So so so cool: Tangible Interactive Microbiology for Informal Science Education

This is so cool: Tangible Interactive Microbiology for Informal Science Education.

Abstract:

We present an interactive platform that enables human users to interface with microbiological living cells through a touch-screen, thereby generating a tangible interactive experience with the microscopic world that is hidden to most people. Euglena gracilis, single-celled phototactic microorganisms, are imaged and optically stimulated via a microscope setup equipped with a projector and a touch- screen display. Users can directly interact with these organisms by drawing patterns onto the screen, which displays the real-time magnified view of the microfluidic chamber with the motile euglena cells. The drawings are directly projected onto the chamber, thereby influencing the swimming motion of the cells. We discuss the architecture of the system and provide exploratory user testing results in a facilitated setting, which shows engaging nature of our system for children and the general public. In conclusion, our tangible interactive microscope allows artistic expression and scientific exploration with the ease of “child’s play.”

And check out this video.

I would post a picture here but they discourage it.  So you will just have to go look for yourself.  The PDF is free, at least for now.

Nice microbe-art-education example from Cornell

Cool story from the Cornell News: Bacteria research inspires students' creative artwork | Cornell Chronicle.  It discusses a course taught by Prof. Greg Page "Introduction to Print Media".  As part of the course the students got a guest lecture from none other than Ruth Ley - who is a faculty member at Cornell and who does some of the most interesting microbiome work around.

Anyway - this guest lecture inspired some of the students in the course to make some microbial themed art works.  And the ones shown on the Cornell News site are wonderful.  Consider this one:

Image obtained from Cornell News.

"Tribal Warfare," lithography and screen print.by Rebecca Potash.

I also love the lines from Ruth Ley on why she got involved in this and what she plans to do in the future.  Consider this:

“As part of my teaching at Cornell, I plan on training science students in the interpretation of concepts in visual arts and eventually even have them learn some basic skills for producing images or video,” Ley said. “I also want to bring science to fine arts students, and my collaboration with Professor Page was my first attempt at this.”

Nice.  Got to try and do more things like this myself ... 

From io9: Even more microbial art "Bacterial communities swarm into gorgeous works of art"

Another quick post.  There is an article in io9 about art from Eshel Ben-Jacob and his beloved Paenibacillus: Bacterial communities swarm into gorgeous works of art.  Some pretty cool images there of these organisms grown on plates and then artistically enhanced.

Definitely worth a look.

Must read of the week: For Better Science Meetings, Invite an Artist The Finch and Pea

Art by @artologica in my living room

This is just such a good idea: For Better Science Meetings, Invite an Artist | The Finch and Pea.  Michelle Banks, also known as artologica, writing at The Finch and the Pea, goes through a detailed argument, with examples, of why one should invite artists to science meetings.

I have been inspired by Michele at many meetings.  And I have been inspired by her art with a science theme (see for example the posts listed below).

• My new microbe art corner w/ three works by @artologica 
• Microbial & Evolution art by @artologica has whole new meaning now that I met her at @scio12 
• Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' I chortled in my joy - I have received my Tree of Life art from @artologica 
• So psyched. Got my new artwork from @artologica .... Even better than I imagined from web pics).

I have written a bit here and there about the mixing of science and art.  See for example

• The human microbiome never looked so good
• Cool bacterial art makes gizmodo #MicrobialArt
• Microbial art for the holidays from the J. Craig Venter Institute
• Headline says it all "Opera singer grows algae on her face by feeding it w/ her breath & then the audience eats it"
• This is both crazy and completely brilliant: The Microbial Academy Of Sciences
• Art Meets Science at the Keck Center in DC
• Yes I like mixing science and art - but "DNA2Art" seems a bit, well, non artsy #visualiztion≠art
• More pics of hand painted poster from #synbio5
• More art & science - hand painted poster at Synthetic Biology #synbio5 - by Karmella Haynes
• Absolutely spectacular - glass microbes
• Nice Darwin Art at #UCDavis Evolution/Ecology Dept.
• More Airport Dinosaurs - Denver This Time
• Tree of Life Art
• Art-Science Fusion and Darwin's Face at Davis
• Germophobia: wanna get people in the mood for "Contagion" movie about killer virus - grow harmless microbes in public #microbialart
• Another week - another microbial art project
• Fun science art example: Jennifer Welsh on Zachary Copfer glowing microbe drawings
• Preparation Y: Michelle Ellsworth - Performance art mixing dance, genomics, evolution, humor, sex #brilliant
• Microbes, art, science all rolled into one - yum

But if you read one thing about science and art - read Michele's new post.  Or, even better, start inviting artists to any science conference you have any role in.

