Fractal Art
Above are 8 stunning images of fractal art, some of the winners from the 2011 Fractal Art Contest. Click here for more images.
1. Underwater, by Jérémie Brunet
2. Tisular, by Victor Carbajo
3. Lumia, by Anton Liasotskyi
4. Fractal baroque, by Bill Beath
5. Partial Symmetric Bone Music, by Jonathan McCabe
6. Renaissance, by Stuart Painter
7. Imaginary Mine, by Maulana Randa
8. secret sign, by Jost Teutemann
ORGANISM
[noun]
any contiguous living system (such as animal, fungus, micro-organism, or plant). In at least some form, all types of organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole.
An organism may either be unicellular (a single cell) or, as in the case of humans, comprise many trillions of cells grouped into specialised tissues and organs. The term multicellular (many cells) describes any organism made up of more than one cell.
The term “organism” (Greek ὀργανισμός – organismos, from Ancient Greek ὄργανον – organon, “instrument, implement, tool, organ of sense or apprehension”) first appeared in the English language in 1701 and took on its current definition by 1834 (Oxford English Dictionary). It is directly related to the term “organisation”. There is a long tradition of defining organisms as self-organising beings, i.e.; any complex thing or system having properties and functions determined not only by the properties and relations of its individual parts, but by the character of the whole that they compose and by the relations of the parts to the whole.
The Art in Biomedical Research
1. Muscle Stem Cell Factories
Credit: FASEB 2012 Bio-Art Winner - Douglas B. Cowan
This micrograph shows cells called myoblasts attached to spherical microcarriers, which allow the growth of adult stem cells that have been isolated from skeletal muscle. The stem cells are shown in green. By combining these cells in a bioreactor, the muscle stem cells can be greatly increased in number and then separated from the myoblast “feeder” cells. The image was produced in the course of studies aimed at creating artificial “stem cell factories” and was supported by NIH funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
2. Scaffold for Cartilage Regeneration
Credit: FASEB 2012 Bio-Art Winner - Frank Moutos and Farshid Guilak
Due to a lack of blood vessels and other characteristics, cartilage heals very slowly. One way to accelerate natural cartilage repair and growth is to use tissue engineering, or the artificially-stimulated production of functional replacement tissue. The image shows a three-dimensionally woven biomaterial scaffold. The scaffold consists of multiple layers of resorbable fiber bundles that have been woven into a porous structure. The scaffold is then seeded with cells that grow to become new tissue as the fibers are resorbed. The fibers provide stiffness and strength in a manner that mimics native collagenous tissues such as cartilage. This work to use tissue engineering to generate replacement cartilage is supported by NIH funding from the National Institutes of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases.
3. Production of New Neurons
Credit: FASEB 2012 Bio-Art Winner - Grigori Enikolopov and Ann-Shyn Chiang
New neurons are produced from neural stem cells in several areas of the adult brain. One such area is in the hippocampus, a brain structure crucial for cognitive function. The number of neural stem cells in the hippocampus decreases over time, possibly contributing to the cognitive impairment associated with aging. When activated by extrinsic stimuli, stem cells divide and generate progenitor cells, which eventually mature into neurons and migrate into the layers above, whereas stem cells themselves undergo additional rounds of rapid divisions and convert into astrocytes, thus leaving the stem cell pool. The image depicts stem cells (green) and neuronal nuclei (red). This research to understand how the brain produces new neurons is supported by NIH through the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Aging.
4. Brain, Heart, and Lung Communication
Credit: FASEB 2012 Bio-Art Winner - Li-Hsien Lin
Both glutamate and nitric oxide play an important role in transmitting cardiovascular and respiratory signals between the brain, heart, and lung. This butterfly shaped figure is an image of a rat spinal cord showing the distribution of three types of glutamate and nitric oxide synthesizing enzymes. Understanding the action and interaction of glutamate and nitric oxide in the nervous system could lead to better treatments for cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and heart failure. This work is supported by NIH funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
New Research Confirms The Existence of Dark Matter
Image: Don Dixon
Fans of dark matter can rest easy. A study published last month raised eyebrows by suggesting that our cosmic neighbourhood is empty of the extra mass needed to hold the galaxy together. But a re-analysis shows that the dark matter was there all along.
Dark matter is the mysterious, invisible stuff that makes up 83 per cent of the matter in the universe. It is responsible for keeping galaxies from flying apart despite their high spinning speeds, and has aided our understanding of how structures in the universe formed.
The most popular theories say that dark matter is a hitherto undetected particle called a WIMP (weakly interacting massive particle) that is shy of interacting with ordinary matter through any force except gravity.
But several underground detectors waiting for WIMPs have come up empty, or with conflicting results. If the galaxy is so full of dark matter, why hasn’t it shown up yet?
In April, a team led by Christian Moni-Bidin of the University of Concepcion in Chile thought they had a solution: the WIMPs aren’t actually there.
The team tracked the motions of more than 400 stars within 13,000 light years of Earth to estimate the mass of matter – visible and dark – in the sun’s local neighbourhood. They concluded that the mass they found could be explained by the visible matter alone, with no need for dark matter.
But the team made a subtle error, say Jo Bovy and Scott Tremaine of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
Moni-Bidin and colleagues considered stars whose orbits take them far above or below the Milky Way’s main bright disc, and used the speed at which they orbit the centre of the galaxy to figure out how much of a pull they feel from the nearby mass of stars and dark matter. They assumed that the stars’ speeds would be the same no matter how far they were from the galactic centre. Observations of dust clumps have shown that this assumption is true for young stars orbiting in the galactic disc, which mostly move in a near-perfect circle.
