I’ve had to put BioE on hiatus a few times over the past few years anyway, as my career moves in a different direction, and the odds are that my posts will be infrequent in the future. So it’s as good a time to leave as any.

You can find me in the future at bioephemera.com – BioE’s original home. I don’t know what will happen to my archive of posts here; I’d prefer they remain in place so as not to disturb the vast network of permalinks on the interwebz, but I don’t control that. If they are deleted, I’ll try to archive them elsewhere.

I hope it goes without saying that I wish success to Scienceblogs and the remaining staff and bloggers. I would like to thank them for providing BioE with a great community for three years.

I would also like to thank all of my readers/peers/commenters/content-finders who kept this great conversation going. Remember what Dorothy Parker said: “The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”

Be curious, be fearless, and be well, my friends.

A few months ago I got an email from Zachtronics, creators of the Codex of Alchemical Engineering, about the new indie game called SpaceChem. It was billed as “an obscenely addictive, design-based puzzle game about building machines and fighting monsters in the name of science.” What’s not to love?

Here’s a preview. . .

Science!

Game reviewer Quintin Smith loved it:

SpaceChem is a game where you build fabulous contraptions. It’s about getting stuck into a massive puzzle, laughing at the optimism of what’s expected of you, and then finally applying what might be the finishing touch to your engine and cheering as it works. There’s even a strange element of not simply feeling like a gamer, but a scientist. You’re constantly having these little ‘Eureka!’ moments and folding them into a level to make for a more efficient machine.

Zachtronics offered me a review copy, but I’m not really a gamer. (I always have a sneaking suspicion that I could be using my time more productively, by, say. . . blogging.) Anyway, I had my resident video game expert (my boyfriend) play the game for me and report back. His review was a little mixed.

Let’s be clear: SpaceChem is not going to teach you actual chemistry. The creators admit the game is about “fake chemistry”. While you are ostensibly synthesizing molecules, you do it by assembling complex “reactors” – circuits of “bonders,” which are widgets that add and subtract atoms. (Imagine them as a serious of standardized processing vats in a futuristic chemical plant.) Each “research project” requires that you make one or more molecule endproducts from some precursors; determining the right proportions to use involved a little stoichiometry, but nothing complex. It’s more of a logic puzzle than real science. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

Zachtronics says, “the most important thing this game teaches is how to think like a programmer. Each puzzle consists of two “threads” that operate simultaneously, requiring players to explore and master concepts like in-order execution, branching, synchronization primitives, and subroutines in an organic and comprehensible environment.” That’s pretty cool, right? But my boyfriend’s main complaint was that after a while, it became repetitive. As he put it, “there are lots of complications, but you’re always moving everything in a linear path.” There was only one kind of task to focus on at a time, and he found it almost impossible to pick up again when he left off in the middle of a two-three hour puzzle. Since you’re striving for either speed or efficiency, this annoyed him, and he gave up.

However, this was after he played SpaceChem for several days, so he got a fair bit of use out of it (various players online say it took 50-150 hours to finish the game). I can testify that his initial reaction to the game was quite warm, until he figured out how it worked. Plus, when I prodded him to give me a highlight, he conceded that “the best one was the giant octopus where you had to create a nuclear missile.” Say what?

Interested? You can read more about it here, or or download a free demo of SpaceChem here. Or you can just buy the game, for $5 less than these awesome shirts. Seriously – I’m not a gamer, but I love the shirts.

Check out this great slideshow of fascinating advertising novelties from 1911, over at Scientific American.

Second: pseudonymity is not the same thing as anonymity. See here, here, here, etc. While many of us – including pseudonymous bloggers! – have been concerned for years about the internet facilitating incivility and anonymous hate speech, Scienceblogs’ new policy suggests that pseudonymous speakers are equally unaccountable/problematic. That’s simply not true. An established, stable pseudonym is an identity – an identity that, like an author’s nom de plume, can earn a reputation and credibility. I know most of our pseudonymous bloggers’ real identities. I met several of them in person. But that’s ultimately irrelevant to their legitimacy as bloggers. They earned my respect not by showing me their faces, but by maintaining a consistent voice, by posting reliable information, and by replying to critics and engaging in debate. Anonymous trolls don’t do those things.

