Art Archive

Friday, March 5, 2010

Half Life Lamp Powered by Living Hamster Cells

Dutch designer Joris Laarman created a desktop lamp that, though will not be good enough to illuminate your workspace, will be sufficient enough to compound and excite your guests. Powered by a mix of Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells infused with luciferase, a bioluminescing enzyme, this is essentially light out of life.

Friedman Benda, whose gallery will be hosting an exhibit of Mr Laarman's works, spoke with Fast Company about the logistics of displaying the Half Life Lamp project:

Sadly, Laarman's attempt to bring a "Half Life Lamp" to New York failed when the stress of the trans-Atlantic trip proved too much for the little critters "They're dead," says Benda.

Here's what the lamp looks like in the dark:

Fast Company: Joris Laarman Lets His Skeletal Chairs and Hamster Cell Lamps Do Their Own Thing

(hat tip: Gizmodo)

(0)

Monday, February 22, 2010

Winners Announced for The International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge 2009

The National Science Foundation and journal Science have revealed the winners in this year's Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. As always, we're happy to see the life sciences strongly represented in this contest of the best imagery that "would intrigue, explain and educate".

One of the first place winners in the Illustration category is an amazing installation (below) by biologist Peter Lloyd Jones and architect Jenny E. Sabin of the University of Pennsylvania's Sabin + Jones LabStudio. Be sure to check out the high resolution photo of the art piece to get an idea for its maddening complexity.

"Branching Morphogenesis" aims to reveal--through abstraction--the unseen beauty and dynamic relationships that exist between endothelial cells and their surrounding extracellular microenvironment. Movies of networking endothelial cells cultured on a 3-D matrix were analyzed to generate computational tools that simulate this process. Next, large-scale templates from simulations were overlaid with more than 75,000 inter-connected zipties.

One of two winners in the Noninteractive Media category is a video by Harmony Starr, Molly Malone and Brendan Nicholson of University of Utah explaining why identical twins are no longer as identical in later life. Watch and learn (ignore the error message):

Link to all the winning entries: The International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge 2009...

Press release: 2009 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge Winners Announced ...

(0)

Monday, January 25, 2010

Engaging Graphics Help Visualize Effects of Jetlag

Being fans of beautiful and innovative graphics and animations, we enjoy checking up on the latest in the field via the Vizworld blog. One thing that caught our eye is an attractive infographic from Matt Kursmark who designed it, to explain how jetlag influences our bodies, as an assignment for his Information Design Class at Ohio State University.

Matt Kursmark: Circadian rhythm information graphics...

More at Vizworld...

(0)

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Hi-Def Intracellular Image Contest Winners Announced

GE Healthcare just announced the winners of this year's IN Cell Image Competition. The annual contest aims to profile High Content Analysis (HCA) technology and the beauty that can be captured with expensive scientific apparatus. Above is the North American winning submission: "Human neural stem cells from fetal cortex stained for DNA (blue), neuronal (green), and astrocyte (red) markers. [Coreey Seehus, Brain Cells Inc, US]"

Here's a video created using submitted images to the contest:

All the top entries: IN Cell Analyzer Image Competition 2010...

Press release: Science transformed into art: Stunning high-definition images of the inner workings of cells...

(0)

Monday, January 11, 2010

Medicine and Art: Imagining a Future for Life and Love

The Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan is currently hosting an exhibition that highlights the intersection of art and medicine, and the role of the human body in bringing those two intellectual worlds together. Though the collection mainly consists of historical objects, many from the distant past, the aim of the curators is to draw attention to how medical technology will impact our lives in the future.

