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The Art of Science

NPR Illinois | 91.9 UIS | By Beverley Scobell

Published December 1, 2009 at 12:00 AM CST

Shown are color changes for 11 toxic industrial chemicals detected by an optoelectronic nose using a colorimetric sensor array (upper left). Like a fingerprint, each odorant has a unique color pattern.

“Art is science made clear,” said the French artist Jean Cocteau.

The public needs that. Science is complicated, detailed and that thing the “smart kids” in high school do. It uses terms such as “biotechnology” and “nanotechnology” that people sort of know and other terms like “phagocytes” and “quarks” that most have little idea what they are.

Yet people only have to visit a hospital, choose an app on their iPhones or go grocery shopping to understand that the work scientists do returns to them in countless ways. And scientists need the public to support government grants — the foundation of their funding — to continue to make discoveries.

One of the ways scientists clarify the complex and inscrutable nature of their work is through art. Like gallery art, science art can be pleasing to the eye as well as awe-inspiring, thought-provoking and sometimes disturbing. But in all of its beauty to the eye of the beholder, it is an attempt by scientists to describe in simpler terms what they find about who we are and how our world works.

Fluorescently stained bacteria taken at 1,000x

The art form scientists use most is photography, taking pictures of what they see using technology from electron-scanning microscopes to space-based telescopes to convey the magic that is our universe. Scientists also draw, build models and use whatever medium is in the artist’s toolbox to visualize the heretofore unseen and unknown, so that even nonscientists can say, “I see it.”

Aphanizomenon is an important genus of cyanobacteria that inhabits freshwater lakes and can cause choking blooms. One species, Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, is used by several companies as an ingredient in dietary supplements, marketed as improving overall health in a number of ways. This photograph of the blue-green bacteria was taken at about 400x.

Biographical information on scientist/artists

Carol Abraczinskas
Principal scientific illustrator, Department of Organismal Biology & Anatomy, University of Chicago

Tom DeCoursey
Professor, Department of Molecular Biophysics and Physiology, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago

Bill Foster
U.S. Representative, District 14; former member of the team for the Collider Detector at Fermilab project in Batavia

Martin Gruebele
James R. Eiszner endowed chair in chemistry; professor of physics and faculty in the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Credit Michael Lemke / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Maria Lemke
Aquatic ecologist, The Nature Conservancy; director of Mackinaw River project; member of restoration team for Emiquon Preserve, Havana

Michael Lemke
Associate professor, Department of Biology; director of the Emiquon Field Station, University of Illinois Springfield

Michael Jeffords
Entomologist; public relations and education liaison, Illinois Natural History Survey, Institute of Natural Resources Sustainability, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Credit Michael Lemke / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

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University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Called the water net, this green algae belongs to the Hydrodictyon genus. It can grow up to several feet and likes clean lake or pond water with excessive nutrients, which can cause algal blooms resulting in poor water quality. The bottom waters of such bodies are commonly deficient in oxygen.

John Rogers, Lee J. Flory Founder Chair in Engineering Innovation; professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering; professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Kenneth Suslick
Marvin T. Schmidt professor of chemistry; professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering; professor, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at UIUC

Adler
The Adler Planetarium and the Chicago Department of Aviation partnered to host a photo exhibit, From Earth to the Universe, on display through December at O’Hare International Airport in the pedestrian walkway tunnel near the O’Hare CTA Blue Line station.

Illinois Issues, December 2009

The shore of Thompson Lake near Havana this past summer when the Aphanizomenon started to decay. The colors are caused by the breakdown of the photosynthetic pigment.

Biting midges, also called punkies or no-see-ums, are very tiny, (less than 1/4-inch long), slender gnat-like flies that suck blood from humans, mammals, reptiles and other insects. Bites can cause itching and, in sensitive individuals, welts and lesions that can persist for several days. Some have narrow spotted or clear wings. Larvae are tiny, whitish, elongate, or wormlike, and are found in sand, mud, decaying vegetation and water in tree holes.

Dragonfly nymph. Dragonflies are aquatic when they are in the immature stage and emerge from the water as adults.

Orb weaver spider with web full of soybean aphids

Mykocephale skull in four views. A) dorsal, B) ventral, C) right lateral, and D) posterior. Parallel lines indicate broken surface. Scale bar equals 2 cm.

Right distal carpal 1 and manual digit I of Massospondylus carinatus (AMNH 5624). A-C, right distal carpal 1 and metacarpal 1 in dorsal, ventral, and lateral views. D-F, right phalanx 1 of manual digit I in dorsal, ventral and distal views. G-I

Unnamed vertebra in five views. A) right lateral, B) dorsal, C) ventral, D) posterior, and E) anterior. Parallel lines indicate broken surface. Dashed line indicates missing bone. Scale bar equals 3 cm.