Third: the policy (along with other policies recently instituted) reflects a traditional media framing – one in which content generators speak on behalf of a corporate entity. I did not come to Scienceblogs to speak on behalf of Scienceblogs. I came here with the understanding that I would have full creative control and autonomy. I am sure the pseudonymous bloggers felt the same. Like most bloggers here, I was bringing over an established blog, but if I had not been established – if I’d wanted to call myself J-Paw, use a LOLcat as my avatar, and write entirely in limericks – I could have done that as a blogger here, even though I certainly could not have done it as a SEED columnist. That’s because being the proprietor of an independently created blog and writing on behalf of a media outlet have been (and should be) understood to be different things. I understand that a media organization has valid reasons to eschew pseudonymous spokesmen. But I’m not here to be a spokesman (obviously I wouldn’t be writing this post if I were), and neither were the pseudonymous bloggers. Why treat them as if their pseudonymity somehow impugns the sacred National Geographic name?

Fourth: there are legitimate reasons to be pseudonymous. Privacy and safety spring immediately to mind. Given the history of real-world violence against animal researchers and abortion providers, are we surprised that bloggers covering those topics may not want to share their personal information? Are we surprised that bloggers wish to avoid harassment, or to keep their personal lives separate from their blogging? Suppose a female scientist decides to blog under a gender-neutral name because she wants to focus attention on her writing, not her attractiveness. Suppose a blogger wants to discuss controversial topics (on his own time) without fearing his employer will retaliate. Suppose a blogger simply likes the creative freedom of establishing a pseudonymous identity – who gets to say these are not valid reasons to blog pseudonymously? Although one might want to avoid accumulating too many personas, it’s up to the individual blogger to define the terms under which they feel comfortable and safe expressing themselves. As Orac explains,

Orac’s “real” identity is more or less an open secret among some parts of the blogosphere, but he nonetheless keeps using the Orac pseudonym because (1) he doesn’t want his blog to be the first thing that comes up when patients Google his “real” name; (2) he has a long history on the Internet under this particular pseudonym; and (3) he likes the persona that the “Orac” pseudonym allows him to take on. Indeed, even if Orac ever decides to ditch the whole anonymity thing, he will likely retain the pseudonym and simply place a link to his faculty page somewhere on the blog.

Most people have overlapping, but nonidentical, personal and professional aspects. We nurture our creative selves by blogging, while we nurture our professional selves by working and publishing scholarship, and we maintain our sanity by having private moments with loved ones. That Google+, Facebook, and other online behemoths want us to collapse all of our different aspects onto unitary, nonpseudonymous online identities has less to do with the way we naturally interact with one another and more to do with corporate monetization of online activity. I like what Isis said:

I’ve always considered being Dr. Isis like being Dr. Seuss. Taking this name for this purpose doesn’t change the things I say (or don’t say), or the fact that many who know me as Dr. Isis are also familiar with my scientific work, but it does allow me to carefully partition my lives. It lets me choose when to focus on science and when to focus on this place and gives me the power to prevent each from distracting the other.

And as Lindsay Beyerstein observed five years ago,

I know people who are pseudonymous because their writing could get them fired, or because they’re afraid that their political opinions might bring down the wrath of the current administration, or because they want to discuss very personal subjects without implicating themselves or their loved ones. If it weren’t for pseudonyms, these people wouldn’t be part of the discussion, and the blogosphere would be much poorer for it.

Let’s not even get into the long history of pseudonymous political expression in our country. Hat-tip to Ben Franklin.

Finally: I really hope this goes without saying, but credibility and authority are not automatically conferred by a name, degree, or title. I’m more likely to trust a pseudonymous source who year after year publishes reliable information that consistently checks out, than an editorial by John Doe, Ph.D. I may know John Doe’s name, but I know nothing else about him except what I can find on Google. How does that help me evaluate his authority as an author?

