Monthly Archives: April 2012

ACS San Diego Days 4 and 5: Good news for chocolate lovers

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A chocolate chemistry session, how could I refuse? Not only that, but when I got there I realised that there were also free samples.

Happily, from the talks I saw, ‘eat chocolate, it’s good for you’ seems to be the message. A lot of the science focused on the antioxidant in chocolate and the individual studies were compelling, although everyone was sure to highlight that cutting out other risk factors, such as smoking, is even more important. Not only were there individual studies, but Eric Ding from Harvard Medical School presented a meta analysis that suggested those conclusions were part of a larger pantheon of evidence.

But the really interesting talk for me, was one from Francisco Villarreal of UCSD that suggested that as well as chemical actions, the antioxidant chemicals epicatechin and catechin also have biological mechanisms. That they seem to affect signalling pathways and receptors, and even act as antagonists to each other. And how much chocolate do you need for this affect? Villareal says less is more: about 5g of dark chocolate. A paper is apparently in the pipeline with pretty big results, so stay tuned!

Villareal is, however, a big proponent of chocolate. From it’s mystical health and strength giving importance in Mesoamerica to its benefits brought back to Europe, and essentially being described as the first super food, Villareal says he believes that that’s all down to the flavanols and minerals in the chocolate. And who am I to argue with Casanova, who consumed chocolate before ‘entertaining’ – perhaps he needed a pick me up to boost his stamina!

So for both antioxidant benefits, and the more biological effects, the advice is the more cocoa solids the better, but how much of it you eat is, as always, probably more to do with appetite rather than intention.

Laura Howes

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ACS San Diego Day 3 – Chemical pealeontology

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Pealeontology, archaeology and chemistry – if I say those words you’re probably thinking isotopic rations, and chemical analysis. But what about peeling back the layers of biological history?

Loren Williams of Georgia Tech has been doing just that with the ribosome, specifically, the large subunit (LSU) ‘where all the chemistry happens.’ X-ray chromatography of the ribozome, that thing some people won the nobel prize in chemistry a few years ago, shows that the core of the LSU is conserved across the tree of life, implying not just a common ancestor but, says Williams, that the core is what the LSU began it’s life as. Peeling back the layers to the core as molecular time travel.

So Williams is working on making a testable model of what the core was, and to establish what the LSU did before it grew up and joined with the small sub unit and started making protein chains. However, it was a throw-away comment in Williams’ talk that really got me thinking. He said that as we look out of the window, or watch a nature documentary, that impression of such wide diversity is an illusion. If you break the ribozyme, meddle with the core of the LSU, life cannot continue. Once that core functionality was achieved, it stayed and at the core of all life, the structure and sequence is almost identical.

Now maybe it’s the long days, but I find that such an interesting concept and relevant to this entire meeting. The convention centre and the hotels are filled with disparate groups of chemists. Different sections that can spend their entire time in a couple of rooms, their niches. Looking at the programme, the science covered seems so diverse but ultimately, at the core the science is the same.

Laura Howes

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ACS San Diego Day 2 – Impacts and entrepreneurship

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The ACS Award for Creative Innovation Symposium in honour of Chad Mirkin was a who’s who of clever nano chemistry with bio applications.

John Rogers presented his flexible circuits and you can read my story here. But the flexible circuits are also being used in a way I didn’t mention in the story – for imaging the brain during epileptic fits. With patients with extreme epilepsy, surgery is sometimes used. Surgeons open up the skull, cover the brain in electrodes and then provoke a seizure to see where to cut. Rogers’ group has developed their circuits for this as well, and he showed an amazing video of the repeating waves that pulse through the brain during a fit. So what looks like very applications based science has now given new insights into epilepsy:

I luckily got to chat to David Walt after the session about creative innovation and how spin outs can amplify the impact of science. Obviously, being the founder of Illumina, Walt has an interesting perspective. ‘A lot of scientists don’t realise that the real impact is when you grow a technology to when it’s commercially successful,’ he says. He urged people not to focus on the ‘quick buck’ but focus on creating a lasting, long-term company. Of course, that’s easier said than done, but Walt does believe that the entrepreneurial side of science then pushes you to do better fundamental research. At the symposium today, that was a heady and enticing prospect.

