Evening | Morning
HUMAN BODY PART THAT STUMPED LEONARDO DA VINCI REVEALED
Leonardo da Vinci’s 500-year-old illustrations of human anatomy are uncannily accurate with just one major exception: the female reproductive system. Read More
Ink Wants to Form Neurons, and an Artful Scientist Obliges
1. The Secret of Shimmer
Dunn has been recently been playing with iridescence, adding more colors while still allowing the metals to shine. This painting of the cerebellar lobe is an example of his newer work.
Listening to him explain iridescence, you can see how his scientific background factors into his art: “[Iridescence] is when you have small crystalline patterns at the microscopic level which break up the incoming light and distribute it a different way, and so you get light coming into your eye from different angles in just a planar surface,” he explains. Dunn gets his paintings to shimmer and change under different light with a special technique he developed—and which he keeps under his hat.
2. The Fractal Solution to the Universe
In his second year of neuroscience grad school, Greg Dunn was moonlighting with a different kind of experiment: blowing ink across pieces of paper. The neuron-like pattern it formed was instantly recognizable to him as a neuroscientist. “Ink spreads because it wants to go in the direction of less resistance, and that’s probably also the case of when branches grow or neurons grow,” he says. “The reason the technique works really well is because it’s directly related to how neurons are actually behaving.”
Dunn calls this the “fractal solution to the universe,” which he sees as the “fundamental beauty of nature.” He’s fascinated that this branching pattern holds true across orders of magnitude, whether that’s nanometers for neurons, centimeters for ink, or meters for a tree branch.
3. Asian-Inspired Art
The branching tree motif of Asian art is especially fitting for Dunn’s neuron paintings. Simplicity is key: “What I love about Asian art is that you boil away all the unnecessary crap, and you’re left with an expression of an idea that’s done with spontaneity and grace.” There is nothing extraneous here in this painting of two pyramidal cells, a type of neuron found in the cerebellum and hippocampus.
4. Artistic Creation, Scientific Method
Before he ever touches a brush, Dunn mocks up his paintings in Photoshop, setting the composition and color scheme. Paintings, like a set of experiments, must be planned through in advance. “If the silhouette isn’t great, that painting will never be great. You’ve got to build on a strong foundation,” he says. “That’s true of science as well.”
The curled structure depicted here is the hippocampus, one of the most-studied parts of the brain. It has an integral role in memory and spatial navigation. The famous patient HM, who’d had his hippocampus removed, was unable to form new memories.
The Flow by MRK
Sh2-239 Nebula
Credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona
The region lies near the southern end of Taurus located on the border of the constellations of Taurus and Perseus more than 400 light-years away. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year, or about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).
Dumbell Nebula
Credit: Bill Snyder
Multiple exposures are made to collect enough light for an image that would otherwise not be evident to the eye.
Nerdy Dirty by Nicole Martinez
Art by destruction by Alan Sailer
Top 10 Biggest Brain Damaging Habits
1. No Breakfast
People who do not take breakfast are going to have a lower blood sugar level.This leads to an insufficient supply of nutrients to the brain causing brain degeneration.
2. Overreacting
It causes hardening of the brain arteries, leading to a decrease in mental power.
3. Smoking
It causes multiple brain shrinkage and may lead to Alzheimer disease.
4. High Sugar consumption
Too much sugar will interrupt the absorption of proteins and nutrients causing malnutrition and may interfere with brain development.
5. Air Pollution
The brain is the largest oxygen consumer in our body. Inhaling polluted air decreases the supply of oxygen to the brain, bringing about a decrease in brain efficiency.
6. Sleep Deprivation
Sleep allows our brain to rest. Long term deprivation from sleep will accelerate the death of brain
7. Head covered while sleeping
Sleeping with the head covered, increases the concentration of carbon dioxide and decrease concentration of oxygen that may lead to brain damaging effects.
8. Working your brain during illness
Working hard or studying with sickness may lead to a decrease in effectiveness of the brain as well as damage the brain.
9. Talking Rarely
Intellectual conversations will promote the efficiency of the brain.
10. Lacking in stimulating thoughts
Thinking is the best way to train our brain, lacking in brain stimulation thoughts may cause brain shrinkage.
Mysterious Monoceros
Image courtesy T.A. Rector, UAA, and N.S. van der Bliek, NOAO/NSF
If you love unusual star birth, than this is the nebula you’re looking for.
Called Monoceros R2, the interstellar cloud of gas and dust glows deep red in this recently released image due to its abundant ionized hydrogen. The picture was made using data from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.
Although this cloud lies close to the Orion nebula, another region of star birth, Monoceros R2 isn’t forming stars at the same rate or of the same heft as its neighbor, and astronomers aren’t sure why.
Happy Equinox
Hundreds of pictures of Earth, each taken at about 6AM , showing the terminator - the day/night line - over the course of one year (2010sep-2011sep).
Taken by METEOSAT-9 Earth-observing satellite.
Watch the Video here
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
Body Part by Victoria Cartwright
hahahaha that’s just adorable xD