Equating credibility with a real name is especially galling in the realm of science blogging, because most posts on scientific topics are exhaustively sourced with links to the original sources/literature (unlike traditional science journalism). This makes it straightforward to fact-check, and the more voices you have in the blogosphere, the more checking there is. Credibility in science is the product of ongoing discourse and independent verification over time, and credibility online is likewise the product of discourse and verification over time (Orac’s “long history on the internet”). At least that’s how you should assess credibility, if you’re a critical reader. Pseudonymous science bloggers can, and do, acquire reputational authority – but that authority is based on their work, not their names. (In a rare sanitized moment, Physioprof described it as “a reserve of credibility and expertise with an extensive audience based solely on the reliability and excellence of [the blogger's] writing.”) Isn’t that good?

I once put it this way:

I assess sincerity, credibility and good faith online by an integration process – watching what people say and how they say it over a very long time, under real names or blog handles. I respect them based on their words, not their IRL achievements; I don’t even need to know who they are or what they do IRL.

And Janet put a cautionary spin on it:

The readers of a pseudonymous blog are responsible for knowing that they are unable to assess the biases of the blogger. The blogger could be anyone — someone sharing honest observations, or someone bent on manipulating readers by all manner of dishonest means. That, sometimes, is the price of protecting privacy — the privacy you’re protecting can undercut your credibility. The burden is on the readers to be critical consumers of information.

No critic of pseudonymity has ever explained to my satisfaction exactly what the big downside is of pseudonymous blogs. As I discussed above, pseudonymity is not anonymity; the two are separate issues. If you object to pseudonymity on principle, then it’s certainly your prerogative to discount pseudonymous writers’ words. If people don’t have the time to follow a specific blogger’s work, fact-check, think critically, and develop their own assessment of the writer’s biases (something which everyone should do prior to trusting any columnist, whether on a blog or at the New York Times) then there’s a simple solution: don’t read pseudonymous blogs. The ones here at Scienceblogs, at least, are pretty easy to spot: it’s blindingly obvious that “Drugmonkey” is a pseudonym, isn’t it?

There are plenty of non-pseudonymous speakers that I distrust, that I find offensive or inflammatory, that I wish would shut the heck up. Yet each voice contributes something to a marketplace of ideas. The Supreme Court has explained that protecting anonymity is important because it induces authors to speak who otherwise wouldn’t. We tolerate the worst to protect the best.

The pseudonymous bloggers who used to write at Scienceblogs are among the best. Drugmonkey’s critiques of NIH policy and guidance to young researchers navigating the grant system have been invaluable. Physioprof does similar work, (though with a different, er, style). Isis‘ humorous posts bring attention to sensitive issues of gender equity, but perhaps even more importantly, candidly mentor young women aspiring to science careers. Scicurious tirelessly transforms dense neuroscience papers to plain English. Mike the Mad Biologist is the modern-day incarnation of a classic political commentator: genuinely outraged but never incoherent. Orac – who is still here at least for the moment – critiques medical “journalism” and debunks rampant inaccuracies.

These are writers I want to read. I don’t care what their “real” names are.

This video from Xperia Studio very effectively conveys how data visualization can both leverage and challenge our conceptions of “reality.” The night sky we’ve seen since childhood, like everything else we see, is just a tiny slice of the spectrum – only what we can perceive with our limited physiology. An app that lets us “see” otherwise invisible wavelengths is not merely a prosthesis that cleverly enhances our sensory perceptions, it’s a tool to expand our worldview, by reminding us that what we see is only a limited subset of the whole: we could as easily see quite a different world, and quite a different night sky.

Full disclosure: I’m mad that I can’t get this app for my iPhone! But if you’re an Android user, you can try the free Invisible Universe app here.

If you can’t get the app, you can still enjoy the video, which is really very pretty in the best “science-is-awesome” sense. Josh Peek nicely captures the addictive nature of research: “probably every six months or so, I get the sort of hair-standing-on end thrill of knowing something new about the universe that nobody else knows yet.” Yes, I remember that feeling . . . except the things I discovered involved screwed-up mutant fruit fly neurons – not quite so awesome as galaxies and cosmic radiation and freaky supernovae. But I digress – how deliciously steampunky is that observatory wheel apparatus? And watch for the Darwin fish cameo!

