A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and peaceful mind and never to
allow passion or a transitory desire to disturb his tranquility. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge
is an exception to this rule.

IMAGE TAKEN FROM: http://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2009/09/25/movie-legends-revealed-24/comment-page-2/

affections…then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule
were always observe…Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America
would have been discovered more gradually, and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed.

Victor’s own motivations are entirely idealistic: “I thought that if I could bestow animation upon
lifeless matter, I might in process of time renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to
corruption.” Finally, as Victor expires in the Arctic, he makes his most forceful statement on the dangers
of scientific ambition, but he only berates himself and is own failures, while stating that others might well
succeed. Victor says his dying words to the ship’s captain who found him on the polar ice:

Farewell, Walton. Seek happiness in tranquility, and avoid ambition even if it be only the
apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I
have myself been blasted in these hopes yet another may succeed.

But Hollywood dumbed these subtleties down to the essay formula – “man must not go beyond
what God and nature intended” (you almost have to use the old gender-biased language for such a
simplistic archaicism) – and has been treading in its own footsteps ever since.

Karloff’s Frankenstein contains an even more serious and equally prominent distortion of a theme
that I regard as the primary lesson of Mary Shelley’s book – another lamentable example of Hollywood’s
sense that the American public cannot tolerate even the slightest exercise in intellectual complexity. Why
is the monster evil? Shelley provided a nuanced and subtle answer that, to me, sets the central theme of her
book. But Hollywood opted for a simplistic solution, so precisely opposite to Shelley’s intent that the
movie can no longer claim to be telling a moral fable (despite the protestations of the man in front of the
curtain, or of Mary Shelley herself in the sequel) and becomes instead, as I suppose the maker intended all
along, a pure horror film.

James Whale, director of the 1931 Frankenstein, devoted the movie’s long and striking opening
scenes to this inversion of Shelley’s intent – so the filmmakers obviously viewed this alteration as crucial.
The movie opens with a burial at the graveyard. After the mourners depart, Henry and his obedient servant,
the evil hunchbacked Fritz, dig up the body and cart it away. Then they cut down another dead man from
the gallows, but Henry exclaims: “The neck’s broken. The brain is useless; we must find another brain.”

The scene switches to the university where Professor Waldman is lecturing on cranial anatomy
and comparing “one of the most perfect specimens of the normal brain” with “the abnormal brain of a
typical criminal.” Waldman firmly locates the criminal’s depravity in the inherited malformations of his
brain; anatomy is destiny. Note, Waldman says, the scarcity of convolutions on the frontal lobes and the
distinct degeneration of the middle frontal lobes. All of these degenerate characteristics check amazingly
with the case history of the deed man before us, whose life was one of brutality, of violence, and of murder.

Fritz breaks in after the students leave and steals the normal brain, but the sound of a gong startles
him and he drops the precious object, shattering its container. Fritz then has to take the criminal brain
instead, but he never tells Henry. The monster is evil because Henry unwittingly makes him of evil stuff.
Later in the film, Henry expresses his puzzlement at the monster’s nasty temperament, for he made his
creature of the best materials. But Waldman, finally realizing the source of the monster’s behavior, tells
Henry, “The brain that was stolen from my laboratory was a criminal brain.” Henry then counters with
one of the cinema’s greatest double takes, and finally manages a feeble retort: “Oh, well, after all it’s only
a piece of dead tissue.” “Only evil will come from it, “ Waldman replies, “you have created a monster and
it will destroy you” – true enough, at least until the next sequel.

Karloff’s intrinsically evil monster stands condemned by the same biological determinism that has
so tragically and falsely restricted the lives of millions who committed no transgression besides
membership in a despised race, sex, or social class. Karloff’s actions record his internal state. He manages
a few grunts and in one of the sequels, even learns some words from a blind man who cannot perceive his
ugliness, although the monster never gets much beyond “eat,” “smoke” and “good.” Shelley’s monster, by
contrast, is a most remarkably literate fellow. He learns French by assimilation after hiding for several months in the hovel of a noble family temporarily in straitened circumstances. His three favorite books
would bring joy to the heart of any college English professor who could persuade students to read and
enjoy even one: Plutarch’s Lives, Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther, and Milton’s Paradise Lost (of
which Shelley’s novel is an evident parody.) The original monster’s thunderous threats certainly pack more
oomph than Karloff’s pitiable grunts: “I will glut the maw of death, until it be satiated with the blood of
your remaining friends.”

Shelley’s monster is not evil by inherent condition. He is born unformed – carrying the
predispositions of human nature, but without the specific manifestations that can only be set by upbringing
and education. He is the Enlightenment’s man of hope, whom learning and compassion might mold to
goodness and wisdom. But he is also a victim of post – Enlightenment pessimism as the cruel rejection of
his natural fellows drives him to fury and revenge. (Even as a murderer, the monster remains fastidious and
purposive. Victor Frankenstein is the source of his anger, and he only kills the friends and lovers whose
deaths will bring victor the most grief; he does not, like Godzilla or the Blob, rampage through cities.)

Mary Shelley chose her words carefully to take a properly nuanced position at a fruitfully
intermediate point between nature and nurture – whereas Hollywood opted for nature alone to explain the
monster’s evil deeds. Frankenstein’s creature is not inherently good by internal construction or benevolent
theory of “nature alone,” but no different in mode of explanation from Hollywood’s opposite version. He
is, rather, born capable of goodness, even with an inclination toward kindness, should circumstances of his
upbringing call forth this favored response. In his final confession to Captain Walton, before heading north
to immolate himself at the Pole, the monster says:

My heart was fashioned to be susceptible of love and sympathy; and, when wrenched by misery to
vice and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without torture, such as you cannot even
imagine.

He then adds: Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment.
Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent
qualities which I was capable of bringing forth. I was nourished with high thoughts of honor and design.
But now vice has degraded me beneath the meanest animal…when I call over the frightful catalogue of my
deeds, I cannot believe that I am he whose thoughts were once filled with sublime and transcendent visions
of the beauty and the majesty of goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant devil.

Why, then, does the monster turn to evil against an inherent inclination to goodness? Shelley
gives us an interesting answer that seems almost trivial in invoking such a superficial reason, but that
emerges as profound when we grasp her general theory of human nature. He becomes evil, of course,
because humans reject him so violently and so unjustly. His resulting loneliness becomes unbearable. He
states:

And what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant; but I knew that I
possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endowed with figure hideously
deformed and loathsome…when I looked around, I saw and heard none like me. Was I then a monster, a
blot upon the earth, from which all men fled, and whom all men disowned?

