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.

 

The Art in Science favourite sciart hangouts

My 10 fave sciart hangouts (in no particular order). This list is by no means exhaustive - feel free to share your faves in the comments. 


Street Anatomy
One of my favourite blogs for study-procrastination. It features prints, sculptures, street art, sketches and just about every other art form, all inspired by the field of anatomy. Full of awesome images.

BioEmphemera
'Robot Art, Algorithmic and Procedural Art, Computational Aesthetics, Glitch Aesthetics, Vj’ing, Video Art, Computational Archaeology and similar subjects'...go check it out for yourself!

Is this bioart?
A blog that asks the question 'Is this bioart?' through biology-inspired works of art. A good read despite coming away still not really knowing what is bioart... but that's part of the charm.

Symbiartic
 A blog by Glendon Mellow, fine artist and illustrator, and Kalliopi Monoyios, scientific illustrator - two successful sciartists in their field who, I would go so far as to say, are a real authority on science-art.

Astro Wheels on Twitter
Astro_Wheels is the twitter feed of NASA astronaut Douglas H. Wheelcock who tweets pictures from a laboratory in space that is orbiting the earth. Rare and mesmerizing views.

Nikon Small World
A Treasure trove of photomicrography and electron photography - thousands of amazing images from previous photomicrography competions providing views of world that we rarely get to see.

Microbial Art
An intriguing collection of unique artworks created using living bacteria, fungi, and protists using a wide variety of taxa and techniques.

Artologica on Etsy 
Art by Michelle Banks on Etsy - she mostly uses watercolour to create impressions of veins, cells, neurons, petric dishes and the like.

Melanie K
Sciart works that inspire blogger and MA Art and Science student, Melanie K. (I was very excited to hear that this masters is available! - she is studying at at Central St Martins in the UK)

Information is Beautiful
A popular website full of pretty, design-y visualisations of vast amounts of data - presenting the headache of statistics in easy-to-chew chunks.

The Art in Science has a new look

Hi there readers,

Whilst I don't often address you directly, for I rarely find the occasion, today is different.  If you haven't noticed already, The Art in Science has had a makeover and I am pleased to share it with you. I felt it was time, like a snake shedding it's skin to allow for growth (and to remove old parasites but that part of the analogy doesn't apply), to give the blog a new lease of life. I wanted to move to a simpler, cleaner, yet brighter look and feel for the blog and so have spent the last few days working on a new logo and palette.

I would welcome your feedback - this is a work in progress and there are many tweaks yet to be made. Howeveer, I would be grateful to hear all kinds of criticism you got for me - be it constructive of otherwise (sometimes it's good to just let it all out) - and of course any squeals of joy at how excited the new-look blog has gotten you.

Cheers m'dears,

Kim

The intricacies of life: animating the cell

Drew Berry, a biomedical animator, is helping researchers and laymen alike to see the unseeable. We have no ways to directly observe molecules and what they do but at TEDxSydney Berry shows his scientifically accurate and aesthitcally rich animations that are helping researchers to visualise and further understand the unseeable processes within our own cells.

 

ps. If you are not familiar with TED.com it is time you were. Their tag line is "Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world" and that is exactly what they are. Focusing on science, technology, arts and business. Go explore >>

Sick: Candice Coust's knitted anatomy

Candace Coust is a Calgary-based mixed-media artist whose recent work has involved knitting anatomical works including full bodies, pulled apart at the threads and this stop-motion video of a faciful voyage through our mysterious innards.

Candice describes Sick as 'a fanciful, endoscopic journey through the knitted body that is violently disrupted by the discovery of a malignant malady'.