From Xperia Studio.

Kate MacDowell sculpts partially dissected frogs, decaying bodies with exposed skeletons, and viscera invaded by tentacles or ants. It’s the imagery of nightmares, death metal music videos, or that tunnel scene in the original Willy Wonka (not a speck of light is showing, so the danger must be growing. . . ). But her medium – minimalist, translucent white porcelain – renders her viscerally disturbing subject matter graceful, even elegant. Some of her pieces, like Sparrow, below, play off the porcelain’s resemblance to delicate bleached bone. In others, the permanence of the porcelain generates tension with the ephemeral forms it depicts – like insects, leaves, and flowers.

Sparrow, 2008
hand built porcelain, cone 6 glaze

MacDowell’s work explores how the “romantic ideal of union with the natural world conflicts with our contemporary impact on the environment.” In Sparrow, the chimera of a human skeleton inside a broken bird-body has an apparently clear message: what we do to our world, we do to ourselves. We are biologically and ecologically interrelated. But in other pieces, like the installation Quiet as a Mouse, the message is not so clear.

Quiet as a Mouse, 2011
hand built porcelain, cone 6 glaze

MacDowell explains that this sculpture

is based on images of the Vacanti mouse which became an online visual meme and sparked heated discussion about genetic engineering, animal testing and various related ideas, often based on a misunderstanding of the image that was further distorted by the online game of telephone (for example, human genetic material was not used in the experiment, the “ear” was a synthetic construct).

Though the ear-mouse is at first glance a real-world embodiment of MacDowell’s human-animal chimeras, that’s only the (incorrect) interpretation the public readily placed on it. Yes, it was a mouse with a genetically compromised immune system, but it was not genetically engineered to grow a human ear, nor were human cells used in the ear. Rather, it carried the illusion of a human ear – a proof of concept, a biomedical tool intended to eventually transform our own bodies. Thinking about how the ear-mouse was misunderstood/understood by the public prompts us to consider where our own first reactions to MacDowell’s other artworks are justified, or if we need to look again.

Kate MacDowell graciously agreed to answer a few questions about how she uses anatomical and biological imagery in her work; her answers (and more of her work) are below the fold.


Solastalgia, 2010
hand built porcelain, cone 6 glaze

BioE: I’d love to share with my readers how you first became inspired to incorporate such a broad swath of anatomical imagery into your work. I see from your resume that you are not a biologist by training; how did you develop your eye for anatomical accuracy – dissections, study from specimens, etc.?

K MacD: Most of it is from observation and having sketched from life since I was a teenager. That made the transition into sculpting natural forms much easier. I have taken a figure sculpting class that focused on the human body – skeletal systems and muscle groups, and what I generally do when sculpting an animal is to go online to google images and collect source pictures of the forms I’m going to be sculpting, from as many angles as possible. I also do a little reading about the environmental issue or case study I’m exploring in order to understand it more deeply.

Idea, 2007
hand built porcelain

K MacD: I make sure to find scientific drawings as well as both professional and snapshot photographs. Diagrams of skeletal systems are especially good for figuring out proportions, because they are the framework that I can then build the muscle/fat/fur around. I really haven’t done any dissections or taken post-high school biology classes. Occasionally I will have an actual animal skull to study, or a trout I can buy at the supermarket or something, and plants are fairly easy to substitute for one another (when taking impressions of leaf veins, for example). I also have a lot of plastic miniature animal toys that help with basic proportions in 3d.

Venus, 2006
hand built porcelain, cone 6 glazes, acrylic gel, halogen light, wiring

BioE: To what extent do you think your chosen medium mitigates (or dilutes) the instinctive distaste many people have for cadavers/exposed viscera, and how do you use that in your work?

K MacD: I purposely like to use the conflict caused by the pairing of beauty with the macabre or grotesque in my work to evoke an (often conflicted) emotional response so that viewers will spend more time with the piece. By making the pieces out of delicate white porcelain, with a classical/baroque style more often seen in marble sculpture it does invite people closer to spend more time studying the forms and textures without being instinctively turned off by lots of slippery red meat. Often they miss the darker messages until this closer inspection. I like that there is sometimes a bit of a time lag in responses to my work, then lot’s of “ewws” and some smiles and laughs.