For most human beings their own body represents both the most familiar and most unknown of worlds. From ancient times humans have sought to unravel the secret mechanisms of the body, developing in the process a wealth of medical expertise. At the same time we have seen our own bodies as vessels for the representation of ideals of beauty, and long sought to depict our bodies in paintings and drawings. Leonardo da Vinci, who went so far as to dissect human bodies in order to make more accurate depictions of them, is perhaps the single creator whose output best embodies the integration of the scientific and artistic aspects of the body.
This exhibition, with its theme of "the human body as the meeting place of science (medicine) and art," was made possible with the cooperation of the Wellcome Trust, the world's largest independent charity funding research into human health. Consisting of around 150 valuable medical artifacts from the Wellcome Collection and around 30 works of old Japanese and contemporary art, the exhibition presents an integrated vision of medicine and the arts, science and beauty. The show is a unique attempt to reconsider the science's role in health and happiness and also the meaning of human life and death.

Mori Art Museum: Medicine and Art: Imagining a Future for Life and Love...

(hat tip: ScienceRoll)

(0)

Monday, January 4, 2010

Block Puzzle for The Aspiring Radiologist in Your Family

Neil Fraser, a software engineer at Google, used volumetric MRI data of a brain scan to create a 3D wooden block puzzle.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Celldance Image and Video Awards Winners Announced

The American Society for Cell Biology recently announced winners of its 2009 Celldance competition that profiles the beauty of cellular science. Image and video entries were ranked based on their contribution to science and the subjective allure they gave to the judges' eyes. Here are a couple of the top winners:

First place: "Save the Last Dance for Me" - Tetrahymena thermophila organism by Aswati Subramanian of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio

Third place: "Chaperone's Embrace" - The image reveals how the folding pathway of a protein is altered by a chaperone molecule. By Graham Johnson of Scripps Research Institute

Link: 2009 Celldance Image and Video Winners...

(hat tip: Technology Review)

(0)

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

3D CT Scans of a Lego Toy MRI

Flickr user voxel123, who describes himself as "master of volume rendering (MRI, CT)," has posted a set of reconstructed CT images of a Lego MRI system.

Here's how voxel123 describes the picture above:

Some time ago, I built a Lego MRI system as a giveaway for a pediatric radiologist and had it CT scanned later.
This is a volume rendering based on the axial scan. Note that the density of the bricks is different for each color.

Link: Lego MRI...

(hat tip: SCOPE blog @ Stanford Medicine)

(1)

Monday, October 26, 2009

Nikon Small World 2009 Winners Announced

The winners in this year's Nikon Small World photomicrography contest have been announced. The competition, held annually since 1974, gives a good overview of how optics and digital technology have opened up the beauty of the microworld. Below is the grand prize winner and one of the runners up that we particularly enjoyed.

Heiti Paves, Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress) anther (20X)

Arlene Wechezak, Algae and diatoms (10X)

Link: Nikon Small World 2009 Winners...

(0)

Video: The Beautiful Side of a Viral Infection

NPR's Robert Krulwich sat down with David Bolinsky of XVIVO, a firm that makes amazing animations for medicine and life sciences, to explain to the general public how viruses infect cells and reproduce themselves. For demonstration they used animation XVIVO produced for Zirus, a company developing novel methods to fight pathogenic viruses.

Watch the full video produced for Zirus here...

Link @ NPR: CDC: Swine Flu Cases Widespread And Rising...

Zirus homepage...

XVIVO flashbacks: The Inner Life of the Cell; The Inner Life of the Cell: A Full Version ; Can a Digital Projected Heart Replace a Much Beloved Solid One?

(1)

Monday, October 19, 2009

Wellcome Image Awards 2009 Winners Announced

Wellcome Images, an open source of high quality medically relevant photos and illustrations, has announced the winners of its tenth annual Wellcome Image Awards. The contest aims to profile the best that the collection has gathered over the previous year and to highlight the quickly developing world of medical science.

Nineteen extraordinary images have been chosen by a panel of judges based on the ability of the picture to communicate the wonder and fascination of science. From capillary networks and liver cells to summer plankton and bird of paradise seeds, miniature worlds are explored through microscopy and electron micrographs. Cutting-edge techniques reveal the intricate nerve endings around our hair follicles, and the beautiful patterns in compact bone and aspirin crystals. The selected images are now on display at Wellcome Collection, as well as on the Image Awards website, which explains the stories behind the pictures: how the images were created, what they add to scientific understanding and why the judges picked them out as the best images this year.
To mark the tenth Wellcome Image Awards, two additional categories were included this year in photography and illustration.