But why is the monster so rejected if his feelings incline toward benevolence, and his acts to
evident goodness? He certainly tries to act kindly, in helping the family in the hovel that forms his hiding
place:

I had been accustomed, during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own consumption, but
when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on the cottagers, I abstained, and satisfied myself with
berries, nuts and roots, which I gathered from a neighboring wood. I discovered also another means
through which I was enabled to assist their labors. I found that the youth spent a great part of each day in
collecting wood for the family fire; and during the night, I often took his tools, the use of which I quickly
discovered, and brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days.

Shelley tells us that all humans reject and even loathe the monster for a visceral reason of literal
superficiality: his truly terrifying ugliness – a reason heartrending in its deep injustice and profound in its
biological accuracy and philosophical insight about the meaning of human nature.

The monster, by Shelley’s description, could scarcely have been less attractive in appearance.
Victor Frankenstein describes the first sight of his creature alive:

How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such
infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his
features as beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and
arteries beneath: his hair was a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these
luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color
as the dun white sockets in which they were set; his shriveled complexion, and straight black lips.

At the hyper-NBA height of eight feet, the monster scares all who cast eyes upon him.

The monster quickly grasps this unfair source of human fear and plans a strategy to overcome
initial reactions and prevail by good ness of soul. He presents himself first to the blind old father in the
hovel above his hiding place and makes a good impression. He hopes to win the man’s confidence, and
thus gain a favorable introduction to the world of sighted people. But in his joy at acceptance, he stays too
long. The man’s son returns and drives the monster away – as fear and loathing overwhelm any inclination
to hear about inner decency.

The monster finally acknowledges his inability to overcome visceral fear at his ugliness; his
resulting despair and loneliness drive him to evil deeds:

I am malicious because I am miserable: am I not shunned and hated by all mankind?
Shall I respect man when he hates me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, and instead of
injury, I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be:
the human senses are insurmountable barriers to our union.

Our struggle to formulate a humane and accurate idea of human nature focuses on proper
positions between the false and sterile poles of nature and nurture. Pure nativism – as in the Hollywood
version of the monster’s depravity – leads to a cruel and inaccurate theory of biological determinism, the
source of so much misery and such evasive suppression of hope in millions belonging to unfavored races,
sexes, or social classes. But pure nurturism can be just as cruel and just as wrong – as in the blame once
heaped upon loving parents, in bygone days of rampant Freudianism, for failures in rearing as putative
sources of mental illness or retardation or autism that we can now identify as genetically based, for all
organs, including brains, may be subject to inborn illness.

The solution, as all thoughtful people recognize, must lie in properly melding the themes of inborn
predisposition and shaping through life’s experiences. This fruitful joining cannot take the false form of
percentages adding up to 100 – as in intelligence is 80 percent nature and 20 percent nurture – and a
hundred other harmful statements in this foolish format. When two ends of such a spectrum are
commingled, the result is not a separable amalgam (like shuffling two decks of cards with different packs),
but an entirely new entity that cannot be decomposed (as adults cannot be separated into maternal and
paternal contributions to their totality.)

Frankenstein’s creature becomes a monster because he is cruelly ensnared by one of the deepest
predispositions of our biological inheritance – our aversion toward seriously malformed individuals.
(Konrad Lorenz, the most famous ethologist of the last generation, based much of his theory on the primacy
of this inborn rule.) We are now appalled by the injustice of such a predisposition, but this proper moral
feeling is an evolutionary latecomer, imposed by human consciousness upon a much older mammalian
pattern.
We almost surely inherit such an instinctive aversion to serious malformation, but
remember that nature can only supply a predisposition, while culture shapes specific results. And now we
can grasp – for Mary Shelley presented the issue to us so wisely – the true tragedy of Frankenstein’s
monster and the moral dereliction of Victor himself. The predisposition for aversion toward ugliness can be
overcome by learning and understanding. I trust that we have all trained ourselves in this essential form of
compassion, that we all work hard to suppress that revulsion (which in honest moments we all admit we
feel) and to judge people by their qualities of soul, not by their external appearances.

Frankenstein’s monster was a good man in an appallingly ugly body. His countrymen could have
been educated to accept him, but the person responsible for that instruction – his creator, victor
Frankenstein – ran away from his foremost duty and abandoned his creation at first sight. Victor’s sin does
not lie in misuse of technology or hubris in emulating God; we cannot find these themes in Mary Shelley’s
account. Victor failed because he followed a predisposition of human nature – visceral disgust at the
monster’s appearance – and did not undertake the duty of any creator or parent: to teach his own charge and
to educate others in acceptance.

He could have schooled his creature (and not left the monster to learn language by eavesdropping
and by scrounging for books in a hiding place under a hovel.) He could have told the world what he had
done. He could have introduced his benevolent and educated monster to people prepared to judge him on
merit. But he took one look at his handiwork and ran away forever. In other words, he bowed to a base
aspect of our common nature and did not accept the particular moral duty of our potential nurture:

I had worked hard for nearly two years for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate
body. For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardor that far exceeded
moderation. But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished and breathless horror and disgust
filled my heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I rushed out of the room…a mummy
again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I had gazed on him while unfinished;
he was ugly then; but when those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing
such as even Dante could not have conceived.

The very first line of the preface to Frankenstein has often been misinterpreted: “The event on
which this fiction is founded has been supposed, by Dr. Darwin, and some of the physiological writers of
German, as not of impossible occurrence.” People suppose the “Dr. Darwin” must be Charles of
evolutionary fame. But Charles Darwin was born on Lincoln’s birthday in 1809 and wasn’t even ten years
old when Mary Shelley wrote her novel. Dr. Darwin is Charles’s grandfather, Erasmus, one of England’s
most famous physicians and an atheist who believed in the material basis of life. (Shelley is referring to his
idea that such physical forces as electricity might be harnessed to quicken inanimate matter – for life has no
inherently spiritual component and might therefore emerge from nonliving substances infused with enough
energy.)

I will, however, close with my favorite moral statement from Charles Darwin who, like Mary
Shelley, also emphasized our duty to foster the favorable specificities that nurture and education can
control. Mary Shelley wrote a moral take, not about hubris or technology, but about responsibility to all
creatures of feeling and to the products of one’s own hand. The monster’s misery arose from the moral
failure of other humans, not from his own inherent and unchangeable constitution. Charles Darwin then
invoked the same theory of human nature to remind us of duties to all people in universal bonds of
brotherhood: “If the misery of our poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is
our sin.”

Excerpted from an article by Stephen Jay Gould, who teaches biology, geology and the history of
science at Harvard University.

Thinking about Evolution - about cats and dogs

2011-06-10T00:06:00.000-05:00

So I was thinking.