Laura Howes

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Static, radicals and fluorescent trainers – where’s the rub?

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Static electricity usually conjures up images of Van de Graaff generators, crazy hair, sticking balloons to walls and the odd shock from an inappropriate clothing choice.

But when Classic Kit columnist Andrea Sella happened to mention a couple of months ago that the cause of static charging is still far from understood, my interest was piqued.

I had assumed from schooldays that it was all sorted out – you rub stuff and it gets charged. But when you think about it, what’s actually causing that charge buildup? Is it really electrons? Surely the work function – the energy required to displace an electron from the surface – of those materials is far higher than simply placing them in contact with another material? What about ions? Or both?  Or even bits of the materials themselves transferring over – as I found out researching my latest news piece?

So what’s really going on? The short answer is we really don’t know. That came across talking to Dan Lacks at Case Western Reserve University, US. Lacks told me that he’d originally got into looking at tribocharging when he was approached by a company with a project. ‘I thought it would be easy – I’d just read in the literature how it works and be able to simply solve their problem.’

Static charge on a Teflon surface touched repeatedly with an inflated and deflated rubber balloon © Wiley-VCH

It turns out to be significantly more complex, and seven years later Lacks is still pondering the issue. In a recent paper of his own, Lacks has shown that touching a rubber balloon to a Teflon surface charges it oppositely depending on whether it’s inflated or deflated, so straining a material changes how it charges.

Not only that, with the advent of modern microscopy techniques, it’s now possible to see what’s happening to charged surfaces at the nanoscale. Last year, Bartosz Grzybowski from Northwestern University, US, showed that – rather than one surface charging positively and the other negatively when 2 materials are rubbed together – both surfaces are covered with tiny mosaic patches of positive and negative charge, and a tiny imbalance of one over the other is responsible for the overall charge.

When you combine that result with his latest work on how nanoscale fragments of the materials are transferred between surfaces on contact, taking their charge with them, it becomes easier to see how material transfer can flip the polarity of the charge on two materials.

But it gets even more interesting when you start to think how that material transfer happens. Grzybowski says that it involves ripping polymer chains off the surfaces, which involves breaking covalent bonds. The same happens when you deform polymers – some of the bonds break and, according to Grzybowski, this produces radicals. If you have the polymers under water when you deform them, then you can produce hydrogen peroxide or stimulate other radical chemistry processes.

To demonstrate how effective the process is, Grzybowski’s team injected a solution of a boronate protected umbelliferone into the sole cavity of some Nike Air trainers. Walking around in the trainers produced enough radicals and H2O2 to cleave the boronate group and release fluorescent umbelliferone.


Fluorescent trainers - the next fashion craze? © Wiley-VCH


I’m not sure the people at Nike will be taking it up as a marketing gimmick (especially since you need a UV lamp to see the fluorescence), but it certainly shows that the charge and electronic behaviour of polymers is  mind-bogglingly complex and a potential source of some really interesting chemistry – harnessing polymers as a convenient source of mechanically produced radicals could have huge potential when you consider how many industrial and academic processes involve radical pathways.

Phillip Broadwith

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ACS San Diego Day 1 – Life and communication

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Well I’m here in San Diego for the Spring ACS meeting (even if my suitcase isn’t) and the packed schedule has already brought up some gems. Here’s my round up of day 1…

The San Diego skyline, a nice place for a conference!

Bassam Z Shakhashiri, the new ACS president, wearing his ‘Science is Fun’ pin badge, used the meeting to launch his priorities for his presidency. As ACS presidents only have a one year term to implement their vision, I often wonder how much can really be achieved in that year, but Shakhashiri does at least seem to be getting one thing done. He’s appointed a working group on the public understanding of the science of climate change, to develop a tool kit for ACS members. Public understanding of science is something Shakhashiri has been very involved in for many years, but he says that the kit is needed to make sure that the ACS membership is well versed in the science of climate change, as well as then using it to communicate the facts more widely.

‘In my visits with colleagues, graduate students, high school teachers, university professors, members of our profession and industry,’ he explained diplomatically. ‘I have discovered there is a need to refresh our knowledge of what a greenhouse gas is.’

