The Theory of Everything

A friend shared this video with me recently, introducing me to Minute Physics and the awesome videos they produce. This one is an introduction to the hypothetical Theory of Everything - a theory I wrestled with in a quantum physics module last year - that links together all physical 'things' and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out, ever...in theory. Yeah, it's tough to summarise, that's where Minute Physics come in:

Mouse intestines on twitter

#Super resolution image of mouse intestine from @API_DeltaVision stained with #Phalloidin & #DAPI #microscopy #biology twitter.com/GECellBiology/…

— GE Cell Biology (@GECellBiology) February 20, 2012

Sciartist spotlight: Stephen Gaeta

I came across a series of creative prints over at the Street Anatomy store the other week and keep meaning to write about the artist, Stephen Gaeta. Stephen is a physician-scientist currently completing his internal medicine residency. After completing his phd dissertation on cardiac arrhythmia he said he wanted to "display his accomplishment without hanging a certificate on the wall". He therefore used the words of his dissertation in a print of a heart (similar to the print below) to display his achievement. From this, he continues to create typographical imagery from classic scientific masterpieces.

Click each image for a close-up.

Beat poetry

Text from the seminal 1809 work of cardiology Cases of the Organic Disease of the Heart, with Dissections and Some Remarks Intended to Point Out the Distinctive Symptoms of These Diseases, by John Collins Warren. In this work, Warren describes the symptoms of 11 of his patients with heart disease as they presented in his office and, later, on his dissecting table. 

Transgenic
Text from Chromosome 1 of the human genome.

Extraocular

Text from Zoonomia, the 1794 masterpiece of Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles), in which he attempted to catalog and explain human anatomy, pathology, and physiology, including the visual system.

Reactant
Text from the The Sceptical Chymist by Robert Boyle (1661), in which he provided the foundations of modern chemistry by proving that matter is comprised of individual atoms.

Can you tell what it is yet?

Image: Babak Anasori/Michael Naguib/Yury Gogotsi/Michel W. Barsoum/Drexel University [high-resolution] 

Why it's nano-material titanium cliffs of course.

Alright, so perhaps you didn't get that straight off - it's pretty awesome though, huh? This microscopic cliff-like overhang is an electron micrograph of super-thin layers of a titanium compound. When dunked in hydrofluoric acid, a compound known as Ti3AlC2* loses its aluminum to form layers of Ti3C2 that are just five atoms thick. The result is a nearly two-dimensional compound called “MXene”.


*you can probably just skim right over that jumble of letters and numbers - like the first time you read 'Hermione' in Harry Potter.

Anatomical kissing

Anatomical kissing by Alex Grey

 

The Sky at Night on BBC

I have just finished watching the Sky at Night on BBC, admiring all the stunning cosmic photographs on display, so decided to check out their Flickr page. It's a good collection of amateur and professional photography, with a particularly large selection of picture of the moon with good views of the lunar mare. Check out The Sky at Night Flickr group.