Dogs have the ability to read human's faces better than humans can read each other. Apparently, Dogs look at human faces on the left side first - to detect where our true emotions hide. It's harder to control the response on that side seeing our left side is connected to the right brain (right hemisphere) - our feelings, pictures, sensory, nuance side - which is displaying itself without the chance to sensor it's self like the left hemisphere wants to (Logic, ego, language, order).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1081684/Dogs-evolved-face-reading-skills-detect-owner-happy-sad.html

(*There are many articles about this, but I went for the easiest one. :) there are some GREAT PBS specials on this to watch. it's MIND BLOWING to see it through science.)

Some of the research I find more interesting is that of all the hominids - Homo sapiens got the leg up - in a way, because we had this developing relationship with the - what we now know as "the dog".

I TOOK THIS FROM: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/h/homo_sapien.asp

What I'm coming to the conclusion is that
1) dogs and humans NEED each other......

2) that we should celebrate this relationship - and let dogs be in more places with us, rather than alone at home, without their co-evolved co-companion --> Almost symbiotic if you will

and
3) Cats,
well, they just choose to like our company, and we should be flattered. They totally don't need us, but don't mind us in this GINORMOUS bed they have. :)

oh yes, and you help with rats, mice, fleas and keeping away things like the black plague. thank you

to our mammalian friends
I say thank you.

Translations, Theories and Tesselations Show at the science Museum of MN

2011-05-15T22:15:00.000-05:00

Solving a problem - 3 dimentionally is fantastic!!!

2011-05-02T01:22:00.000-05:00

Opening night for Translations, Theories, and Tessellations: April 22nd, 2011: ART AND SCIENCE

2011-04-25T00:34:00.000-05:00

Mindwalk- my favorite film

2011-04-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

Research from Science Friday: Topics and Links

2011-04-18T12:23:00.000-05:00

http://www.sciencefriday.com/arts/

ART AND SCIENCE
forensics and art: Photography:
http://www.sciencefriday.com/arts/2011/03/evidence-forensic-photography-as-art/

BIOMIMICRY:

the Suburban Lawns "Oh my Janitor"

2011-04-07T16:08:00.000-05:00

this video - According to You-Tube

"Denise Gallant created this video for the band Suburban Lawns in 1980. Originally on 3/4 inch,the video was recently recaptured and touched up. For a Hi Rez version, contact info@video4dvd.com"

Not only do i love these lyrics, but the imagery as well. Boom boom boom... becoming relevant all over again.

this was taken from the website link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnuC-VpCXuM

Always a Carl Sagan fan!!

2011-03-21T23:32:00.002-05:00

Has there ever been a better poet of the stars?
doubtful

Science and Math - Oragami - all the MIT kids are doing it

2011-03-04T23:54:00.000-06:00

"This happens often in science - that things that were designed for aesthetic reasons - suddently have a mathimatical, scientific application" - LOOSE Quote from "Between the Folds"

I have this student working in paper for sculpture class. He found such a clear voice in tag board and paper, representing the daily life, things that could even be controversial, but by presenting them in paper - he asks "What's the big deal" - having the viewer ask themselves that question. Seeing their own views - alone in facing the object. Like the image in photo on a news paper, he presents the news paper image in 3D and asks the viewer to just think about what they are seeing, saying, and thinking...

But like every student starting something fresh - they question themselves... hold back.... "I just love paper"... paper, which we buy in pounds, which we abuse, reuse, and treat like a simplistic "starting material" - But I believe it is my favorite ... o.k. - one of my favorites. I LOOOOOVVEE art materials.

http://movies.netflix.com/Movie/Between_the_Folds/70120179?trkid=2361637#height1771

Math nerds - GO CRAZY
this is such a joy. This is MIT's biggest growing fad. Love love love it.

Art, Science, Math and happening....
Life has been dictated on paper, drawn on paper - it only makes sense that it should be visualized in paper

to you art & science,
here's your celebration

The TRAILER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE4lqYzS2m0

Taken from: http://pyramidbeach.com/2010/04/15/between-the-folds/

Image taken from: http://www.ashley-spencer.com/ArtIsEverywhere/?tag=between-the-folds

Image taken from: http://artandseek.net/2009/07/17/asian-film-festival-of-dallas-you-might-learn-something/

Image taken from: http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/tag/insects/

Unnatural Selection: this anti-intellectual flashes back to the first time she fell in love with the rest of the 4-atom world

2011-02-04T00:12:00.000-06:00

Usually - I just like to show you images, articles, things of interest. What I think is the least of what matters. But this time, I just want to write because i can't help myself.

this show brought me back to walking through long needled pineneedled floors around my home. Discovering muchrooms and the odd sounds when you kick them over. The first time you look a deer in the eye and you feel like you are having the deepest conversation in the world through something paramount to any reason would allow for.

(To be continued)

Carole Fisher - Alaska Oil Spill Project: Opening Jan 21 @ 6pm @ MCAD

2011-01-16T21:57:00.000-06:00

Alaska Oil Spill Project
http://mcad.edu/event/carole-fisher-%E2%80%93-sticks-mind-alaska-oil-spill-project-1989-2011

"Last summer, the twenty-first anniversary of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, artist Carole Fisher returned to the Alakan coast. She interviewed fifty residents of the Valdez area about the oil spill and the 2010 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Her gallery exhibition, Sticks in the Mind: Alaska Oil Spill Project 1989–2011, interprets and references these experiences.
Sticks in the Mind: Alaska Oil Spill Project 1989–2011
Friday, January 14 – Sunday, February 20
Reception
Friday, January 21, 6:00 p.m.
Main Gallery
Conversation
Monday, January 24, 6:30 p.m.
Auditorium 150
Carole Fisher talks with Patience Andersen Faulkner, activist and Alaska native, and Brian O’Neill, a partner at Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis and the trial lawyer in charge of litigating the Exxon Valdez oil spill case."

- Review from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design

Mary Abby from the Star and Tribune wrote this --> found at this link, http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/art/113467359.html?page=1&c=y that I copied and pasted.
it is not mine.