The human microbiome never looked so good

Another week, another microbial art project --- this one is from Erno-Erik Raitanen who is creating self portrait "bacteriograms" using his own microbiome.  See stories at Petapixel: Photographer Erno-Erik Raitanen Creates 'Self-Portraits' Using His Own Bacteria and CoCreate: INSTAGERMS: SEE A PHOTOGRAPHER’S STRANGELY BEAUTIFUL PORTRAITS OF HIS OWN BACTERIA. 

From CoCreate

“The process itself is pretty much a replication of the processes used in microbiology to cultivate bacteria on agar in petri dishes,” Raitenan says. “Instead of agar, I just used the film gelatin as my growth medium. As the bacteria grows, it consumes the gelatin layers that together make all the colors in a color photograph, and creates all these random patterns and colors.”

The human microbiome never looked so good ...

Cool bacterial art makes gizmodo #MicrobialArt

Quick post - cool bacterial art project has made Gizmodo.  See Bacteria Never Looked So Beautiful.  From an Art of Science competition at Princeton.  I wonder what Artologica - my favorite microbial art artist - thinks of this.

For some other posts about microbial art see:

• Germophobia: wanna get people in the mood for "Contagion" movie about killer virus - grow harmless microbes in public #microbialart
• My new microbial art for my office: salt evaporation ponds and goethermal spring stamps
• Microbial art for the holidays from the J. Craig Venter Institute
• Guest post on "The phone microbiome" from Georgia Barguil in Jack Gilbert's lab
• Microbes, art and a bit of satire all in one place - Design Interactions at the RCA
• Headline says it all "Opera singer grows algae on her face by feeding it w/ her breath & then the audience eats it"
• What to do - what to do - cool microbial art w/ a #badomics word --- must resist purchasing -- must resist ...
• My new microbe art corner w/ three works by @artologica
• Microbial & Evolution art by @artologica has whole new meaning now that I met her at @scio12

Microbial art for the holidays from the J. Craig Venter Institute

Saw this Tweet on Christmas Day

@phylogenomics @hyphaltip Check it out! X-mass greetings from fungi and bacteria. laboiteverte.fr/des-champignon…
— Russell Neches (@ryneches) December 25, 2012

It was from Russell Neches, a PhD student in my lab.

Went to the site "La boite verte" and checked out their post "Des champignons de Noël."

Discovered it was based on a post from none other than the J. Craig Venter Institute's blog: Holiday Art" JCVI Blog. The post is by Stephanie Mounaud from December 2010 and it has three wonderful fungal art forms. I am embedding the images of them below:

Fungal Christmas Tree

Fungal Snowman

Fungal Christmas Tree2

Enjoy.

Headline says it all "Opera singer grows algae on her face by feeding it w/ her breath & then the audience eats it"

Wow.  I am always on the lookout for microbe-themed art.  In most cases, when I see such art, I think "wow - that is an interesting way of embedding microbes into a traditional form of art".  You know - painting with microbes or art with microbes in it or such.  Well, in this new case I can say this is the most unusual and most creative use of microbes in art I have ever seen: Opera singer grows algae on her face by feeding it with her breath and then the audience eats it

You see, an opera singer work a "head-mounted, face-clinging device" which contained within in some algae in water.  And then the algae was fed by the opera singer's breath.  This is part of something called the "Algae Opera".  The most amazing part of this is described in the io9 article

"Because the algae's growth is dependant on the amount of CO2 it receives, the singer controlled her pitch and volume to alter various characteristics of the algae, including taste (what they called "sonic enhancement"). Depending on the way she sang, the different pitches and frequencies could make the food taste either bitter or sweet"

And then at the end of the performances the audience was invited to sample some of the algae. Yum.  Certainly a bit weird.  But kudos on the creativity index.

This is both crazy and completely brilliant: The Microbial Academy Of Sciences

Oh My God.  This is so wild and crazy I can't just write OMG - I have to write the whole thing out: The Microbial Academy Of Sciences: What Bacteria Can Discover That We Can't | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

The article describes an art exhibition in San Francisco in which one part involves giving microbial cultures access to images from space.  The reason for this is possibly captured in this quote

"Because cyanobacteria can perform photosynthesis," Keats says, "they’ll be able to detect patterns of starlight just as human scientists do with their eyes. The difference will not be in their methodology, but rather in the conclusions they reach."

and even better

But in all those eons, bacteria have never been given observatory access, to study the cosmos for themselves. … My observatory is built to address that unfortunate oversight, providing the resources for colonies of bacteria to research a theory of everything, reconciling cosmic and quantum observations in their own bacterial way."

