Author: michelebanks1

Artist and blogger

Science Caturday: Ah Tawt I Taw a Terror Bird

i am not the mighty hunter i thought i was

Once upon a time, ten-foot-tall carnivorous “terror birds” roamed the earth. In a paper published this week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, scientists revealed fascinating new details about their anatomy and hunting technique, based on studies of a nearly-complete fossil found in 2010.

Laura Geggel reports in LiveScience that the researchers, led by Federico Degrange, learned a great deal about the behavior and anatomy of terror birds by studying the skeleton of Llallawavis scagliai.

“Given its extraordinary condition, the fossil has helped researchers study the terror bird’s anatomy in detail. The specimen is the first known fossilized terror bird with a complete trachea and complete palate (the roof of the mouth). It even includes the intricate bones of the creature’s ears, eye sockets, brain box and skull, providing scientists with an unprecedented look at the flightless bird’s sensory capabilities.”

The researchers also discovered that the bird’s skull is more rigid than in other species, suggesting that Llallawavis scagliai may have killed by slamming its large beak up and down upon its prey.

Geggel’s article and the paper itself have many more fascinating details. But I think we’ll just leave it at that because we’re frightening the cat.

Art of Science: Deborah Cornell’s Drifting DNA

Deborah Cornell, Species Boundaries: Wind Map. Digital Print, 2006
Deborah Cornell, Species Boundaries: Wind Map. Digital Print, 2006

Printmaker Deborah Cornell juxtaposes familiar images in unexpected ways to prompt viewers to reflect on big questions in science and culture. Her work explores ideas of reality and change, particularly regarding the interaction of science, technology and nature.

Cornell created a series of prints entitled Species Boundaries that look at the consequences of genetic engineering and the unpredictability of genetic interactions over time. This print, Wind Map, uses the visual echo between a map of wind currents and a micrograph of chromosomes to raise make a point about complex systems and the illusion of control. No matter how hard scientists strive to control their experiments, genetic material is about as respectful of borders as the wind.

Says Cornell, “Nothing exists in isolation – complex interrelationships can produce unexpected results. Questions arise connecting genes to the market economy, altering genetic codes, the migration of altered organisms and their impact on environments, humans and on other species.”

You can see more of Cornell’s work at her website.

Happy Easter from Chemistry Cat

heisrisen

All of us at The Finch and Pea send our wishes for a joyous Easter to all those who celebrate, and a sciency Sunday to all.

Science Caturday: Now with 100% Less Science

Sorry, no science today, kittehs are busy making surprises for your Easter basket.

cat-lays-easter-eggs

 

Art of Science: Lita Albuquerque’s Magic Pixel Dust

 

https://vimeo.com/14311444

Lita Albuquerque’s installation Beekeeper (2006), now on view in Santa Fe, is a piece that is much more compelling than the artist’s own description of it would lead you to believe.

According to Albuquerque, “Beekeeper (created in collaboration with Chandler McWilliams and Jon Beasley) is a pair of video projections controlled by generative computer software. The individual pixels that make up the image of the beekeeper separate and move out into space, dissolving the solid form into its constituent parts, spread until the entire wall is covered in a sea of slowly moving pixels, then reverse direction, heading for their original position. The software allows each pixel to choose its own unique path every time, creating a work in a constant state of becoming.” (source)

The artist has said that her goal with this work was “to present the visual similarity between a beekeeper and an astronaut,” which she approached by “[creating] a narrative around which the beekeeper’s aim is to help maintain biological life on the planet and the astronaut became the starkeeper maintaining life in the cosmos.”

On that level, this piece doesn’t work for me. In fact, it makes very little sense. The main visual similarity between apiarists and astronauts is the fact that both wear protective suits. Beekeepers, at least until very recently, were more interested in producing honey than in “maintaining biological life on the planet”, and astronauts are “starkeepers”, protecting the stars and planets from intergalactic threats, only in the movies.

As art that explores how we see and comprehend the world, however, Beekeeper is sublime. Just thinking about how the pixels gather and disperse could keep your mind working for hours. And as a statement about what we human beings are – collections of particles in constant flux – Beekeeper approaches the profound.

You can see Beekeeper in the exhibition Inventory of Light at Peters Projects in Santa Fe until April 25th, and you can find more work by Lita Albuquerque on her website.