An Object at Rest - animated short for the eons

All of this wonderful animation by Seth Boyden. Check out more at his Blog!

Art and Censorship - the Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Calling in the Cows with Lorde's "Royals" T-Bone style!

Diatomaceous Art

“The Diatomist” by Matthew Killip

The Diatomist from Matthew Killip on Vimeo.

Pale Blue Dot

Earth from six billion miles out.  Image Credit - NASA - from Voyager 1 ~1990.

A long time ago in a grad school far far away I watched a you tube video that changed my life. The you tuber who posted the video went by the name Silverseer and the video consisted of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot monologue overlaid by Enya's "Boadicea." The video was just a series of Ken Burns moves with the original pale blue dot photograph. I loved that video so much, I must have watched it at least a hundred times. Eventually it was taken down; probably due to a copyright claim by Enya's record label. But today, after years being deprived of my Voice-of-the-Sagan induced spine tingles something similar has been produced! I give you a new window onto the world through the voice of Sagan, the sounds of Hans Zimmer, and the vision of Adam Winnik.

Pale Blue Dot - Animation from Ehdubya on Vimeo.

Ice Drumming!

Hat tip to Sarah Keartes for sharing this incredible blend of nature and art on this first weekday of the Jul time. Brilliant!

Word of the day - Bricolage

Bricolage

 n.

Something made or put together using whatever materials happen to be available: "Even the decor is a bricolage, a mix of this and that" (Los Angeles Times).
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[French, from bricole, trifle, from Old French, catapult, from Old Italian briccola, of Germanic origin.] [source]

I found this delightful word while bopping around the Wikipedia page for the word "tinker."

An exemplary body of bricolage has come from the mind of the still-active Belgian artist, Panamarenko (example above)

Mushroom Rocket Fuel

SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Europa Report. Continue reading at your own risk.

Over the weekend I went to see Europa Report; a science fiction film portraying a privately-funded human-on-board mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's 67 moons. Europa has particular interest because of its fractured icy facade and potential sub-surface oceans. What tentacled creatures might be creatching in the depths?

Using documentary-style cinematography reminiscent of the Truman Show and District 9 the film is presented as "found footage" compiled after-the-fact leading the viewer up to the big reveal at the end. The footage is choppy and claustrophobic as it is mostly from the perspective of "web-cams" mounted around the ship.

I commend the directors for staying true to the realities that may accompany a space journey hundreds of millions of miles long; pale complexions, back-sweat, and the drab glow of florescent lighting.  I could barely stand two hours of it so I can only imagine the psychological effects of 22 months in that environment.

I'm not here to completely spoil the film for would-be movie-goers but I want to talk about a specific plot twist that amused my biochemical inclination.

When communication with earth is lost due to a solar flare chaos ensues. The crew-members start dying off by a series of unfortunate events. The first character to go is Engineer James Corrigan played by Sharlto Copley (pictured above).  The situation which leaves him hanging is where the mushroom connection comes into play.

Corrigan is suited up with fellow engineer Andrei Blok (Michael Nyqvist) to go on a repair mission outside the ship.  While attempting to repair the communication fuse-box Corrigan reefs on a stuck pin which causes a minor explosion. As the metal panel flies off the communication module it tears a hole in Andrei's space suit and draws blood.  Andrei tries to cover the hole with his other hand but is loosing air quickly.  The two engineers high-tail it for the ships open hatch but before they enter Andrei notices a yellowish-brown smear all over Corrigan's space-suite.  Hydrazine! Hydrazine is a rocket-fuel used by NASA inside the orbital maneuvering systems (OMS) and reaction control systems (RCS) of spacecraft and also as fuel to stabilize landers during terminal descent. If Corrigan enters the ship he'll pollute the precious oxygen supply and everyone on board will eventually get sick and probably die. If it were just him out there they could perhaps figure out a way to get him out of the suit in space and then he could enter the open hatch but Andrei is running out of air because of the tear in his space-suit.

Hydrazine, hydrazine. Where had I heard of this before? It was in a wildly different context.  Ah ha! It was during an edible mushroom identification course at the Oregon State University extension building in Jacksonville, OR.  An MD was highlighting the worst-case-scenarios of misidentifying morels.  He described receiving patients in the ER who had passed out while chopping up a bag full of what they thought were the edible morels (in the genus Morchella). The cause of their hostpital visit? A form a hydrazine in the false-morel (genus Gyromitra). Whilst preparing what they thought would be a culinary delight filled with complex earthy flavors, the unwitting victims of the false-morels were breathing in the volatile hydrazine off-gassing from their mound of mushrooms. If these ill-trained mushroom hunters had not received medical attention they very well may have died.  And here we come back to our crew of marooned Eurpopans.  If they had allowed Corrigan to enter the hatch they would all breath in the same substance the poor Oregonians had encountered but without the benefit of a hospital down the road.

In the movie the captain (Daniel Wu) made a decision to let one person die to save everyone.  This is not a difficult decision when put in a broader context of time (if Corrigan had been allowed in everyone, including Corrigan would have died) but in the moment the captain shuts him out it seems cold.  This dilemma is a microcosm of the bigger ethical question proposed by the film as a whole. What kind of sacrifices are worth making for discovery?

 

Richard Dawkins and the Electric Kool-Aid Acid MEME

Watch the following video all the way through. A metamorphosis of sorts unfolds before our very eyes.

It's Alive! Magnetic putty has all the right moves.

A special thanks to Joanne Manaster for sharing this video on Google+ earlier today. Phenomenal.

The putty looks like living skin growing around and engulfing those poor cubes and balls.

Is it weird that "lava-sphincter" is the thing that pops into my head as I watch this? 