Shakhashiri’s climate change group has also been asked to look at how to communicate the science of climate change to the wider public, from teachers to policy makers, to the people I walked past on my way to the convention centre. ‘There are the deniers, there are sceptics and there’s everyone else,’ he said. ‘I have deliberately chosen not to spend too much time engaging in conversation with the deniers … that will definitely elevate my blood pressure. I’m very much interested in conversing with sceptics and with everyone else – in science we make progress by being sceptical.’

If you’re interested in the toolkit, it will be web-based and, while it is only two-fifths completed, it should all be available by the time of the Fall meeting in Philadelphia.

Of course, with Shakhashiri’s interest in communicating science, there are some great talks at a more general level in the programme. I felt I had to go to the plenary session in the afternoon to listen to Roger Tsien and I’m so glad I did. Tsien, I’m sure, needs no introduction, but in his first slide introduced us all to the jelly fish that makes green fluorescent protein (GFP), which he says his should Nobel prize should go to. What followed was not a look back at the work that led to Tsien being awarded his Nobel Prize, but where that work has taken him since.

The spring ACS is dedicated to the chemistry of life

There’s something really neat about sitting in a packed room seeing how papers you gave as journal clubs back at university, now fit into something much larger. Tsien’s activatable cell penetrating proteins (CPPs) specifically target cancer cells, making them fluorescent so that during surgery, doctors can ensure that all of the tumour is removed. Or the cell penetrating proteins can be made specific for nerve cells, protecting the nerves from the scalpel during prostate surgery (something which, Tsien said, men are quite interested in!). That’s some low hanging fruit for Tsien’s spin out Avelas if ever I heard it.

Laura Howes

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Sherlock Robinson case book

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It has been brought to our attention here at the Chemistry World cabana that one of our staff has been the victim of a vile plot to impersonate a science journalist. In a staggering revelation, we have learned that a professional actor has been hired to masquerade as our beloved Philip Robinson.

The real Philip Robinson

An imposter








The architects of this nefarious scheme remain unknown and their motives are as yet unclear but the implications would appear to be sinister in the extreme. We can only assume that our brave and handsome reporter was getting too close to the truth and those in danger of being exposed have sought to damage and discredit his good actual name. Rest assured, the RSC has been quick to respond and has issued a statement to the press, exposing the fraudster. But fear not, dear readers, such cowardly tactics will not intimidate us. The truth will out – Chemistry World will not be silenced.

The writer wishes to remain anonymous

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Andrea Manzati – Vita

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Andrea Manzati Vita (5)

Andrea Manzati Vita (3)

Andrea Manzati Vita (4)

Andrea Manzati Vita (1)

Andrea Manzati Vita (2)
Credits: Creative Direction – Francesco Franch, Art Direction – Federico Galvani, Illustration & Craftwork -Andrea Manzati

Seeing this gorgeous work by Italian illustrator and designer, Andrea Manzati makes me want to get out some clay and actually make something.  Andrea built these letter forms by crafting plasticine clay into anatomical parts on top of a design as you can see above.  The end effect is a fun and slightly whimsical take on human anatomy and typography.

Created for Italian magazine, IL (Intelligence in Lifestyle), Andrea says, “The article was all about the meaning of life nowadays so we had the idea of making a “living” lettering, with muscles, skeleton, veins and an heart, that looks similar to the plastic mannequins used to learn anatomy at schools.”

View more of Andrea’s work at alconic.it.

 

[spotted by Jenny via Design Envy]

 

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The Ting Tings New Album Art

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The Ting Tings Sounds From Nowheresville album art by Milan Abad

After a bit of a break, The Ting Tings are out with their sophomore album titled, Sounds from Nowheresville. While they designed their first album cover themselves, this time they opened up the possibility to art students.  While on tour in the UK, they would stop at every art college in all the major cities and check out the scene.  They told the students to submit artwork for the album cover, and when they saw the hand-drawn and painted piece by Milan Abad, they were instantly sold, “We just looked at it and we thought that it really summed up the album title.” Hmm?

Even if you may not know who the Ting Tings are, I guarantee that you’ve had their song, That’s Not My Name, stuck in your head as you’re desperately trying to fall asleep…They call me girl, they call my Stacey, they call me her, they call me Jane, that’s not my name, that’s not my name, that’s not my name, that’s not my name…You’re welcome.

Hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend!