Ever after --> http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/art/113467359.html?page=1&c=y

Minneapolis artist Carole Fisher raises provocative environmental issues in a new installation about the lingering effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

By MARY ABBE, Star Tribune

Last update: January 13, 2011 - 4:07 PM

STICKS IN THE MIND: ALASKA OIL SPILL PROJECT, 1989-2011

What: Wall drawings, narrative panels, interviews and relics of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in a provocative environmental installation by Minneapolis artist Carole Fisher.
When: Jan. 14-Feb. 20.
Where: Minneapolis College of Art and Design gallery, 2501 Stevens Av., Minneapolis.
Events: Opening. 6-8 p.m. Jan. 21, free. Discussion 6:30 p.m. Jan. 24, free. Fisher talks with Patience Andersen Faulkner, environmental activist and Alaskan native, and Brian O'Neill, trail lawyer for Exxon Valdez case.
Tickets: Free. 612-874-3700 or www.mcad.edu

"Dig a few inches into the rocky beaches of Prince William Sound or Alaska's Kenai Peninsula and the water that seeps in may shimmer strangely. Or the shallow pit will fill with a dark, viscous liquid. The effluences are oil left from the Exxon Valdez tanker that ran aground on Bligh Reef 21 years ago.
The midnight accident dumped 10.8 million gallons of oil into the cold sea and eventually soiled 1,300 miles of shoreline. Despite four years of cleanup efforts by 10,000 workers at a cost of $2.1 billion, the Valdez disaster lingers. Bigger spills have happened elsewhere since then, but none caused more extensive or lasting environmental damage.
You don't do "issue art" on a short timeline, and artist Carole Fisher has no attention-deficit disorder. After two decades she is still bulldogging the Exxon Valdez. It has been the catalyst for more than 25 of her art installations nationwide, the most recent opening Friday at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). "Sticks in the Mind: Alaska Oil Spill Project, 1989-2011," which runs through Feb. 20, is a three-dimensional collage of words, images, brochures, film and video footage, interviews and memorabilia related to the Valdez incident and more recent environmental episodes including the 2010 oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.
"Oil spills happen everywhere, so why do I focus on this one?" Fisher asked rhetorically. "Because Alaska is the grand land, and we need to preserve it."
The MCAD show will include a sample of Valdez oil gathered this past summer by a research vessel working in Prince William Sound. Even though sun, wind and countless storms have battered the shores, pockets of oil are still lodged in the crevices, potentially poisoning wildlife and ruining the coastline for fishers, hunters and tourists.
"It smells like a gas station," Fisher said. "It's on the beaches and in the sediment. It leaches into the water continually because of the wave action."

Aesthetic activism

Trained as a painter and printmaker, Fisher taught at MCAD for 31 years before her retirement last summer. When she finished her MFA at Pennsylvania State University in the 1970s, the era's social, environmental and economic issues seemed too complex to address with a paintbrush and too compelling to ignore.
"I thought it was too late to just paint, and I began to think of more temporal and situational work that was based in the public sphere or came from that," she said.
As the daughter of a welder who was also a union organizer, Fisher grew up in a south Minneapolis house where strikes and labor actions were often discussed and social activism was expected. Over the years, her work has addressed such volatile topics as rape, incest, toxic waste sites, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and even the U.S. Army's secret spraying in the 1950s of her childhood neighborhood with zinc cadmium, a known carcinogen. She learned later that the Army had been testing fallout patterns of airborne materials in anticipation of a possible germ-warfare attack. But as a kid, she just thought it was cool that the snow sometimes turned pink without realizing that the color came from toxic chemicals. "And, of course, we played in it and ate it the way kids do," she said.
For Fisher and other artists, the challenge of the 1970s was to translate issues into aesthetic statements that would move and inform people without hectoring. The oil-saturated creatures of the Valdez disaster proved especially potent and mutable. In various installations she has garnished the walls with huge silhouettes of birds, animals or people painted in broad black streaks that suggest oil stains.

For love of drawing

"I love to draw, and the images are my romantic attachment to that activity," she said. "So there is something of the traditional work of an artist, the mark of the hand. I need to do that or otherwise it's just all this text."
She adapts her material to each setting, sometimes littering the floor with a maze of electrical cords to remind visitors of their energy dependence. Or setting up house-shaped displays or incorporating piles of oil debris. This past summer she and an assistant spent several weeks in Alaska, interviewing and photographing more than 50 environmentalists, fishermen, park rangers, hoteliers, naturalists and others about Valdez and the 2010 Gulf spill. Having spoken with many of the same people on previous visits, she was able to elicit thoughtful reflections and heartfelt insights into the tragedy. Transcripts of the interviews will be included along with poetic wall texts that weave interview excerpts, facts and figures into an evocative palimpsest of memory, incident and even policy issues.
"I'm not a scientist," she said. "I take it in and put it back out. I just think we are interested in each other's stories."
And what of the Exxon Valdez tanker itself?

Eventually the ship was refloated, refurbished and renamed. Now called the Sea River Mediterranean, it hauls oil across the Atlantic. It is prohibited by law from returning to Prince William Sound.
mabbe@startribune.com • 612-673-4431

Jessica Harrison is our new Hero

2011-01-14T00:57:00.002-06:00

because we all want to look - now don't we!

Jessica Harrison

Beakers and Brush Discussions - copied and pasted from the Science museum web site

2011-01-11T18:03:00.000-06:00

I TOOK THIS ALL FROM THE PAGE: http://www.smm.org/beakerandbrush/

Grab some food, grab a drink, and join in on the discussion!

Join us on the second Tuesday of every month for a series of discussions that explore the rich but often overlooked intersections between science and art. Enjoy a drink at the Black Dog Coffee and Wine Bar while listening to presentations from scientists and artists speaking on a variety of topics, then share what you think about what science and art have in common. Attendance is FREE.
Beaker and Brush Discussions are co-sponsored by the Science Museum and the St. Paul Art Crawl.

CALL FOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS

Submit a poster design based on the monthly topic for a chance to have your artwork printed in the following week's Onion and a pair of First Avenue concert tickets. Learn More

Next Presentation: Perception - January 11, 2011

6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
The worlds of physics and art intersect in a fascinating examination of fractal art and innovative imaging technology, allowing us to perceive beyond what's visible to the human eye and projecting our world in a whole new light.

Dr. Thomas Vaughan is a professor in the Departments of Radiology, Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. With work experience ranging from NASA to the DOD, his current research focuses on biomedical imaging—in other words, looking at ourselves in a whole new way.

Barry Kleider began studying photography at age nine with his family's subscription to Life magazine. A long-time professional photographer, his work has been commissioned by the Oakland Museum of California and the Plains Museum of Fargo, ND and is included in several collections. Barry is also a rostered teaching artist in Minnesota, Iowa and North Dakota as well as COMPAS and VSA in St. Paul. He brings his talents and passion for photography and visual art to young people of all ages.