There were also two special awards, one given to the makers of animations showing the intricate structure of a mouse's head during development and the other for the unique capture of sensory nerve endings, both showing an astonishing level of detail and accuracy that has previously not been possible with conventional microscopy techniques.

Link: Wellcome Image Awards Winners' Gallery...

Press release: Wellcome Image Awards reveal the stories behind science...

(0)

Friday, September 25, 2009

Medical Robotics Gets Moment in Spotlight

The Royal College of Surgeons of England has partnered with the Qvist Gallery at the Hunterian Museum to profile the history of the development of robotic tools for medical applications. The showing also includes some sci-fi work of Osamu Tezuka, an artist whose work many believe to be the inspiration for the Fantastic Voyage film.

Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots is the theme for the latest exhibition in the Qvist Gallery at the Hunterian Museum. The exhibition runs from 8 September to 23 December 2009 and explores the fascinating world of medical robotics including the pioneering Probot (1991), a robot designed to aid prostate gland surgery, Freehand, a robotic camera holder for keyhole surgery as well as mini-robots designed to make their own way around the inside of the human body.

Many of these robots are still at the prototype stage. Exhibits include the prototype Robotic Camera Pill (2005). Swallowed by patients in pill form, doctors will guide the robot by remote-control, using images beamed back to a screen. Also included is the ARES Robot prototype (2009) which will require patients to swallow up to 15 different modules. Once inside the body the modules will assemble themselves into a larger device capable of carrying out surgical procedures.

Robots and related technologies are being designed to support every area of patient care. Toumaz Technology’s ‘Digital Plaster’ 2009 monitors a patient’s vital signs and alerts doctors if results fall outside predicted ranges. Sophisticated nursebots like ‘Pearl’ and Japan’s ‘RI-MAN’ are a futuristic solution to the care needs of an increasing elderly population.

The exhibition will also feature some famous medical robots from the world of science fiction, from the 1920s ‘Pyschophonic Nurse’, to Japanese Manga (printed cartoons) and Anime (animated films), and Britain’s own 2000AD, and ask whether science fiction reflects fact, or if scientists are inspired by the representation of medical robots in films, books and comics.

Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots also marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka whose creations include ‘Astroboy’ and the maverick surgeon ‘Black Jack’. Tezuka trained as a doctor but never practiced, choosing to follow his dream of becoming a manga artist. Many of his stories feature medical themes and one of his earliest works, ‘The Monster on the 38th Parallel’, has miniaturised humans entering a body to fight disease and is thought to have been the inspiration for the 1966 Sci-Fi classic ‘Fantastic Voyage’.

Link @ Royal College of Surgeons of England: Sci-Fi Surgery: Medical Robots...

(0)

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Bleed to Make Light

Reading by candle light is so 20th century. The next innovation? Using your blood to make light. Yes, your blood. Design artist Mike Thompson has developed a one time use lamp that works by a flourescent reaction between human blood and an active chemical component dissolved in water.

Mike Thompson's thoughts on this design:

The average American consumes 3383kwh of energy per year. That’s equivalent to leaving the light on in 4 rooms for a whole year. The simple flick of a switch allows us to power appliances and gadgets 24/7 without a thought to where it comes from and the cost to the environment.
For the lamp to work one breaks the top off, dissolves the tablet, and uses their own blood to power a simple light. By creating a lamp that can only be used once, the user must consider when light is needed the most, forcing them to rethink how wasteful they are with energy, and how precious it is.

We'll still stick with normal electricity for our blogging, though.

Mike Thompson: Blood Lamp...

