From: 3 Essential Qualities Up-and-coming Science Writers Should Develop by Khalil A. Cassimally at The SA Incubator.

Source: Leonid Pasternak, archived at Wikimedia Commons.

At first, we thought this was an artist’s depiction of Scientific American bloggers sitting down to pen the latest in cutting-edge science commentary. We imagine we look like this, after all. But the painting is instead Leonid Pasternak’s late 19th century “Throes of Creation.” Pasternak was a post-impressionist Russian painter known for illustrating Tolstoy’s novels.

From: Ahhh, Music To My… Eyes? by Kalliopi Monoyios at Symbiartic.

Source: Martin Klimas

Most people who have heard of synesthesia have wondered what it would feel like for specific colours to evoke a scent, for sounds to evoke a touch. On Symbiartic, Kalliopi Monoyios features the sonic sculptures of Martin Klimas, perhaps the closest we can come to feeling synesthesia. Klimas creates works of complex and rich colour by placing paint on a surface stretched over speakers and amping the volume, and visually capturing the intricate results. Pictured here is Miles’ Davis’ Pharaoh’s Dance. Follow the link to see more – fans of Massive Attack and Pink Floyd won’t be disappointed.

From: Wonderful Things: Desmids, Microscopic Plants of Unusual Beauty and Oddball Behavior and Desmids at High Res, and a Slight Technical Glitch by Jennifer Frazer at The Artful Amoeba.

Sources: clockwise from top left:
Micrasterias radiata (credit)
Closterium sp. (courtesy of Psi Wavefunction at The Ocelloid)
Staurastrum (credit)
Euastrum bidentatum (credit)

Desmids are a microscopic single-celled green algae that look more like an intricate snowflake than anything we immediately think of when we conjure an image of a plant. Sharing the presence of chlorophyll, chloroplasts, and cell walls made of cellulose, desmids are considered to be some of the earliest-evolved plants. But as Jennifer Frazer at The Artful Amoeba points out, they have some other weird and wonderful traits. Watch the surprising ways in which they reproduce asexually, watch them move without the use of flagella (the mechanics of which have yet to be understood), or get a sense of how tiny they actually are in a photograph of an amoeba engulfing a desmid destined to become lunch. These photographs are the first in a series of “Wonderful Things” to be highlighted at Frazer’s The Artful Amoeba.

From: A Brief History of Mental Illness in Art by Ferris Jabr at Brainwaves.

Source: Extraction of the Stone of Folly by Hieronymus Bosch circa 1488 – 1516 (www.rijksmuseum.nl, via Wikimedia Commons)

Before mental illness was at all understood, in the Middle Ages people blamed mental problems on a “stone” inside their body, usually in the skull. This painting shows a man asking a surgeon to remove this troublesome stone. Surely the ensuing infection after such a medical procedure wouldn’t have helped the patient’s mental state much.

NOTE: This was a very difficult week to choose the Image. Apart from several other great images in Ferris’ post, there were also other posts chockful of interesting art, e.g., The Art and Science of the Diagram: Communicating the Knowledge of the Heavens, the Earth and the Arcane, Final Part by Clarissa Ai Ling Lee, and Protist-y art continued: the protist zodiac by Psi Wavefunction – check both of those posts out as well.

From: Why Barns Are Red, and More – The Countdown, Episode 22 by Eric R. Olson, Sophie Bushwick and Oliver S. Wharton at The Countdown.

Source: Rob Shenk/Flickr

Why are barns red? If you’re looking for a quick, earthly explanation, the low cost of red paint certainly fits the bill. But Eric Olson at The Countdown has a surprisingly different and much deeper explanation, one that connects us to the furthest reaches of the cosmos and the death of a star. It’s a reminder that even the most pedestrian of human activities can be linked to larger processes in the universe; uncovering these deep connections is just a matter of asking the right questions.

From: Slippin’ and Slidin’ – Guest Post by Michele Banks at Symbiartic.

Source: Michele Banks at Etsy.

Is this slime mold? Intestinal microvilli? A coral reef?

Science artist Michele Banks created this mesmerizing pattern while experimenting with ink and water on a mylar surface, noting a resemblance to a ciliate protist. Her experiment is all and none of these things. As in the best of abstract art, the image leaves the the viewer to her own interpretation.