Upcoming Presentations

Addicted to Love - February 8, 2011
Is our brain's wired need for physical intimacy the same as a smoker's cigarette craving or an addict's itch? Explore addiction and our most basic impulses, including the act of love, through the eyes of an artist and a scientist.
Bob Meisel researches sexual behavior in rodents to further our understanding of how motivations form in the brain, and how these motivations are thrown for a loop by environmental factors such as addiction.
Composition and Decomposition - March 8, 2011
The human form tells a great many stories, from the artistic exploration of our relationship with our body to the vital biological clues that close criminal cases.
Dr. Susan Myster has been consulting as a Forensic Anthropologist in Minnesota and Wisconsin since 1991. Her work has involved the recovery and analysis of human remains from burned, buried, surface, and water contexts, as well as providing expert testimony. She has been involved in several high profile cases in Minnesota during which she worked closely with various law enforcement, medicolegal, and forensic science agencies.
Erica Spitzer Rasmussen is an artist who creates mixed media and handmade paper garments. Her current work explores issues of identity and corporeality, often utilizing clothing as a metaphor for one's skin. Rasmussen teaches studio arts as an Associate Professor at Metropolitan State University (St. Paul, MN). She is also affiliated with the MN Center for Book Arts and the Textile Center. Her sculptural and wearable works are exhibited internationally.

a moment of irrisponsible sallute

2011-01-10T23:36:00.000-06:00

We realize that we should not be celebrating an individual willing to come to work wasted - but - a man who would loose his temper for not being able to get past the 46th digit of Pi - well, we had to celebrate.

nerd up on the work place meltdown.

taken from the site: http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/colorful_termination_letter_from_dominos_pizza/

Protesting global warming - one melting figure at a time

2010-12-11T16:59:00.000-06:00

Brazilian artist Nele Azevedo made this work

the article states "The art installation of hundreds of little frozen men symbolizes the melting of the ice in our polar regions and how it will affect life on earth." http://earthfirst.com/green-art-spotlights-effects-of-global-warming/

see more photos and more about this artist @ http://neleazevedo.fotopages.com/?entry=967993&back=http://neleazevedo.fotopages.com/?page=0

Doodling in Math Class: Infinity Elephants

2010-12-06T14:49:00.000-06:00

More examples of Biomimicry: A Car grown from seeds

2010-11-27T10:32:00.000-06:00

Mercedes-Benz Biome concept car is "grown from DNA-modified seeds"

This was taken directly from the Article:

"The Biome isn't built the same way normal cars are. Instead, its bodywork is grown from two seeds -- one for the interior, one for the exterior -- that produce an ultralight 'BioFibre', which is then harvested and knitted together to form the car. The wheels, meanwhile, are grown from four separate seeds. This may mean you have to wait 18 years for your car to grow up and become road-legal.

Merc's conceptualising envisioneers say the DNA for these seeds is engineered "to accommodate specific customer requirements". They create two Mercedes stars especially for you -- these stars are the seeds that grow into your car. We have no idea what your genetic requirements might be: straight blonde hair, perhaps, or an aptitude for dentistry.
If you thought that was all a bit Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, get this: the Biome is powered by a futuristic fuel called BioNectar4534, which isn't stored in a tank. Instead, BioNectar4534 is stored in the BioFibre material of the chassis, interior and wheels. We're not sure how you refuel the car, or if the chassis gets all dry and crinkly once you've driven a few miles, but Mercedes says the Biome's only emissions are pure oxygen.
Want more craziness? Mercedes-Benz says it's developed a technology to equip trees with special 'receptors' that can collect excess solar energy and turn it into BioNectar4534.
Also, because the Biome is made of organic matter, it can be easily disposed of when it reaches the end of its service life. It can be fully composted or used as a building material, meaning it blends seamlessly into the ecosystem from the start of its life to its ultimate end."

Read more: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/cartech/mercedes-benz-biome-concept-car-is-grown-from-dna-modified-seeds-50001684/#ixzz16V6rM2Pa

Slide lecture given about Biomimicry

2010-11-27T00:01:00.000-06:00

Typoghrapy

2010-11-26T22:59:00.001-06:00

Animals, Taxidermy, and Fake Taxidermy in art

2010-11-26T16:38:00.000-06:00

It all started (again.... and again) - well perhaps it really started with a former student and sunshine personality of a student Raina Belleau. "help, I'm writing my thesis and need other examples of animals in art".
Oddly, this was not the first student who's asked me that.

so i figured it would be a good time to collect what I know of this topic - somewhere

People sent me this image - that was in an article of Boing Boing, which at the moment I no longer have the link..... so it's going un credited at the moment.
sorry about that

Another student of mine: Rachael Balsaitis (see her work here: http://www.mnartists.org/artistHome.do?rid=246433
, http://www.a113panda.deviantart.com/,)

She brought this artist to attention to me: Rachel Denny
See her work here: http://racheldenny.com/home.html
as her sight says:
" Denny is best known for her “Domestic Trophies” work—deer heads covered in cozy cashmere cable knit woolens and the like. She has shown in galleries nationwide for over 10 years, and her work will be shown at The Ohio Museum of Craft and the Winston-Wachter gallery in Seattle in the coming year.."

Bio-Bacteria grown clothing of Suzanne Lee

2010-11-26T16:19:00.000-06:00

Suzanne Lee's Bioculture clothing
taken from the article from the fantastic journal "design Bloom" - you can find the article here and for the video as well: http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/11565/suzanne-lee-biocouture-growing-textiles.html

you can find out more about this project and others at: http://www.biocouture.co.uk/
where this research is going on all the time. Can we grow cellulose rather than harvest it? could we save space? resources?

and more here: http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/23630.htm For this and other "futures of fashion"

Holiday ideas for your science art geek in your life

2010-11-26T16:03:00.000-06:00

we all have one... if it not be ourselves.

Here are a few wonderful shopping sites certain to make the science/art lover in your life swoon

If they are into jewelry - I recommend this site: Made with Molecules.

Image taken from: http://www.madewithmolecules.com/index.html

Personally, I'm a red wine girl. Beautiful aesthetic of the structure, chain, and of course, complete with an ACTUAL bottle of red wine - you can't go wrong. Chocolate, or even the love drug itself, this is choice.