 

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Saro’s Cyclops Skull T-Shirt Inspired by the Mütter Museum

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$25 at the Street Anatomy store!

SARO cyclops skull tshirts unisex available at the Street Anatomy store

SARO cyclops skull tshirts unisex available at the Street Anatomy store

SARO cyclops skull tshirts unisex available at the Street Anatomy store

SARO cyclops skull tshirts unisex available at the Street Anatomy store

Photography by Alfonso Monroy

Inspired by the medical oddities in the famous Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, SARO’s signature cyclops skulls are now available in t-shirt form. Blow away those ubiquitous skull shirts and show your pride for the one-socket skull!

  • 2 color screen print on soft Fruit of the Loom 50/50 shirts
  • 100% cotton, preshrunk
  • T-shirt color: black
  • Unisex shirt sizes only
  • Available in small, medium, and large – in the photos above, Adam (6’4″) is wearing a large and I’m (5’5″) wearing a small
  • $25 at the Street Anatomy store!

 

Feel free to email me at vanessa@streetanatomy.com if you have questions about sizing.

Also, read our interview with SARO to learn more about the man behind the street art.

 

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Nutty Chocolate Skulls

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Sparganum chocolate skulls with walnut or candy brains

Sparganum chocolate skulls with walnut or candy brains

Sparganum chocolate skulls with walnut or candy brains

5 x 3.5 x 3cm (2″ x 1.38″ x 1.18″)

These chocolate skulls with walnut/candy brains are genius and so well executed for such a small piece of chocolate!  They are hand-crafted by twin sisters from Spain, Ruth and Sira García Trigueros who also happen to run their own little design and illustration shop, Sparganum.

Ruth and Sira sell their chocolate skulls through Etsy for €6,00 each and will ship just about anywhere.

And check out their bio on Etsy:

We love the smell of damp earth, the mountains, the woods, walking around barefoot and eating directly from the saucepan.
We listen to black metal. We are quiet. We smile a lot, sometimes people freak out.
We play drums and bass in a band that doesn’t exist.
This is us. Who are you?

Don’t they sound slightly creepy in a cool way?  I want to meet them.

View more work in their Etsy shop and on their site, sparganumart.tk

 

[spotted by Manuel Kolb]

 

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Call for Works for Congress of Curious Peoples Curiosity Vendors!

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To all makers, distributors, and artists of the arcane and the curious: this call for vendors for this year's just-posted-on Congress of Curious Peoples just in from Adam the Real Man of Coney Island USA:

Coney Island USA's Congress of Curious Peoples has a few vendor spots left!
The Congress of Curious Peoples is Coney Island USA's annual celebration of Oddity and Oddities. It begins with the Sideshow Hall of Fame induction event and continues with a 10-day series of performances and lectures on Curiosity and Curiosities, featuring notable faces from the sideshow world and talks by international scholars. The final weekend of the Congress includes a 2-day symposium and performances by some of Coney Island's most important sideshow stars.

Now in its 6th year, the Congress is meant to build a community of scholars, practitioners, vendors, and enthusiasts; centered around a field with its home in Coney Island. It is quickly expanding to become an important gathering of people who are interested in the past, present, and future of sideshows, dime museums, cabinets of curiosity, 19th and 20th century spectacular culture, and the obscure American performing arts that Coney Island USA is dedicated to preserving.

We expect between 500 and 1,000 individuals to pass through our doors in the course of events, and they are all committed aficionados of all things curious.

So if you're an artist who's work reflects the curious, the strange, the macabre, the bizarre and the wondrous and wishlike to be considered as a vendor, please contact congressvendors@gmail.com.

More on the event itself can be found here. Hope to see you there.

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Panoramas! Baroque TV Evangelism! Human Zoos! Frederik Ruysch! Religious Theatre! Announcing the 2012 Congress of Curious Peoples Lineup!

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I am SO very excited to (finally!) announce the lineup for this years' Congress of and for Curious Peoples, taking place this April 13-22 at Coney Island USA!

For those of you new to the concept, The Congress of Curious Peoples is a 10-day series of lectures and performances devoted to curiosity and curiosities broadly considered. If features sideshow acts, lectures, performances, and a 2-day scholarly-yet-popular symposium called The Congress for Curious Peoples, which is produced by The Morbid Anatomy Library in tandem with The Coney Island Museum.