From: Illusion of the Week: Delicious Portrait by Susana Martinez-Conde and Stephen L. Macknik at Illusion Chasers.

Source: René Redzepi, via Jorge Otero-Millan

All photographs are an illusion, creating the idea of three-dimensional space on a flat plane. Our brains read areas of light and dark as highlights and shadows on objects, using our knowledge of the world to make sense of what we are seeing. We do this as effortlessly as we breathe. But this photograph of dishes from the world famous restaurant Noma is a particularly clever reminder that our brains are programmed to look for meaning as we take visual cues to make sense of our world. Light and dark objects are arranged so that from the perspective of the camera, they form the portrait of Noma’s chef, René Redzepi. You can see a video of the making of this remarkable image at Illusion Chasers

From: Animal culture: insights from whales by Felicity Muth at Not bad science.

Source: Jennifer Allen from Whale Centre of New England

New research shows that feeding strategies may be culturally transmitted among humpback whales. A novel form of hunting called “lobtail feeding” involves a whale slapping its tail hard on the water’s surface before engaging in “bubble feeding,” in which the whale blows bubbles around prey to act as a confusing net before it charges the group of fish with mouth wide open. The new “lobtail feeding” style was first observed in 1980 and its proliferation throughout the population has since been tracked by researchers, showing evidence of the whales learning new behaviors from each other, although the exact advantage of “lobtail feeding” is not yet understood.

From: It Is in Our Nature to Be Self-Deficient by Jag Bhalla at the Guest Blog.

Source: Cartoon by The New Yorker Cartoonist Julia Suits.

Mushroom men spring forth from the earth fully formed and ready for battle, entirely self-sufficient entities that never knew dependency of any sort. This is the image conjured by a classic Hobbesian thought experiment that author Jag Bhalla cites in his post, “Is it in Our Nature to be Self-Deficient?” The metaphor suits his argument particularly well since mushrooms are the fruit of sometimes vast networks of fungi that exist unseen and (perhaps) under-appreciated. We celebrate individualism in our society, but is it possible to be truly self-sufficient? Biology suggests not.

From: Roland: Children’s Group Home to Drugs to Jail … Now What? by Cassie Rodenberg at The White Noise.

Source: Roland in the squat by Chris Arnade

For several months now, Cassie Rodenberg has been chronicling the lives of people with addictions living in Hunts Point, Bronx. In telling their stories, Rodenberg’s tremendous writing has been equalled by photography by Chris Arnade. Roland in the squat is an apt example of how Arnade’s imagery gives us a glimpse of people living with struggles that can be hard to imagine from the outside. Roland’s face, lit in chiaroscuro by his lighter seems to echo the statement, “I have potential but I don’t know how to use it,” that Roland relates about his life, and his chances without treatment after jail time. The distance through the drywall is not so far.

From: Sea hares thwart spiny lobster attack with goo by Becky Crew at Running Ponies.

Source: Genevieve Anderson

A sea hare secretes purple ink to confuse and repel nearby predators. New research shows that these secretions also mimic the stimulatory properties of food, giving would-be predators a decoy meal to pursue, thereby adding another layer of defense for these squishy molluscs.

From: This Is The Best Animal Photo I Have Ever Taken by Jason G. Goldman at The Thoughtful Animal.

Source: Jason G. Goldman

Jason Goldman, of The Thoughtful Animal, recently captured a photograph worthy of his blog’s title. The animal, a female Bonobo at the San Diego zoo, gazes inquisitively at the photographer with ambiguous emotions. As is characteristic of powerful portraits, the subject is clear but the viewer is given latitude for personal interpretation of the animal’s intentions.

From: You’ve never really seen a virus until you see this by Kalliopi Monoyios at Symbiartic.

Source: Luke Jerram

With the precision and deadly beauty of a mushroom cloud, Luke Jerram’s glass sculpture of HIV evokes both horror and the feeling of appreciating something for aesthetic geometry alone. This is sculpture far beyond geometric minimalism or post-modern material-play: Jerram has us gaze at the beast in stunning clarity, in a medium chosen in part by the artist’s color-blindness. In an interview with Symbiartic’s Kalliopi Monoyios, Luke Jerram shares a letter about this sculpture from a person with HIV, and it too is beautiful and chilling. Check out Monoyios’s interview You’ve never really seen a virus until you see this, follow the artist on Twitter @lukejerram and check out the rest of his links and shop for more compelling sculptures based on graphs, the wind and viruses.