Canary, 2008
hand built porcelain, wooden wall pedestal, compact fluorescent lights, wiring

Kate’s Quiet as a Mouse installation will be on view in the “Night Blooming Stock” group exhibition at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, opening Sept. 14th. You can also see her work on the cover of Erasure’s new album “Tomorrow’s World”, designed by Tom Hingston, as well as on their single covers – Hingston colorized her white sculptures to interesting effect (here’s a fan-made video juxtaposing the single cover with the original Solastalgia).

Kate MacDowell is represented in the US by Mindy Solomon Gallery and Patrajdas Contemporary Art.

All artworks reproduced here with Kate MacDowell’s permission. If you would like to buy or use one of these pieces, please contact her directly.

Last week, I had my long-awaited vacation semi-ruined when, thanks to Hurricane Irene, my flight back from the West Coast was cancelled. I had to rent a car and drive across the country in a rush – not my favorite way to spend three and a half days. But based on what I saw passing through New York, and what I’ve heard about the damage in Vermont, I can’t complain: flooding has overturned homes, isolated entire towns, and destroyed everything some families own.

Vermonters are a notoriously self-sufficient bunch, and I haven’t seen that much publicity for disaster relief, so I asked my friend — a native Vermonter who drove home a few days ago to help clean up and deliver supplies — what I should do. These were some of her suggestions for simple ways to give:

United Way of Chittenden County: donate via Vermont211.org (there’s a “donate” button on the left sidebar, it goes through PayPal)

Vermont Foodbank: Donate $10 to the Vermont Foodbank to pay for food that will go to food banks in communities most impacted by Irene. Text the word FOODNOW to 52000 to make a $10 donation that will show up on your next cellphone bill (this was even easier than PayPal!)

Vermont Farm Disaster Relief Fund (accepts PayPal – click on the pink box “give now” – or check)

Vermont Irene Flood Relief Fund: raising money for flood relief for small Vermont businesses (click on “donate” in the top bar for PayPal and other options)

I know for many of us, money is tight (you would not believe what it costs to rent a car one way cross-country), but do consider giving something if you can spare it.

Etsy seller bullseyebeads makes glass acorns and tops them with real acorn caps. I think they’re adorable.

I used to have a beautiful gold Japanese folding screen, which was purchased by my great-grandmother’s feisty sister on a trip in the 1920s. I loved the gold patina and the surprisingly modern impact it had on my wall. At the moment, it’s loaned to a friend, but looking at Greg Dunn’s artwork, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the best aspects of my screen: the gold leaf, crisp black patterns, and way that the scene seemed half natural, half abstract.

The biggest twist Greg, a 6th year graduate student in neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania, places on the screenpainting tradition? He paints neurons, as well as trees and branches. Often it’s hard to tell Greg’s neurons from other natural features: his cortical neurons look like delicate spring branches, and his retinal neurons are reminiscent of rosehips. At a first glance, could you tell if his Hippocampus, below, was a slice of stained brain or a quarter of a dandelion?

Hippocampus (detail)
18 x 24, 2008
Greg Dunn

The UCSD Neuroscience department commissioned a series of Greg’s paintings depicting hippocampus, retina, cortex, and Purkinje neurons. The collection is just stunning, and although you can’t purchase the originals, you can get large (16×16) prints for just over $120. I want!

UCSD Hippocampus II
42 x 42, 2010
Greg Dunn

Greg, a self-taught artist, will finish his PhD soon; he plans to make art an integral part of his career. I wish him much well-deserved success (and hope he doesn’t run out of prints before I can buy mine.) Note that he will consider commissions, so if you want to get a particular kind of neuron as a unique gift for a researcher, neurologist, or graduate student, you should contact him and ask.

More: buy prints of Greg Dunn’s neuron paintings
A review of Dunn’s exhibition “Neurons and Nature”