This year's Congress for Curious Peoples symposium will feature panel discussions on such topics as pre-cinematic immersive amusements and religion as spectacle, while some of the featured speakers will be Sara Velas of The Velaslavasay Panorama; Paul Koudounaris of Empire of Death; an as-of-yet unnamed representative of the amazing Sleep No More; and Colin Dickey, author of Cranioklepty. Also featured will be stand-alone lectures on the 17th century artist of fetal skeleton tableaux Frederik Ruysch and the phenomenon of ethnographic displays called "human zoos," a screening of an over-the-top early 1970s TV Evangelist Christmas spectacular, and introductory lectures by myself and Coney Island Museum director Aaron Beebe.

Full lineup below; hope to see you at some--if not more--of the terrific events making up this year's Congress!

SYMPOSIUM: THE 2012 CONGRESS FOR CURIOUS PEOPLE
Saturday and Sunday, April 21st and 22nd

SATURDAY APRIL 21st

11:00 – 12:00: Keynote Addresses

12:00 – 1:00: Lunch

1:00 – 3:30: Immersive Amusements: Cosmoramas, Cycloramas and Panoramic Illusions: Panel discussion moderated and introduced by Aaron Beebe, The Coney Island Museum

4:00 – 5:00: The Business of the Dead: Frederik Ruysch as an Entrepreneurial Anatomist, Lecture by Daniel Margocsy, Hunter College

5:00: Christmas in America: Miss Velma and the Evangelist Spectacle: Screening of “Christmas in America,” an early 1970s television special by Miss Velma, early TV evangelist, introduced by Daniel Paul

SUNDAY APRIL 22

11:00 – 1:00: Religion and Spectacle: A panel with discussion moderated and introduced by Joanna Ebenstein, Morbid Anatomy Library

1:00 – 2:30: Lunch and Sideshow Visit

2:30 – 3:30: Traveling Ethnographic Shows and Human Zoos, a lecture by Elizabeth Bradley

3:30 – 5:30: Theater Rethunk: An Alternative History of the Theatrical: A panel with discussion moderated and introduced by Chris Muller

And now, for the full 10-day Congress Schedule:

Friday, April 13
Opening Night Party featuring The Lizard Man and the annual inductions into the Sideshow Hall of Fame.

Saturday, April 14
Alumni Weekend at Sideshows by the Seashore (Continuous Admission, Tickets at the door); Colonnade of Curiosities in the Freak Bar.

Sunday, April 15
Alumni Weekend at Sideshows by the Seashore (Continuous Admission, Tickets at the door); Colonnade of Curiosities in the Freak Bar

Monday April 16th
7:30 – (Lecture) Amy Herzog: Architectural Fictions: Economic Development, Immersive Renderings, and the Virtualization of Brooklyn
9:00 – (Performance) Shea Love and the Circus Emporium

Tuesday April 17th
7:30 – (Lecture) Philip Kadish: “Pinhead Races and the White Man’s Burden”
9:00 – (Performance) The Squidling Bros Sideshow

Wednesday April 18th
7:30 -(Lecture/Performance) ‘An Evening of Fate, Chance and Mystery’ with Lord Whimsy and Les the Mentalist
9:00 – (Performance) Jo Boobs

Thursday April 19th
7:30 – (Lecture/Performance) Erkki Huhtamo: “Mareorama Revisited”
9:00 – (Performance) The Curious Couple from Coney Island

Friday April 20th
7:30 – (Performance/Reading) “Venus,” a play by Suzan Lori Parks
9:00 – (Performance/Lecture) Sideshow Legend Jim Rose

Saturday April 21st
Super Freak Weekend at Sideshows by the Seashore (Continuous Admission, Tickets at the door); Colonnade of Curiosities in the Freak Bar
Congress For Curious People (Day 1 of a 2-day Symposium)

Sunday April 22nd
Super Freak Weekend at Sideshows by the Seashore (Continuous Admission, Tickets at the door); Colonnade of Curiosities in the Freak Bar
Congress For Curious People (Day 2 of a 2-day Symposium)

Tickets for the symposium are available here; for tickets to individual events and lectures, click here; 10-day Congressional Passes--which provide access to all events!--are available here. All events take place at 1208 Surf Avenue in Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York; you can map it here. See you there!!!