20th 1st annual Ig Nobel Prize awards

2010-11-26T13:59:00.000-06:00

This year's Ig Nobel Prize awards - did you miss them?
What them here, along with the presence of Evelen-Evelen -thus with the creativity, song, art, and spirit - deams itself totally Hybrids Appropriate

Watch the 20th 1st Annual Ig-Nobel Prize awards here:

Scientists posing with Rock stars..... nice on paper, but in pictures

2010-11-17T13:11:00.000-06:00

I don't know - you be the judge.
I guess I'll count this as science and art..... unfortunately, I find this a little bit of science and sad.
:(

the worst part is there is a big pause of "WHO???" not just for the scientists - but the musicians. I mean - I'm familiar with Debbie Harry (LOVE), B.o.B., and I BARELY remember the Wilson girls.... but these are not people I associate with science or .... well, it doesn't make me want to pick up a microscope that's for certain.

my advice:
Science - you are beautiful and rockin' just as you are. You are my rock star. never change, and never do something like this again.
love
-Abbi

these images come from the article:

Scientists as rock stars? They pose with famous musicians to excite the public about science, but not everyone thinks it's working - By Amy Maxme [Published 17th November 2010 02:16 PM GMT] Read more: Scientists as rock stars? - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57812/#ixzz15ZHLHW9x

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57812/

Joan Massagué, Craig B. Thompson, and Charles L. Sawyers of MSKCC with American singer-songwriter Debbie Harry (Blondie)

Frank M. Longo, Stanford; Michael W. Weiner, UCSF; and Eric M. Reiman, Banner Alzheimer's Institute with Reality TV star and Poison legend Bret Michaels

Bernard A. Harris, Jr, The Harris Foundation, and Mehmet C. Oz, Columbia University, with pop stars Timbaland and Keri Hilson

Geraldine Dawson, Autism Speaks; Catriona Jamieson, UCSD; Emil Kakkis, Kakkis EveryLife Foundation; Rear Admiral Susan J. Blumenthal, Former US Assistant Surgeon General; and Frank L. Douglas, Austen BioInnovation Institute, with British singer-songwriter and rapper Jay Sean

Phillip A. Sharp, MIT, and Elizabeth H. Blackburn, UCSF, with Heart's Ann and Nancy Wilson

Stephen B. Baylin, JHU Medical, and Mehmet Toner, Harvard Medical School, with rapper B.o.B

Read more: Scientists as rock stars? - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57812/#ixzz15ZIeHDrn

Andrew Vomhof Mapps the Cosmos in the rings of time

2010-11-16T20:35:00.001-06:00

Just like the rings on a tree - Andrew Vomhof is working with digital technology (the rapid Prototyper), science and art to map the cosmos while connecting it to the Earth and celebrating the repeating patterns the exist in the world around us.

The white dots represent the nearby stars in the Milkyway, and their distance is measured by the radiating rings within the image itself. They spread outward - celebrating that of the big bang and our eternal expansion. Rings of history mapping our place in the Universe.

This work will be available at the MCAD art sale, or by contacting the artist:
http://www.andrewvomhof.com

look out for this artist's ongoing promising career.

"It's not much - --" but I'd put my money on this kid for certain in the eyes of art and Science.

digital evolution inspired art

2010-09-26T15:59:00.000-05:00

I found this at: http://contextfree.lazymoon.org/view/11/irp

Created and owned by Copyright © Lachlan McDonald, 2006-2010

Symphony of Science - The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)

2010-09-13T08:48:00.000-05:00

Taken from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cd36WJ79z4

Symphony of Science - The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)

Art about memory, the science of the brain and universal experiences

2010-09-09T15:50:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about experiences we all have.

looking at the sky and seeing clouds
watching yourself being stung by a bug
looking at the bottom of a pool or late before you jump in
dreams about putting out fires or peeing - usually mean that you are wetting the bed.

teeth falling out in dreams
the dreams where you are being chased and it's like running through thick mud
falling
the strength of vanilla and it's assocaiating memories

I'm thinking of those moments in movies and art when they call on this commonality.

do people from other cultures have the dreams where they are giving a presentation and are naked?

Sleepwalker. Eric Fischi 1948 - 1979

3.8 billion years of field testing - the field of Biomimicry

2010-09-06T21:57:00.000-05:00

A field created by the lovely and brilliant Janine Benyus!!

Janine Benyus: Biomimicry in action --> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/janine_benyus_biomimicry_in_action.html

Janine Benyus shares nature's designs: http://www.ted.com/talks/janine_benyus_shares_nature_s_designs.html

Taken DIRECTLY from their website from the Biomimicry Institute -->
http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/about-us/what-is-biomimicry.html

(I just cut and pasted - this material is not mine but that of the site sighted above) http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/about-us/what-is-biomimicry.html

"What is Biomimicry?"

"Biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate) is a new discipline that studies nature's best ideas and then imitates these designs and processes to solve human problems. Studying a leaf to invent a better solar cell is an example. I think of it as "innovation inspired by nature."
The core idea is that nature, imaginative by necessity, has already solved many of the problems we are grappling with. Animals, plants, and microbes are the consummate engineers. They have found what works, what is appropriate, and most important, what lasts here on Earth. This is the real news of biomimicry: After 3.8 billion years of research and development, failures are fossils, and what surrounds us is the secret to survival.
Like the viceroy butterfly imitating the monarch, we humans are imitating the best adapted organisms in our habitat. We are learning, for instance, how to harness energy like a leaf, grow food like a prairie, build ceramics like an abalone, self-medicate like a chimp, create color like a peacock, compute like a cell, and run a business like a hickory forest.
The conscious emulation of life's genius is a survival strategy for the human race, a path to a sustainable future. The more our world functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this home that is ours, but not ours alone.

Looking at Nature as Model, Measure, and Mentor

If we want to consciously emulate nature's genius, we need to look at nature differently. In biomimicry, we look at nature as model, measure, and mentor.
Nature as model: Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature’s models and then emulates these forms, process, systems, and strategies to solve human problems – sustainably. The Biomimicry Guild and its collaborators have developed a practical design tool, called the Biomimicry Design Spiral, for using nature as model.

Nature as measure: Biomimicry uses an ecological standard to judge the sustainability of our innovations. After 3.8 billion years of evolution, nature has learned what works and what lasts. Nature as measure is captured in Life's Principles and is embedded in the evalute step of the Biomimicry Design Spiral.

Nature as mentor: Biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature. It introduces an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world, but what we can learn from it.

Learn More About Biomimicry:

To learn even more, expore the In the News links, articles, and videos available through our Media page. "
this was taken directly from the website from the Biomimicry web site - I claim none of the information above as my own in any way.
http://www.biomimicryinstitute.org/about-us/what-is-biomimicry.html

Janine Benyus - Nature's Blueprints: Biomimicry in the Built World--> http://vimeo.com/13391315

Janine Benyus - Nature's Blueprints: Biomimicry in the Built World from College of the Atlantic on Vimeo.

Here are some more helpful articles:
http://brainz.org/15-coolest-cases-biomimicry/

it's about time I talk about nerdy fonts

2010-09-06T18:19:00.000-05:00

I have neglected to talk about art/design in science for a while - specifically - nerdy science fiction, which Ben and I have been indulging in while we work on this never ending project

none the less -
nerdy fonts - and I'm finding places for you to get them.

actually - some of my favorite design displays the joys of when art and science intermingle and create beautiful font babies
such as the following:

Nerd it up - here are some fonts to make you're head spin:

Star Trek Fans anyone?