I know some hard core scientists may object to this and some of the other lines by the artist but I personally think this is brilliant (in a devious way but brilliant nevertheless).   Everyone out there should read this article by Morgan Clendaniel.  And I for one and going to try to go to the exhibit ASAP.  I personally cannot believe I have not heard of this yet since it seems to have opened in January ...

Microbial & Evolution art by @artologica has whole new meaning now that I met her at @scio12

See the full gallery on Posterous

Art Meets Science at the Keck Center in DC

Some nice science-art on display at the Keck Center where I was for a NAS/IOM meeting today.  Here are some pics.

Yes I like mixing science and art - but "DNA2Art" seems a bit, well, non artsy #visualiztion≠art

Just got this email

I am representing DNA2Art - a start-up working with creating DNA art. DNA2Art just launched a few new products that I would be glad to share as I think they might be of interest. 
DNA2Art takes human uniqueness to a whole new level by enabling visualization of one's personal DNA. DNA based art is a great way to show the beauty of your genes.
DNA art is extraordinary because:  

Evolution pumpkins - from Darwin to Woese

OK I know I am a geek, but I do think these came out pretty well ...

"I think" in honor of Darwin

Woese Tree of Life

So psyched. Got my new artwork from @artologica .... Even better than I imagined from web pics

 Art by Michelle Banks.  Check out her store. 

More pics of hand painted poster from #synbio5

More art & science - hand painted poster at Synthetic Biology #synbio5 - by Karmella Haynes

I posted this to twitter yesterday but am now adding it to my blog since it was so great.  At the Synthetic Biology 5.0 meeting at Stanford I walked into the poster session last night to discover this incredible poster:

Karmella Haynes, had hand painted her poster on canvas.  Drawn in by the art, I went to talk to her (well, first I said "This is awesome" or something like that.  And then I found out a bit more detail.  She had her paints with her and was continuing to add touches to the painting.  Though I was fascinated by the art side of this, then we got to talking about the science because actually - the figures there were about work she had done on applying some ideas from synthetic biology to animal cells in tissue culture.

I was completely blown away by this.  I am not sure if the same posters will be up tomorrow and if so I will try to get some better shots.  Anyway, I found out she is on her way to a faculty position in Arizona and has recently been a post doctoral fellow at Davidson College.

And then with a little help from Google I discovered her openwetware page: Karmella Haynes.  And from that I found her art page: http://www.karmellahaynes.com/.  I hope she does more hand painted posters for conferences - it certainly brightened up the poster session and made my day.

Absolutely spectacular - glass microbes

Wow. These are truly spectacular: Gallery – Glass Microbiology - Luke Jerram

Thanks to Morgan Jackson for pointing me to them via twitter: here

See also:

• A Rare Collection of Victorian Glass Microbes
• Glass Microbes, Science Goes Stylish | A Schooner of Science
• 
  

Nice Darwin Art at #UCDavis Evolution/Ecology Dept.

For more on this see The Face of Darwin where K. Garvey explains the history of the mural in more detail. 

More Airport Dinosaurs - Denver This Time

Well, a few days ago I wrote with excitement about the dinosaur fossil in the Chicago Airport that I saw on the way to the ASM Meeting. Something about evolution in public is always a good thing. And then, amazingly, on the way home, while waiting for my connecting flight in Denver, I had a dinosaur moment there too. In Denver, there was some floor art that was some small embedded sculptures (mostly of dinosaurs) in the floor in the terminal. Maybe there is something I do not know here --- do all airports have to have something about dinosaurs?

Tree of Life Art

As someone who studies the "Tree of Life" in terms of evolution (the tree of life is an evolutionary tree relating all life forms) and who even named his blog after this, I am fascinated by different portrayals of the Tree of Life. We can see lots of things like the Tree of Life in the real word. Much of this is due to the use of the Tree of Life imagery by various religious groups. Some of it is more connected to evolution in some way. But whatever the inspiration, there are some pretty nice representations out there. And I am posting one of them today. At UC Davis the UC Davis Arboretum is a really spectacular place. I go walking there all the time and take my kids to play there and watch the ducks and other animals. One day, I was walking near some gardens that they have been renovating for a while, when I saw they had unveiled some new artwork.

Below are some pictures of this artwork.  I am going to start posting more "Tree of Life" art here in the future and would love to get examples from people out there too.