From: CDC’s “Resistance Nightmare:” A View from the Trenches by Judy Stone at Molecules to Medicine.

Source: CDC, on Wikipedia Commons

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could change your hair color on the genetic level by simply bumping into the blonde of your choice on the subway? It may sound absurd, but bacteria can do just that in a process called conjugation. By sidling up to another bacterium, one cell that has developed a handy trait, say, antibiotic resistance, can pass the gene that’s responsible to its neighbor. It’s this very trait that is raising alarms nationwide as the emergence of a new family of antibiotic-resistant bacteria known as CREs gains a foothold in our hospitals and raises the possibility of spreading an antibiotic-resistant gene from bacteria like Klebsiella, pictured above, to something more ubiquitous, like E. coli.

From: A Museum Chapel for Microscopic Biodiversity by Hannah Waters at Culturing Science.

Source: Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London

Museums are full of organisms that are put on display to inspire awe in even the most jaded visitor. But as Hannah Waters points out in her post, A Museum Chapel for Microscopic Biodiversity, the vast majority of the creatures we select to display are vertebrates and that does not accurately represent the diversity of life on our planet. To tackle this display bias, the Grant Museum of Zoology at University College London has created a new museum exhibit they’re calling the Micrarium, featuring hundreds of microscope slides of invertebrates. In addition to pointing out our vertebrate bias, it is a lovely reminder that the everyday objects of science can be quite beautiful in and of themselves.

From: Bees under the Microscope by Charles Crookenden at the Guest Blog.

Source: Gretchen D. Jones, Ph.D., United States Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service, Area-wide Pest Management Research Unit.

Melissopalynology is the study of pollen in honey, which is important for correct honey labeling, forensic analysis, and archaeology. And with the current plight of the honey bee, it’s increasingly important to research bees’ pollen-collecting habits. And not only is pollen analysis important, it is absolutely stunning!

From: Art of the Living Dead by Alex Wild at Compound Eye.

Source: Hashime Murayama (1934)

Like a game of artistic broken telephone Hashime Murayama’s 1934 painting of army ants shows that for scientific illustrators, reference materials matter as much as our observational skill. Inaccurate references lead to illustrations which in turn become new references. In Alex Wild’s post Art of the Living Dead on Compound Eye, Wild shows us the distinct features that change in insects after death, and how a skilled illustrator ended up painting zombie army ants – enough to give anyone the shivers.

From: The Intelligent Use of Animations by Kalliopi Monoyios at Symbiartic and Commenting threads: good, bad, or not at all. by Bora Zivkovic at A Blog Around The Clock.

Source: Jim Benton.

Bora Zivkovic has a reputation as an excellent communicator, especially when every once in a while on A Blog Around the Clock, he drops some serious knowledge. When Bora goes long-form, bloggers sit up and take notice. And while his reputation in choosing strong images isn’t as well known, his history of blog banners tells the story.

So when Bora employed this cartoon by artist Jim Benton (of Happy Bunny fame, no less) in his post, Commenting threads: good, bad, or not at all – it was pitch-perfect for bloggers everywhere. It saw the SciAm crowd imitating the comment troll for pictures at ScienceOnline. It was hilarious. Kalliopi Monoyios on Symbiartic breaks down why the image was so funny – and how intelligently Bora used it in his epic post.

Find more about the amazing Jim Benton on his site, his print gallery, on Amazon and on Twitter @JimBenton.

–Glendon Mellow, since Bora “can’t typing” about himself.

From: How the sharksucker got its suction disc by Becky Crew at Running Ponies.

Source: Dave Johnson

The unassuming remora, commonly known as the sharksucker, was given credit for almost 2000 years for slowing down ships because of the strength of its grip. This myth was ultimately abandonned but the origins of its suction apparatus still fascinated scientists. Becky Crew recounts the myths and the answer to the suction disc mystery in her post, How the sharksucker got its suction disc.

