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.

Did the Victorians get the sci-art mix perfect?

Eric Schmidt giving the
annual MacTaggart lecture

The Guardian this week brought us all the action from the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival, including a hard-hitting lecture from Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google, who delivered a scathing critique of the UK education system at the annual MacTaggart lecture. Eric spoke of it's failure to make the most of the country's record of innovation in computing and engineering (having invented the TV, photography and the computer both in thoery and practice) and highlighted the lack of support for bringing the sciences and arts back together in schools.

While Eric has since recieved criticism for drawing 'naive conclusions', he has also generated support for his back-to-the-abacus way of thinking. Schmidt said:

'Over the past century, the UK has stopped nurturing its polymaths. You need to bring art and science back together. [The Victorian era] was a time when the same people wrote poetry and built bridges - Lewis Carroll didn't just write one of the classic fairytales of all time. He was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford. James Clerk Maxwell was described by Einstein as among the best physicists since Newton – but was also a published poet.'

Lewis Carroll

The Guardian article generated some interesting discussion in the comments section and while they are by no means all positive, it is good to see people talking about what is important in schools and debating whether it is possible or necesary to return to a Victorian-style education system.

The Guardian collated some of the most well-informed comments in a follow-up article if you're interested. It's great to see the Guardian picking up interest in bridging the arts and sciences divide.

Visualising statistics: internet censorship

Last month's Facebook: mapping earth post provoked some discussion about why the north of Asia was AWOL and why Facebook, which seems to offer something for everyone, hasn't managed to penetrate into the huge hunk of landmass that dominates one half of the world map (read the previous post for a refresh).

The empty spaces occupying rural Africa, the Amazon and central Australia are easily explained away by geographical location, as too are those countries with a lower GDP. However, the Asian countries with captive audiences and technology coming out of their ears have kept Facebook at arm's-length through censorship.  The uber-talented guys at Information Is Beautiful have come up with a very pretty and easy-to-digest analysis of such censorship. Below are the Facebook map from Paul Butler and the censorship map from David McCandless.  Draw your own conclusions.

Anyway, here's the link to the full visualisation. One particularly information-rich diagram is the good old fashioned venn diagram showing the various overlapping reasons for internet censorship in the different regions. It's pretty cool. Have a browse, learn something new, drink a beer (just because).

Artificial Body Clock

Imagine an object that could tell a woman the exact moment she is ready to have a child. An object that recieves information from her doctor, therapist and bank manager and alerts her when she is physicallly, mentally and economically ready to start a family.

Revital Cohen, a Royal College of Art graduate, is a designer whose future-oriented work examines the relationships and possibilities between medical machines, animals, and humans, exploring the juxtaposition of the natural with the artificial.

Whilst much of her work is far-fetched and more a comment on our reliability on, and the possibilities posed by, technology; some don't seem to stray too far from the line we are already treading. The Artficial Biological Clock is one such object. Cohen says

'The promises posed by new reproductive technologies such as IVF, test tube babies and egg freezing, are blurring perceptions of the reproductive cycle amongst women, and consequently, the age of conception is constantly being challenged. The female body clock relies on moonlight to regulate the menstrual cycle. The use of artificial light and contraceptive hormones, along with the growing pressure to develop a career, are distorting the body’s reproductive signals. The artificial biological clock compensates for this increasingly lost instinct. This object acts as constant reminder of the temporary and fragile nature of fertility. Given to a woman by her parents or partner, it reacts to information from her doctor, therapist and bank manager via an online service. When she is physically, mentally and financially ready to conceive the object awakes, seeking her attention.'

NB.(Next post will be less what-is-my-purpose-in-life? Promise)

The smallest periodic table ever in the World ever?

I have seen myriad videos of images being basically printed onto strands of human hair; university logos, names, shapes...but this one takes the biscuit.  The University of Nottingham gave Professor Martyn Poliakoff a birthday treat by 'printing' the periodic table onto one of his hairs.

The printing is done by radiating the hair with ions of gallium which flake away teeny weeny bits of the hair at a time.  The resulting periodic table is 86 microns long (you could fit a million of them onto a square the size of your palm) and whilst this little trick is itself ultimately useless it does demonstrate the awesome (in it's richest and less colloquial sense) capabilities of nanotechnology.

See for yourself. I mean, aside from the lovely chap's odd-yet-endearing nutty professor appearance and poor televisual suitability, there is some pretty cool technology on show.

A view from the outside

@Astro_wheels is his name and tweeting from space is his game!

Flight Engineer Douglas H. Wheelcock has spent the last six months of his NASA journey 'tweet'ing pictures of the earth from space.  His Twitter ID is @Astro_wheels and with over 53,000 followers, his pictures are viewed around the globe.  Ironic really.  He often posts pictures of obscure locations or stunning views and his dedicated following guess which part of the world he has been looking at!

Below are a few of his recent tweets but check him out for yourself.

Doug Wheelock tweets pictures of the earth from an orbiting laboratory in space every day, what do you do?

Microwaving CDs...don't try this at home!

I have added procrastination to the list of skills I've mastered and, in a bid to impart this wisdom to my faithful readers, I am going to share with you what I've been doing this cold and drizzly Monday evening.

Today's post is about microwaving CDs but please, please, please do not try this at home (or do, but absolutely, definitely DO NOT hold me responsible. Not even a little bit.  Nada)

When you put a CD in the microwave for a few seconds (this is not a recipe...but no more than three seconds) the aluminium concentric circles are vaporised and you are left with this nifty little piece of art (right).