Kayenta Heterodontosaurid dentary in two views. A) left lateral, B) medial. Parallel lines indicate broken surface. Dashed line indicates missing bone. Double-dashed pattern indicates matrix. Scale bar equals 5 mm.

Andromeda is a spiral galaxy close to our Milky Way, and it is the largest galaxy visible to the unaided eye. By using ultraviolet light, astronomers can highlight different structures: blue colours represent light given off by brilliant young stars in the spiral arms, while orange tones are from the older, cooler stars in the galaxy core. Billions of years from now, the Milky Way and Andromeda will merge.

Cassiopeia A is the youngest supernova remnant in our Milky Way galaxy, believed to be the leftovers of a massive star that exploded over 300 years ago. The material ejected during the supernova smashed into the surrounding gas and dust at about 16 million kilometers per hour. This collision superheated the debris field to millions of degrees, causing it to glow brightly in X-rays as seen here by the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

This image is a composite of X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) and optical light from the Hubble Space Telescope (red and purple). Known formally as NGC 6543 or informally as the Cat's Eye

Comet Machholz was discovered by Donald Machholz on August 27, 2004, and by January 2005 had became bright enough to be viewed from the Earth without a telescope. In this image, Comet Machholz and its long extended tail are seen against the backdrop of the Pleiades star cluster. Comets are roughly described as "dirty snowballs" that originate in the distant Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system.

A closeup view of the sun's edge shows vast looping structures made of blisteringly hot, electrically charged gas (plasma) in the sun's corona. Here the plasma is caught falling back to the sun following an explosive solar flare in what is known as coronal rain.

Made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope, the Eagle Nebula shows all its glory in this image made at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. Right in the middle are dust columns that became known as the "Pillars of Creation." Here we see they are just part of a larger hollow shell of star formation, with a young star cluster at its center. The colors represent light given off by glowing hydrogen (green), oxygen (blue) and sulphur (red).

This mosaic mapped in color shows the southern part of the famous North America Nebula and the Pelican Nebula. In between these two nebulae lies the "gulf" area which is obscured by dark dust and gas clouds.

Normally a mix of brown and red hues, this image of Jupiter made in near-infrared light has been color-coded to show cloud height, from high altitude (white) through mid-range (blue) to low altitude (red). The so-called great red spot and its neighbor red spot junior top out at the highest altitudes, therefore appearing mainly as white in this image. Observers used the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii to capture this view.

When the moon passes through the shadow of the Earth, an event known as a lunar eclipse occurs. During a lunar eclipse only the red part of sunlight, bent by the Earth's atmosphere, reaches the moon and so it appears a vivid copper color. This multiple-exposure image was taken during the eclipse of July 16, 2000.

The Seven Sisters, also known as the Pleiades star cluster, seem to float on a bed of feathers in this infrared image from the Spitzer Space Telescope. Clouds of dust sweep around the stars, wrapping them in a cushiony veil. The Pleiades, located in the Taurus constellation (the bull), are the subject of many legends and writings in cultures around the globe.
Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/J. Stauffer (SSC/Caltech)

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The great red spot is a vast, stormy anticyclone about three times the size of Earth, found in the southern hemisphere of the gas giant Jupiter. Visible even through a modest telescope, the color is variable and is thought to be from organic compounds. The storm has been studied for at least 178 years and may even have been recorded as early as 1665. Winds at the edge of the spot tear along at up to 560 kilometers per hour.

This closeup view made by the very large telescope Kueyen shows the intricate detail in the head of the Horsehead Nebula. The nebula is a vast cloud of dark dust, silhouetted against the glowing reddish hydrogen gas behind it. Despite sitting in a region often studied by astronomers, the nebula was first noticed by Williamina Fleming on a photographic plate in 1888.

Why are there dark spots on the sun? For decades these sunspots have been known as regions that are slightly depressed and cooled by the sun's complex and changing magnetic field. Solar flares, or outbursts, emanate from these sunspots. NASA's SOHO mission recorded a giant eruption from this sunspot, throwing out energetic particles that hit the Earth 48 hours later. Such events can disrupt satellite communications but also cause dramatic aurora known as "the Northern Lights."

This image of the Tarantula Nebula and the area around it was taken with a 2.2-meter optical telescope in La Silla, Chile. The spider-web look gives the nebula its name, which is seen in the upper-center of the image. Slightly to the lower-right, a web of filaments harbors the famous supernova SN 1987A. The Tarantula Nebula is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy only about 180,000 light-years from the Milky Way.

Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and the third largest in our solar system. The northern hemisphere (left of the rings) is emerging from decades of darkness. The bright white and blue spots in the southern hemisphere are clouds above the planet's atmosphere. Methane in the upper atmosphere absorbs red light, giving the planet its blue-green color. Uranus is spinning on its side, probably because of a collision with a large object early in the solar system's history.
Credit California Association For Research In Astronomy / Science Photo Library

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