But the stars that orbit high above or far below the disc can’t have circular orbits, Bovy says. The only stars that reach such great heights have been kicked away from the disc by matter in the galaxy’s spiral arms, which sent them on highly elliptical orbits.
Full Article: Crisis averted: Dark matter was there all along
Newly Discovered Species: Night Blooming Orchid
A slender night stalker is one way to describe this rare orchid from Papua New Guinea whose flowers open around 10 p.m. at night and close early the next morning, hence it’s common name, night-blooming orchid. Bulbophyllum nocturnum, as it is referred to in its Latin name, is thought to be the first night-blooming orchid recorded among the more than 25,000 known species of orchids.
(via: Live Science) (photo: Jaap Vermeulen)
A Hole in Mars
Credit: NASA, JPL, U. Arizona
Back in 2007, black spots were discovered on Mars that are so dark that nothing inside can be seen. Quite possibly, the spots are entrances to deep underground caves capable of protecting Martian life, were it to exist.
The unusual hole pictured above was found on the slopes of the giant Martian volcano Arsia Mons. The above image was captured three weeks ago by the HiRISE instrument onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling Mars.
The holes were originally identified on lower resolution images from the Mars Odyssey spacecraft, The above hole is about the size of a football field and is so deep that it is completely unilluminated by the Sun. Such holes and underground caves might be prime targets for future spacecraft, robots, and even the next generation of human interplanetary explorers.
An innovative initiative is taking place in the Philippines to bring sustainable lighting to homes in impoverished communities. Empty plastic bottles are installed in the roof, filled with water and bleach they refract sunlight. These “solar light bulbs” provide light equivalent to a 55watt light bulb.
See how they’re made here. From Visual News
Inside the human heart
National Geographic have an impressive gallery showcasing one of the most beautiful, complex and important organs of the human anatomy: the heart.
From NG:
Tissue-paper thin but tough, the valves of the human heart open and close to pump 6 quarts (0.9 liters) of blood a day through 60,000 miles (97,000 kilometers) of vessels. That’s equivalent to 20 treks across the United States from coast to coast. The heart is a magnificent machine when it’s in good working order. But coronary heart disease is the number one killer of American men as well as women, resulting in 500,000 deaths in the United States and killing 7.2 million people worldwide each year.
Photograph by Lennart Nilsson
I know I said I was done posting cool photos of the recent annular “ring of fire” eclipse, but this one just found its way to me and I can’t resist. Here’s the story behind the photo.
(photo by Michael Chow, Arizona Republic)
Eroded Landscape and the carved from rock Selime Monastery, Turkey (by Roger Wong)
This new composite image of M101 also known as the “Pinwheel Galaxy”, contains data from four of NASA’s telescopes in space: X-rays from Chandra (purple), Infrared from Spitzer (red), optical from Hubble (yellow) and Ultraviolet from GALEX (blue).
This interesting picture shows how different telescopes (CGRO, Chandra, COBE, HST, Spitzer, EUVE & ALMA) capture different electromagnetic radiations:
Ink Wants to Form Neurons, and an Artful Scientist Obliges
1. The Secret of Shimmer
Dunn has been recently been playing with iridescence, adding more colors while still allowing the metals to shine. This painting of the cerebellar lobe is an example of his newer work.
Listening to him explain iridescence, you can see how his scientific background factors into his art: “[Iridescence] is when you have small crystalline patterns at the microscopic level which break up the incoming light and distribute it a different way, and so you get light coming into your eye from different angles in just a planar surface,” he explains. Dunn gets his paintings to shimmer and change under different light with a special technique he developed—and which he keeps under his hat.
2. The Fractal Solution to the Universe
In his second year of neuroscience grad school, Greg Dunn was moonlighting with a different kind of experiment: blowing ink across pieces of paper. The neuron-like pattern it formed was instantly recognizable to him as a neuroscientist. “Ink spreads because it wants to go in the direction of less resistance, and that’s probably also the case of when branches grow or neurons grow,” he says. “The reason the technique works really well is because it’s directly related to how neurons are actually behaving.”
Dunn calls this the “fractal solution to the universe,” which he sees as the “fundamental beauty of nature.” He’s fascinated that this branching pattern holds true across orders of magnitude, whether that’s nanometers for neurons, centimeters for ink, or meters for a tree branch.
3. Asian-Inspired Art
The branching tree motif of Asian art is especially fitting for Dunn’s neuron paintings. Simplicity is key: “What I love about Asian art is that you boil away all the unnecessary crap, and you’re left with an expression of an idea that’s done with spontaneity and grace.” There is nothing extraneous here in this painting of two pyramidal cells, a type of neuron found in the cerebellum and hippocampus.
4. Artistic Creation, Scientific Method
Before he ever touches a brush, Dunn mocks up his paintings in Photoshop, setting the composition and color scheme. Paintings, like a set of experiments, must be planned through in advance. “If the silhouette isn’t great, that painting will never be great. You’ve got to build on a strong foundation,” he says. “That’s true of science as well.”
The curled structure depicted here is the hippocampus, one of the most-studied parts of the brain. It has an integral role in memory and spatial navigation. The famous patient HM, who’d had his hippocampus removed, was unable to form new memories.