Makes me wonder how those hydrated sacs of molecular machines we call cells move and grow.

Dance of the tRNAs

Hey #SciO13 friends - Let's do an updated version, or some variation of this next year!
The good-stuff starts around 3:20.

Bruegel in Brooklyn

Frog Wars Part 1-1. watercolor on paper, 20" x 28" together .2012
蛙蛤大戰 1。 2012 - painted by Mu Pan

Brooklyn-based Mu Pan paints with incredible attention to detail. Appreciating "folk-art" his work echoes Pieter Bruegel the elder and Hieronymus Bosch. Coming of age in the Bush-era and watching my country execute pre-emptive war gives me a similar sense of bitterness and, like Mu Pan, the enduring desire to remain independent. I created this blog as an unhindered outlet for me and I hope to maintain it as such until I am no longer able to control it. Thanks to iO9 for sharing his work!

ARTOLOGICA

I met a wonderful artist named @Artologica at Science Online 2013. I purchased two gloriously geeky silk scarves from her; each with cells depicted at progressing stages of mitosis. I was even lucky enough to get the exact scarf worn by Jonathan Eisen for most of the conference. Below, I decided to play with her art and try to make a meme. Atologica painted the background in blue, I photoshoped in the memey bits. Feel free to insert any word above - Geology, Chemistry, or Climate for starters.

Good Yule you peanuts!

From the heavenly fingers of my friend Maxwell Hughes!

Bjӧrk Geology

Paper Bird: Carry On

Will science colonize philosophy, the humanities, and the arts?

Last August I was standing in a church in a small village in Belgium. I was there with a good friend named Kristiaan. A retired elementary school headmaster, Kristiaan is an expert in Belgian history, especially art history. He had brought me to the church as it was one of many venues hosting pieces in a local art show. An older man with a round face and big yellow teeth met us in the entryway eagerly pointing at his large abstract works hanging all over the walls. He was explaining how the perfection of math made his stark depictions of hyperbolic shapes beautiful. Most of his canvases were two colors of acrylic paint, a bright background in yellow and a ribbon shaped hyperbola in purple.

To me this art was not good at all. The man had obvious enthusiasm but the art was just lifeless. He paid little attention to detail and it all looked like a 7th grade art project gone bad. I did not have the heart to tell the aging man I did not like his work but I had a long conversation with Kristiaan about such art after exiting the church. Kristiaan told me he did not fancy art where artists intentionally infuse scientific or mathematical ideas into their work. He thought art like this seemed forced or overly contrived. I had to agree with him in this instance. But I wonder if this was just an isolated case of a mediocre artist. Can there be scientifically informative art that is not aesthetically dead?

I think about daVinci's Vitruvian Man and his helicopter sketches, I think of the occulus in the dome of the pantheon in Rome or the myriad other instances I have seen artistic beauty and scientific enlightenment intersect. I can't help thinking these poorly painted lines I had seen on the walls of the church were just the result of misdirected talent. But do the examples I listed give the same emotional reaction to viewers as other more "artistic" art. Like Thomas Dewing's In the Garden (above) Picasso's Guernica, Gauguin's D'où Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / Où Allons Nous?

These painted examples have nothing to do with scientific concepts. They do not attempt to educated the masses by hiding the golden ratio, the Fibonacci sequence, or the physical requirements for aerodynamic lift. These paintings speak to the audience through emotional recall. The works may affect the viewer in a physiological way. We could measure things like heart-rate, body temperature and breathing depth while viewers approach the paintings. However the paintings themselves were not produced for the advancement of scientific education. Yet they maintain tremendous value.

Where does this value come from? Is this a question science can answer?

An assertion was made by E.O. Wilson as I listened to his On the Shoulders of Giants address at the 2012 World Science Festival. He said that science would inevitably "colonize philosophy, the humanities, and the arts." I can see this happening as a great unifying event (an ongoing series of events is a better way to describe it) where artists and scientists communicate constantly, to a point where either could switch position any time.

The problems I foresee arising in this transition involve specialization and fractionation. All of humanity  as seen through the ages looks like vast branching tree. With each new generation there are a whole new set of buds on the tree. Throughout history the branches bifurcate. With each bifurcation comes new divisions (catholic/protestant, shiite/sunni, Eastern/Western, Mashed Potatoes and gravy/mac and cheese). With all the new bifurcations coming online you would think there ought be a shit-storm of sectarian violence at present. But that is not the case. Why not?

I think it is because of the transparency happening right now; the unprecedented level of cross-hierarchical communication going on. You, out there somewhere on earth are reading a blog written by a person you may have never met and you are empathizing. You are reading along with me and even if it is just for a fraction of a second your neurons are firing in some similar pattern to mine. We now live in an age of permissionless innovation where I can hit the publish button without any publisher, editor, mother, or father giving me the go ahead. More and more people are realizing this ability every day and that brings me great happiness.

Back to the art-science fusion project. I do not know if science will successfully "colonize" art because specialists do like to keep there sects pure and free of the passing fancier. But I also think our broader and more transparent view of the world, especially the talents and weaknesses of our fellow humans, will continue to help in creating the most beautiful art and the most beneficial science the world has ever known.

On the Origin of Beauty

Philosopher Denis Dutton provides a Darwinian explanation of human aesthetics. As I watched I felt the chills of prehistory run up my spine. This forces a question that (in my mind) has a hard-to-swallow answer - Do we have the freedom in to decide what is beautiful?

The Illuminated 'Origin'

Blue Jay from The Holler!'s new album: Gratitude.

Michael Kirkpatrick gives voice to a blue-feathered hero.