Whoever said that you can't learn anything useful from TV? A Harvard research team, headed by Jeff Lichtman, has duplicated the way that a television monitor uses varying amounts of just three colors (red, blue, green) to produce a huge array of resultant hues. They have applied this technique in the brain using fluorescent cyan, yellow, and red pigments--varying amounts of which can produce 90 possible color combinations to label individual neurons. Through genetic recombination, pigment-expressing genes are inserted into the genomes of developing mice. The result is the "Brainbow" mouse, whose individual neurons express the three pigments in a random pattern making it quite useful for tracing and visualizing them in later experiments.
These images, in addition to being scientifically informative, are also incredibly beautiful aesthetically. One thing that I am extremely interested in is the intersection and overlapping goals of art and science. A couple weeks ago I attended a workshop series called "Arts and Minds" led by Pulitzer prize-winning author Natalie Angier. The goal of this workshop was to bring scientists, poets, designers, artists, and students together for discussions about how the arts and sciences impact each other. For example, in one exercise, several people's galvanic skin response was measured and displayed on a huge screen, as the entire audience listened to music. During musical pieces that had high emotional content to the listener being recorded, their skin response went crazy. This tipped off discussions as to auditory processing, how bonds were formed with music, and even picking apart the methods of the skin response apparatus.
It was amazing, and made me realize how the compartmentalization of art and science is a rather arbitrary one. Ages ago, educated people were often artists AND scientists (like Leonardo di Vinci) and the pursuit of knowledge and fact fed into their desire to understand aesthetic beauty and the creative process. I later found out that there are small grants that are available to extend the goals of Arts and Minds, if someone wanted to take the trouble to write a short proposal. So, thats just what I'm doing. The proposal's goal is to create an interdisciplinary writing workshop between MFA students and grad students in the sciences, led under the auspices of an experienced writing teacher. There's actually a similar initiative, on a larger scale, taking place at the Liverpool Centre for Poetry and Science. Their website is chock full of poems and essays merging science and the arts, which is exactly the type of result I'd like this proposal to have.
Reference: Livet et al. 2007. Transgenic strategies for combinatorial expression of fluorescent proteins in the nervous system. Nature. Nov 1. doi:10.1038/nature06293
Email this entry to a friend
View the Technorati Link Cosmos for this entry
Comments
Speaking of poetry and science, I recently discovered Digital Cuttlefish. Well worth a read, IMHO.
Posted by: Rev. Dr. Incitatus | November 12, 2007 2:38 PM
A rich and interesting post, Shelley. Science and art need to intersect more. It's one of the things I enjoy about SEED magazine.
Art and science can sometimes be touchy together. On the one hand, you can end up with kitschy science-centre experiments, spinning paint colours to make white, for instance. On the other, you can end up with artists 'referencing' (mimicking) scientific systems without full understanding of what they are creating.
The picture above reminds me of the song by the dj Prodigy, Claustrophobic Sting: "my mind is glowing".
Posted by: The Flying Trilobite | November 12, 2007 8:19 PM
I've often thought of the best scientists as creative artists in their own way. Einstein was (maybe not coincidentally) also an accomplished musician, and so was Planck. And Pasteur showed early promise in painting. The practice of art is the best way I know of developing problem-solving and intuitive skills that can be applied to almost any other discipline, but especially scientific investigation.
By the way, Natalie Angiers wrote a beautiful piece in the New York Times magazine several years ago called Confessions of a Lonely Atheist. She's been one of my heroes ever since. How I would have loved to be at that workshop series!
Posted by: John P. Baumlin | November 12, 2007 8:32 PM
Oops, that "s" slipped in at the end of Natalie Angier's name...it's Angier, without an "s".
Posted by: John P. Baumlin | November 13, 2007 7:28 AM
If you're interested in the intersection of science and art, you might check out the monthly column written by Maura Flannery in "American Biology Teacher." She frequently writes on this topic - most recently in the May issue.
Posted by: yukon slim | November 13, 2007 10:34 AM
My galvanic skin response went crazy when I saw your picture- you are HOT!!
Posted by: DK | November 13, 2007 11:36 AM
Did you see Lichtman's posters at SFN? I remember seeing similar work in DC two years ago (although these newer lines are far more interesting), and I walked by one of his posters in San Diego, but with the pretty pictures, they're always about 6 deep.
The "pretty" seems to overwhelm the functional right now, but since this will essentially be a Cre-mediated system, this should be extremely useful to anyone with the right Cre mouse and a $200k-500k confocal/two photon imaging system..
Posted by: Crusty Dem | November 13, 2007 12:40 PM
"Ages ago, educated people were often artists AND scientists (like Leonardo di Vinci) and the pursuit of knowledge and fact fed into their desire to understand aesthetic beauty and the creative process."
Very well said!
Posted by: bioephemera | November 13, 2007 6:49 PM
Wired Magazine has an Interview with a former neuroscience lab drone
entitled "Q&A: Rhodes Scholar Jonah Lehrer on Art for Science�s Sake"
"Artists have something to teach researchers. In his new book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist, Lehrer argues that many artists have foretold the scientific future � Proust revealed the inaccuracy of memory, chef Auguste Escoffier anticipated the fifth taste sensation we now call umami, and post-impressionist Paul C�zanne proved that the brain fills in what a painting doesn't show."
a little food for thought
Posted by: Kevin | November 13, 2007 9:44 PM
He's a blogger here, at The Frontal Cortex, and he's sending me his book to review. Can't wait! ;)
Posted by: Shelley Batts | November 13, 2007 9:54 PM
I thought the name was familiar!!
Posted by: Kevin | November 13, 2007 10:39 PM
Although it wouldn't be of any good scientifically, I would like to see this happen in mouse skin. Just to see how random activation of pigments in the skin can create wacky patterns. Imagine a tie-dye mouse! Then make it glow in the dark!
This really does bring up new frontiers for art through science. Lets just hope that artists don't begin to create transgenic animals purely for artistic purposes. Although there might be some interesting results from such endeavors.
Posted by: Nathaniel | November 14, 2007 12:49 AM
Hey, if you're interested, I'm an fMRI researcher who has written a series of posts about the intersection of neuroscience and art...
find them here: thethirdculture.wordpress.com
Posted by: jb | November 14, 2007 4:37 PM