(hat tip: Gizmodo)

(0)

Monday, September 14, 2009

NanoTube Video Contest Winners Announced

The American Chemical Society just announced the winners of the second annual NanoTube contest. This year's video submissions focused on nanotechnology's potential to change the world. "NanoGirls," a music video from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, the grand prize winner, profiles how nanotechnology may vastly improve the efficiency of electricity generating solar cells.

Full announcement from the ACS: American Chemical Society announces winner of second nanotechnology video contest...

(0)

Friday, August 21, 2009

Designer IV Bags Make Your Post-op a Fashion Statement

Designer Olivier Trillon's concepts make you wonder whether you'd prefer your post op morphine drip in a Yves Saint Laurent or a Chanel IV bag. Seeing how sexy medical gadgetry has been getting lately, perhaps this is a field for the fashion world to embrace with open arms.

More of Olivier Trillon's works from Trend.Land...

(hat tip: Interior design room)

(0)

Friday, August 7, 2009

The Beauty of the Nanoworld Revealed at SPMage09

The International Scanning Probe Microscopy Image Contest 2009, featuring our beautiful world at a microscopic level, has just announced the winners of the competition. The submissions from around the world demonstrate how widespread the field of nanotechnology is, and the progress this field has achieved in only a few years.

Here are the five winners and their works above (left to right, top to bottom):

First Prize: Li Ang, National University of Singapore (Singapore)

Second Prize: Sander Otte, NIST-Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (United States)

Third Prize: Sviatlana Abetkovskaia, A.V. Luikov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute (Belarus)

Fourth Prize: Francesco Mantegazza, Universita' degli studi di Milano-Bicocca (Italy)

Fifth Prize: Mar Cardellach Redon, Centre d'Investigació en Nanociencia i Nanotecnologia (Spain)

Link: Gallery of submissions to the SPMAGE09 contest...

(hat tip: Nanowerk)

(0)

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Man and Nature Combine to Make Exquisite Art

Eshel Ben Jacob, a professor of physics at Tel Aviv University, beautified photos of bacteria growing in Petri dishes with a bit of color and shading to create an amazing collection you can browse yourself.

Here's what the artist/scientist tells Medgadget about the works:

They illustrate the coping strategies that bacteria have learned to employ, strategies that involve cooperation through communication. These selfsame strategies are used by the bacteria in their struggle to defeat our best antibiotics. Thus, if we understand the mechanisms behind the patterns, we can learn how to outsmart the bacteria - for example, by tampering with their communication - in our ongoing battle for our health.
In a sense, the strikingly beautiful organization of the pattern reflects the underlying social intelligence of the bacteria. The once controversial idea that bacteria cooperate to solve challenges has become commonplace, with the discovery of specific channels of communication between the cells and specific mechanisms facilitating the exchange of genetic information. Retrospectively, these capabilities should not have been seen as so surprising, as bacteria set the stage for all life on Earth and indeed invented most of the processes of biology. As we try to stay ahead of the disease-causing varieties of these versatile creatures, we must use our own intelligence to understand them. These images remind us never to underestimate our opponent.

Link: Theories of Mind Art Gallery...

(0)

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Latest Print Ad Campaign for Zürich Chamber Orchestra

In a beautiful gesture to the fact that music can stimulate the body unlike anything else, the advertising design agency Euro RSCG, Zürich, Switzerland has created this ad campaign for Zürich Chamber Orchestra

(hat tip: Fubiz via Zayats)

(1)

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Sony's Mechanical "Heart" Strikes Fear in our Blood Pumps

Sony has produced what can only be described as a frighteningly awesome "mechanical heart" built for ads that will be aired during England's World Cup qualifying campaign. The heart was created by the special effects group Artem and is built from Sony TVs, DVD players, cameras, and even Walkmans. It looks like Sony has rediscovered that "fear factor" that has been missing from our latest medical devices.

(From Electric Pig via Engadget)

(0)

archives

ADVERTISEMENT

Syndication

Medgadget by Email

Mailing List