If you were to put a CD in the microwave, you would make sure that it was stood up against a glass and that you stopped the microwave when the CD started smoking.  Of course you know those fumes are very dangerous and shouldn't be inhaled.  But you won't try this at home so it doesn't matter.

The few seconds of arcs being created around the CD makes for a miniature electrical storm sparking away in your microwave (or your neighbours' if your flatmates are odd and don't own one).

You can watch this video at Powerlabs showing you what it looks like since you aren't going to do this at home.

When the little lightning party ends, one must be careful not to touch the CD right away (not You, no one's accusing You).  The CD can still be conducting currents for a few seconds after microwaves are present.

'How the heck does it work?', you may be wondering. Well, the thin layer of aliminium is vaporised by the microwaves and this vapour supports the flow of electricity.  With me so far?  Okay, well arcs form (like those from clouds to the ground - lightning), which continue to vaporise a trail along the circular tracks where data is stored.  This happens until the space between the tracks becomes too great to support an arc.  

...and what you are left with is seen below.  This is not one I did, my attempt (in safe laboratory conditions with all safety precautions taken) was pretty special but I couldn't get a decent photograph with my camera!

 Arianna Gianola, Princeton University gave it a good shot

So, the moral of the story is; if you're bored and have CDs from the 80s kicking around the house don't put them in the microwave*.  

*Unless you have a very well ventilated room, only put it in for 3 seconds, don't mind the prospect of your microwave exploding, wait very patiently once it's finished and take amazing pictures to share with me afterwards.  Then and ONLY THEN may you try this at home

An oldie but a goodie - The windows sounds remix

On the 8th of December 2007, a man under the pseudonym 'Robbi-985' posted a video to youtube that was to become a viral sensation.  Not because it showed a cute panda with a loud sneeze or a boy drugged on his way back from the dentist, nor was there a girl or cup in sight, no, this video went 'viral' because of Robbi-985's technical prowess and imagination.


The  video below is a song, or remix, made entirely of sounds from a windows PC, from the start-up sound to the error noise and every ding and ping in between.  He creates a smooth poppy techno beat that jumps to and from every octave and 'instrument' producing an almost soothing melody.  The video entitled 'Music using ONLY sounds from Windows XP and 98!' has almost 7 millions views and continues to amaze those that stumble across.  Go on.  press play.

The sound of the internet

The British Museum is a massive influence in bridging the scientist-layman chasm  and I can safely say that they are one of the greats piloting the runaway sci-art bandwagon.   It's Science Museum Arts Project "explores artists’ perspectives on the past, present and future of science and technology, creating new opportunities for encountering contemporary art".  Hurray!  Something to get stuck into, and if I didn't live 250 miles away, I'd be in there prometheus-like, notebook in hand, bringing you all the latest.  So, until I get a visit in the next month or so, I will have to just provide you with a tantalising snippet (for both you and I) of what the project has to offer.


The Listening Post, is one of it's central installations at the moment and is the brain child of Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin.  The Listening Post is a rhythm of computer-synthesised voices reading out real-time words and sentences being typed into chatrooms, bulletin boards and forums from all over the internet.  It does so in real time, sampling the fragments from unrestricted and unedited sources.  

Hansen and Rubin bring to you "Stray thoughts that resonate through the space in sound and voice as texts surge, flicker, appear and disappear, at varying sizes and speeds, across a suspended grid of over 200 small electronic screens. An ambient soundtrack accompanies the activity with isolated pulses reminiscent of computer modems, clatterings, footsteps and the beeping of mechanical answering machines. At intervals darkness and silence take over, creating momentary pauses before Listening Post continues with its next movement."

Other exhibits include 'Who Am I?' which explores the challenging area of biomedical science, covering major themes such as human identity, language, consciousness, genetics, sexuality and brain science.  A series of smaller exhibits are also scattered through the ground floor that communicate the ways in which the artist feels modern science has influenced them and the world around them.


It is exciting to see that an organisation as big and powerful as the National Museum of Science and Industry are not afraid to delve into the increasingly popular fusion of the two fundamentally disparate worlds of art and science to become a forerunner in the campaign to bring science to the nation through creative arts.
Watch this space for an in-depth review of the exhibits this summer!

The Art in Science

Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth
Pablo Picasso

There are hundreds of types of art; classical greek art, indian art, aborigine art, abstract art, impressionism, expressionism, realism, dadaism and a whole string of other -isms. Traditionally, as a culture, we teach our young to make the choice: Shakespeare or DNA, Rembrandt or fractional distillation, a Ming Dynasty vase or Einstein's Theory of Relativity. So claiming any kind of Art in Science seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it? But this seems to me a false dichotomy. Though one is the quest for truth and explanation and one the expression of individuality, artists have often chosen to take inspiration from scientific principles and have also unknowingly created structures present in science and nature: Be it music's fascination with mathematical patterns and beat; Rudolf Laban's choreography drawn from principles of geometry as the limbs trace lines along fundamental geometric shapes, or the way the pre-frontal cortical areas of the brain are titillated as you appreciate the aesthetics and respond emotionally to a classic Van Gogh; art and science are inexorably intertwined. Deal with it.

Science and writing, particularly, have a lot in common; the need for fresh ideas and attention to detail, a constant questioning and redeveloping of ideas and creating a complete understanding through commitment to a chosen route. I am interested in poetry and creating an understanding or questioning through creative expression, to take a step back from the raw details and mould it into something tangible and expressive. There is so much beauty in nature, I hope that, however naively, I can recreate and represent the fundamental, exquisite details of nature and science by sharing with you other peoples sci-art collaborations.

Welcome to the beautiful world of Science.