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The Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences Celebrates its Illustrious and Incredible Collection and History in Two New Exhibitions and a Book!

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In the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, when natural history was still called philosophy and most naturalists were amateurs, collectors would create what they called cabinets of curiosities — accumulations of animal, vegetable, mineral and anthropological specimens to amaze and amuse.

Often these collections grew large enough to occupy entire rooms, or even buildings. In some cases, they turned out to be precursors of modern museums.

In a way, that was the kind of project seven Philadelphia men embarked on in 1812, when they rented premises over a millinery shop, gathered a few preserved insects, some seashells and not much more, and created the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia...

--"Cupboards of Curiosities Spill Over," Cornelia Dean, The New York Times

The Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences has a lot going for it. It is the oldest natural science research institution and natural history museum in the New World, with a history stretching back to 1812. It boasts the Titian R. Peale Butterfly and Moth Collection, a lot of nearly 100 glass boxes containing said insects arranged in pleasingly geometric patterns by Titian Peale, son of painter and first American museologist Charles Willson Peale (see 4th image down). It boasts fossils collected by American president and Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson. It also houses an incredibly vast and utterly astounding collection of natural history artifacts, books, taxidermy, skeletons, wet specimens and more. More's the pity, then, that you would never suspect the quality and breadth of this collection by its public face, which gives one the impression that The Academy is merely a bland, second-rate natural history museum aimed at easily distractable children.

I am very pleased to report, then, that the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences has used the pretext of its 200th birthday to right this wrong, and make visible its illustrious history and mind-bogglingly gorgeous collection through 2 new exhibitions--both now on view--and a new nearly 500-page luxurious book. One exhibition--"The Academy at 200: The Nature of Discovery"--displays rarely viewed specimens and artifacts from the museum stores. "Everything Under the Sun," a second exhibition, features luminous photographs by the amazing Rosamond Purcell of a variety of the incredible artifacts and specimens hidden backstage. The associated book is entitled A Glorious Enterprise: The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Making of American Science and features Rosamond Purcell's lavish color photographs.

Above is an excerpt from The New York Times' review of the book and exhibitions; you can read the entire piece and see the photographic sideshow (from which the above images are drawn) by clicking here and here, respectively. You can find out more about the book “A Glorious Enterprise"--and purchase a copy of your very own--by clicking here. You can find out more about the exhibitions by clicking here and here.

Thanks so much to friend and Morbid Anatomy Art Academy Instructor Marie Dauhiemer for sending this along!

Images top to bottom: All by Rosamond Purcell drawn from the New York Times slide show, and presumably featured in the book and exhibition:

  1. A spider crab (Libina canaliculata), collected by Joseph Leidy in Atlantic City.
  2. Black-backed kingfishers (Ceyx erithancus), collected by the ornithologist Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee in Siam (now Thailand), 1937-38.
  3. Cone shells collected for the museum from Tanzania, Dutch New Guinea and the Palau Islands by A.J. Ostheimer III during the 1950s.
  4. A selection from the butterfly and moth collection of Titian R. Peale, a noted 19th century entomologist.
  5. A Ruby-cheeked Sunbird from Borneo, given to the Academy by Thomas B. Wilson in 1846.

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Comparative Anatomy: Animals and the Fundamentals of Drawing Weekend Workshop with Chris Muller, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, May 5 & 6, Observatory

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Very much hope to see you at this newly announced class, the latest addition to the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy series I am organizing at Observatory!

Comparative Anatomy: Animals and the Fundamentals of Drawing Weekend Workshop
A weekend workshop with Chris Muller, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts
Dates: Saturday May 5 & Sunday May 6
Time: 1 - 4 PM
Fee: $75 (includes museum admission)
*** Class size limited to 15; Must RSVP to morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

Using animal and human anatomy as a jumping off point, this course will look at the ground-level, first principles of drawing as representation. Focusing mainly on mammal anatomy, we’ll look at the basic shared forms between humans and other animals, how these forms dictate movement, and how to express those forms.

Saturday’s class will be held at Observatory, where with the aid of several skeletons we’ll look at basic structures, sprinkling our exploration with odd facts and observations. Messy investigatory drawings will ensue.