From: The Last Thing the Squirrel Saw by Kyle Hill at Guest Blog.

Source: Gavin Murphy

The snow breaks its silence to tell the story of a dramatic evening encounter: an owl swoops down, talons extended, and plucks an unsuspecting rodent from the snow.

From: Darwin’s Neon Golf Balls by Jennifer Frazer at The Artful Amoeba.

Source: Bruce Muller

Deep in the heart of the Nerf Forest, spongy golf balls grow on trees, gently plopping on the heads of the Care Bears’ wild, plush cousins. Well it really looks like that, anyway. In this atmospheric photo by Bruce Muller, we see what’s likely Cyttaria darwinii, the beech orange of Tierra del Fuego. Jennifer Frazer on The Artful Amoeba describes this unreal, nerfy-looking fungi, its connection to Charles Darwin, and “MicroMycobrews”.

From: The Cataclysm: “A Boiling Mass of Rock” by Dana Hunter at Rosetta Stones.

Source: USGS

Witness accounts of the 1980 Mt. St. Helen’s blast indicate that the deadly ash and debris cloud that rushed down the slopes of the mountain were eerily silent. Dana Hunter recounts several survivors’ stories in her riveting post, The Cataclysm: “A Boiling Mass of Rock.” This vehicle was parked just 8.5 miles from the blast and shows the searing heat survivors endured.

From: Sherlock Holmes, the mindful detective by Maria Konnikova at Literally Psyched.

Source: Sidney Paget, Wikimedia Commons

Sidney Paget’s illustrations of Sherlock Holmes not only helped influence the film noir genre with their strong shadows, they also took the character of Holmes and ingrained a very specific image of him in the minds of all contemporary and future readers of Conan Doyle’s famous character. While Sherlock Holmes exhorts us, as Literally Psyched blogger Maria Konnikova writes, “to observe, not merely to see” many people familiar with the character may not realize how much of their mental image of the character stems from the hundreds of illustrations Sidney Paget did over the course of his career.

From Konnikova’s post and her new book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes:

“Every day, countless items, some glanced, or heard, or felt, or smelled only briefly–perhaps without ever registering in our consciousness–affect our minds and play into our decisions.”

Our mental landscapes are filled with hundreds if not thousands of fictional characters – how many of those images come from descriptions in the text rather than the quiet strength of illustrations?

From: Inspiring New Realities – James Gurney Interview by Glendon Mellow at Symbiartic.

Source: James Gurney

What makes James Gurney’s anachronistic, futuristic fish-buttercopter work as an image… or should I say “fly”? The playful nature of “Decollage nocturne” and ease with which past and future, fantasy and reality are combined belies the volumes of knowledge Gurney harnesses to bring his wildly creative imagination to the page. But unlike many artists, Gurney is not reluctant to share his hard-earned knowledge. His blog, Gurney Journey, gives daily observations on light, form, coloration and more. So instead of marveling at just how exactly he tricks our eyes into believing every inch of his imagined worlds, we are left wondering how he has time to share all his insights and continue to expand his body of work! James blogged about the process of making this painting in seven steps:

Part 7: The Painting
Part 6: Washin
Part 5: Pencil Drawing
Part 4: Lighting
Part 3: Maquette
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight
Part 1: Initial Sketches

From: This Steampunk Ant is Transformative by Alex Wild at Compound Eye.

Source: Unnatural Selection show by Robert Bowen.

Visual metaphors are one of the foundations of understanding ideas about the natural world. Some take their cues from the world of design, like chemical reactions depicted as symbols and arrows. Others stem from our propensity to make myths, and Robert Bowen’s The Industrious Ant illustrates this beautifully. Immediately we recognize the ant as a biological machine, perhaps a creature enhanced above its peers and tireless.

Bowen’s use of photo reference itself becomes part of the story told by Alex Wild at The Compound Eye as it pushes Wild’s ideas of acceptable use to a new area. Wild’s photo became Bowen’s painted playground, and out crawled a painting that is less accurate in morphology than the original photo, yet true to the character of the ant itself.

Don’t miss Robert Bowen’s show, Unnatural Selection, open now in Oakland.