Free downloads of the fonts here: http://members.outpost10f.com/~lindax/hp/multimedia/star_trek_fonts.html
more geeky fonts: http://www.rewardprograms.org/thefreegeek/features/top_25_geekiest_free_fonts_and_where_you_can_get_them.html

God I love this woman - the Amphibian Avenger

2010-08-26T21:15:00.000-05:00

A Mottephobiac's Nightmare from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

A Mottephobiac's Nightmare from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

http://pinktreefrog.typepad.com/

Geek Love - art, science and nerds hold hands

2010-08-25T04:09:00.000-05:00

I'd buy these 2 things -
images taken from:
http://www.geekologie.com/2007/10/21-week/

Great Design is Science

2010-08-25T03:54:00.000-05:00

On of the things I always tell my students in 3D foundations is that it's not about the material you use - it's the elegance you bring to it.

Knowing what you want to make is the #1 thing
from there - the materials you choose are endless..... so why not consider something that is good for the environment - rather than toxic

http://www.treehugger.com/

Image taken from: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/green-furniture-cardboard.php

another taken from: http://freshome.com/2009/02/28/two-awesome-pieces-of-cardboard-furniture/

Scientific Illustrators: Class July - 2010 @ the Science Museum of MN Ages 8-12

2010-07-23T01:19:00.007-05:00

My kids rocked it this weekend - see how good they were and learn along with us:

Scientific Illustration Examples for my students (at the science museum today)

For my students in my Scientific Illustration Class:

Work of others:

Ernst Haeckel

Images taken from: http://www.merstudios.com/illustrations_s.htm

scientific illustrators at work: http://www.nmnh.si.edu/rtp/students/2004/gallery04.html

Here's some of my own work:
"reflections on Death" - Pen on paper. 2009

"Mr. Crumple's Last Day". Pen on paper. 2009

"Transport of Mr. Crumple" ink on velum. 2009

"Conversations in Passing" pen on paper. 2009
(and in sculpting)

Merian - Entomologist and Scientific Illustrator
April 2, 1647 – January 13, 1717)
German

Image taken from: http://www.answers.com/topic/merian-maria-sibylla

"In my youth, I spent my time investigating insects. At the beginning, I started with silk worms in my home town of Frankfurt. I realised that other caterpillars produced beautiful butterflies or moths, and that silk worms did the same. This led me to collect all the caterpillars I could find in order to see how they changed". (foreword from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium — Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam)

When Maria Sibylla Merian was little, her father died and her mother married a painter who encouraged Maria to draw and paint. She continued to do so into adulthood, marring her step father's painting assistant even - and going on to paint and even teach such skills to others. Yet it was her husband's constant infidelity that caused her to leave and divorce him - but gave her the opportunity to travel around the world (most famously South America) and explore her own work even further.

Her studies lead her to focus on gardens and insects -with a particular interest in Caterpillars and butterflies. Prior to her work - people thought that butterflies and Caterpillars arose from spontaneous generation, but it was her observations and illustrations that changed this. Her sketchbooks were later published into a series of books, and she became well known. Still - in 1715 she had a stroke, which left her paralyzed, destitute and homeless. She died 2 years later with nothing.

Her books:

Neues Blumenbuch -- New book of flowers (1675)

Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumennahrung -- The Caterpillar, Marvelous Transformation and Strange Floral Food (1678)

Resources:

http://www.answers.com/topic/merian-maria-sibylla

http://www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/exhibits/Visions/merian.html

Cornelia Hess Honegger -- entomologist and Scientific Illustrator
Zurich, Switzerland, (1944 - present)

Image taken from: http://www.swissnexsanfrancisco.org/Ourwork/events/visualizing-science

"A scientific illustrator and artist, Cornelia Hesse-Honegger was born in 1944 in Zurich, Switzerland. She worked for 25 years as a scientific illustrator for the scientific department of the Natural History Museum at the University of Zurich. Since 1969, she has collected and painted bugs in the suborder Heteroptera. Her watercolors act as an interface between art and science and pay witness to a beautiful but endangered nature. Since the nuclear catastrophe at Chernobyl in 1986, she has collected, studied, and painted morphologically disturbed insects she finds in the fallout areas of this and other nuclear plants. Since the early 1970s, her work has been shown in various galleries and museums in Switzerland, as well as at prestigious institutions such as the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Chelsea Art Museum in New York, and the Kunsthaus Nürnberg. For more on Cornelia click here." Bio taken from: http://www.swissnexsanfrancisco.org/Ourwork/events/visualizing-science

Her Bio has been Taken & copied directly from her site: http://www.wissenskunst.ch/en/biographie.htm

"Since the catastrophe of Chernobyl in 1986, she has collected, studied and painted morphologically disturbed insects, which she finds in the fallout areas of Chernobyl as well as near nuclear installations. As a result of her studies, she is convinced that in
regions where the radioactive fallout from Chernobyl, or from normally working nuclear power plants, hits ground, the vegetation is contaminated, and a certain percentage of the insects, like leaf bugs, become morphologically disturbed.
Her first research trip, in the summer of 1987, brought her to the regions worst hit by the Chernobyl radioactive cloud: the south of Sweden and the southern part of Switzerland, known as the Ticino. She captured leaf bugs in those regions, insects that were two generations removed from the Chernobyl accident, and studied their health with her binocular microscope. She concluded that the fallout from Chernobyl had caused a significant number of morphological malformations among Heteroptera leaf bugs, Drosophila fruit flies, and plants.

She published her work in the magazine of the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in January 1988. Swiss scientists, however, expressed criticism of her research, insisting that the fallout in Western Europe from the Chernobyl accident was too small to cause morphological disturbances in insects.
After this attack from the Swiss scientific community on her findings, Cornelia became even more intrigued about the effects of radiation on the health of insects. She wondered whether the insects living in the environs of Swiss nuclear power plants, which emit significantly lower levels of radiation than the fallout from Chernobyl, would therefore be healthy.

In 1989 Cornelia made her first trip to collect leaf bugs in the environs of the Swiss nuclear power plants Gösgen and Leibstadt, in the canton of Aargau. In 1989 she continued her studies in the environs of the British nuclear reprocessing plant Sellafield. In the following years she concluded studies around the French nuclear reprocessing plant La Hague, the nuclear power plants Krümmel and Gundremmingen in Germany, and Three Mile Island in the U.S., as well as the Nevada atom bomb testing area and the Hanford plutonium factories in Washington State. In 1990 she traveled to Chernobyl itself.
Based on her studies, she has concluded that normally working nuclear power plants — as well as other nuclear installations — cause deformities in Heteroptera leaf bugs, and are a terrible threat to nature. Her field studies were centered at first in her native Switzerland, since she felt she should
begin by taking a broom to her own house. Her watercolors of morphologically disturbed insects and plants, as well as her publications, document her findings in a very convincing and impressive form.

Cornelia has learned that there is an official science that claims that the low amounts of radiation emitted by nuclear installations are harmless. The risks of low-level exposure are ignored or insufficiently studied by scientists connected to government institutions and universities. Scientists who have researched the effects of low-level exposure to radiation — like the scientists in Belarus, Ukraine, and Germany who studied the effects of the Chernobyl radioactive cloud on children’s health — are not given opportunities to publish their findings, or are ostracized within the scientific community.
All over the world, scientists who study the effects of radioactivity have little opportunity to publish their findings or persuade their governments about its deathly effects, as those governments quickly approve counter-studies. Cornelia therefore asks for truly independent studies — from university scientists not dependent on government funding — but she also wishes to reach the man and woman in the street to alert them to the problem."
Her Bio has been Taken & copied directly from her site: http://www.wissenskunst.ch/en/biographie.htm

RESOURCES:
http://www.swissnexsanfrancisco.org/Ourwork/events/visualizing-science
http://www.wissenskunst.ch/index-en.php

Work of others your own age:

Saturday, June 27, 2009

I taught scientific illustration and the working world definitely got my labor's worth - but I think it was worth it. Look at these great illustrations done by 9 year olds from observation!

YES! I taught them to draw, see with their eyes, and to trust and love the right brain. the kids are totally obsessed with right and left brain now.

THIS WEEK'S STUDENT WORK - Specimens

Your work this week

(the wee ones working in the class)

Sculpture of an angler fish

Great X-Ray Art from the Natural Academy of Sciences
http://www.an sp.org/museum/art-in-science.php

Beyond the field trip crowd
Posted by Lauren Urban [Entry posted at 2nd April 2010 03:41 PM GMT] Beyond the field trip crowd - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

VIDEO SEGMENTS:

Living on the Right Side of your Brain "la-la Land"

Scientific Illustration at the Smithonian

PROTEUS preview of the film we watched about Ernst Heckle

Beyond the field trip

Interview with a Scientific Illustrator

Fractlies in Nature - best science and art there is

2010-07-18T16:51:00.000-05:00

i love this video - but I'm SOOO sick of this song!

Fibonacci's Fractals

X-Ray Art

2010-07-18T15:28:00.002-05:00

Learn more: http://www.x-rayartist.com/

Kinetica Art Fair http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpX_CzxGWWo&feature=player_embedded

Nick Veasey http://www.nickveasey.com/
Check out all his "non plant life" - researching this i was soooo happy to see something that didn't have plants in it
no free images to nab.

Hugh Turvy

p. Davies http://www.xraylab.org/

Stephen N. Meyers: http://www.xray-art.com/

KETC | Living St. Louis | X-Ray Art http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-3l308KpP

Xray Art http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S46wEUj3eK0&feature=related

X-ray Art - X Ray Artist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fIojQxBWHc

Mrs. Hagen's work about Rosalind Franklin's Art
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2GQDU67ink

those lovely fish bones - How to protect a specimine for well after it is gone.

2010-07-18T15:06:00.001-05:00

I got all this from the article:

The beauty of fish bones

Posted by Jennifer Welsh ----) [Entry posted at 15th July 2010 09:30 PM GMT]

Fishy x-rays Final

When trying to understand the universe - it's best expressed in song

2010-07-13T01:12:00.002-05:00

Since I'm teaching these things this week - here's to my Big Bang students - thank you for your big questions:

• Is the Universe still expanding?

• What is a Pulsar?

• What sis Dark Matter?

• What is a singularity & / or a black hole?

• What is there is no dark matter?

• What happens when you enter a black hole?

• When and how does a black hole happen?

• What is a star?

• Why can’t we see black holes?

• When and how does a black hole happen?

• How powerful are gamma rays?

• What would happen if a gamma ray hits us without an atmosphere?

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970718.html

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100111084304AAFRMLk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_ray

• What does E=mc^2 mean?

• What is at the edge of the Universe?

• How is it expanding (this universe?) – and is it possible to reach the edge?

• What is radiation?

• Is gravity and time part of dark matter?

• What is a black hole made of?

• will our galaxy collide with another?

• What is time?

MEET THE ELEMENTS (THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS)

HOW MANY PLANETS? (THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS)

WHY DOES THE SUN SHINE? - ORIGINAL, THE WAY YOUR FOLKS WILL KNOW IT (THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS)

THE SUN IS A MIASMA OF INCANDESCENT PLASMA

"BIG BANG" - BY BARE NAKED LADIES
The Big Bang Theory Theme with Lyrics

SPEED AND VELOCITY

Sometimes - it can be best expressed in song

In case my kids want to see more - here are some of their great questions
like Black holes

what's in a black hole

More dimentions???? more universes?

PARALLEL UNIVERSES

HOW BIG IS THE UNIVERSE?

TIME TRAVEL - yes, possible!

Best eval - on how to write a science fiction, or basic Art and Science review - and someone who cannot pronouce the words - like me

2010-07-11T22:35:00.001-05:00

WARNING TO THE SENSITIVE, parents, people that love the "clone wars, etc movies....":

- THESE REVIEWS SWEAR, A LOT!
- THIS IS NOT A FAVORABLE REVIEW OF THE STAR WARS MOVIES (THE ONES' MADE IN 2000).

#1) - I'm so happy someone else has trouble with pronouncing words like I do.

#2) thank you to my amazing art-science comrade Scooter - (Christian) - for posting this and sharing this with me

#3) FYI - people, there are swears. I say this because I've realized there are a few people out there that cannot handle the few words sanctioned off as "wrong" - yet I can't afford 30 minutes in radiology for a VERY expensive review of "not yet - but cancer soon" - which i won't be able to afford it when it comes thanks to all these &*(&^T#^$%^%#^$% check ups.

these special words are saved for occasions where we've learned that punching the wall or people is wrong, so we have words (i.e. - use your words) - to express rage.

this man is expressing his rage about the new Star Wars movies, and so well articulated, and his arguments are so well laid out - you can't think anything else but "WOW!!! WTF this movie got made"

and that's a good argument, and a good use of the deadly 7

Everything else - is GOLD

Enjoy

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7