Sunday’s class will be a field trip to the American Museum of Natural History, where applying the principles of Saturday’s class we’ll create beautiful drawings of the animals on display. Then, mastery attained, we will stride forth into the world, better artists and better people.

Materials

Saturday

  • Sketchbook or sketchpad, 11 X 14 or larger
  • B and HB pencils
  • Colored pencils, in the reds and blues and browns
  • Hand pencil sharpener
  • Erasers

Sunday

  • All of the above, with perhaps a portable sketchbook in place of the larger sketchpad
  • Portable folding stool (optional)

Chris Muller is an artist and exhibit designer based in Brooklyn. He has designed exhibits for the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum for African Art, the Children's Museum of Manhattan, and many others. He has designed sets for Laurie Anderson, Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, the Atlantic Theater Company, and others. He teaches drawing and digital painting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

You can find out more here; you can RSVP by emailing me at morbidanatomy [at] gmail.com. You can find out more about the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy by clicking here.

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Expression of fatty acid synthesis genes and fatty acid accumulation in Haematococcus pluvialis under different stressors

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Background:
Biofuel has been the focus of intensive global research over the past few years. The development of 4th generation biofuel production (algae-to-biofuels) based on metabolic engineering of algae is still in its infancy, one of the main barriers is our lacking of understanding of microalgal growth, metabolism and biofuel production. Although fatty acid (FA) biosynthesis pathway genes have been all cloned and biosynthesis pathway was built up in some higher plants, the molecular mechanism for its regulation in microalgae is far away from elucidation.
Results:
We cloned main key genes for FA biosynthesis in Haematococcus pluvialis, a green microalga as a potential biodiesel feedstock, and investigated the correlations between their expression alternation and FA composition and content detected by GC-MS under different stress treatments, such as nitrogen depletion, salinity, high or low temperature. Our results showed that high temperature, high salinity, and nitrogen depletion treatments played significant roles in promoting microalgal FA synthesis, while FA qualities were not changed much. Correlation analysis showed that acyl carrier protein (ACP), 3-ketoacyl-ACP-synthase (KAS), and acyl-ACP thioesterase (FATA) gene expression had significant correlations with monounsaturated FA (MUFA) synthesis and polyunsaturated FA (PUFA) synthesis.
Conclusions:
We proposed that ACP, KAS, and FATA in H. pluvialis may play an important role in FA synthesis and may be rate limiting genes, which probably could be modified for the further study of metabolic engineering to improve microalgal biofuel quality and production.Source:
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Obesity Surgery Complications on the Decline

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(HealthDay News) -- Obesity surgery-related complications in the United States declined 21 percent between 2001 and 2006, and payments to hospitals for obesity surgery decreased by as much as 13 percent, partly because there were fewer patient readmissions due to complications, a new study reports.

The findings from a study by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality are based on an analysis of more than 9,500 patients under age 65 who had obesity surgery, also known as bariatric surgery, at 652 hospitals between 2001 and 2002 and between 2005 and 2006.

The researchers found that the complication rate among obesity surgery patients dropped from 24 percent to about 15 percent. Contributing to that decrease were declines in post-surgical infection rates (58 percent lower), abdominal hernias, staple leakage, respiratory failure and pneumonia (29 percent to 50 percent lower).

There was little change in rates of other complications such as ulcers, dumping (involuntary vomiting or defecation), hemorrhage, wound re-opening, deep-vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, heart attack and stroke, the researchers noted. Read more...

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April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month-Parkinson Society Canada Encourages Canadians With Parkinson’s to Get Active, Get …

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Dartmouth walks toward a world free of Multiple Sclerosis

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DARTMOUTH Hundreds of people from Dartmouth and surrounding communities are coming together Sunday, April 1, for Walk MS, presented by Biogen Idec & lan, to help individuals and families address the challenges of living with multiple sclerosis. Organized by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the three-mile route starts and finishes at Dartmouth Middle School, 366 Slocum Road.

Check-in opens at 9 a.m., and the official start is 10 a.m. Walk MS is a fundraising event that provides MS education, support, advocacy, and services to people affected by multiple sclerosis, while it supports cutting-edge research and treatment to stop disease progression, restore function lost, and end MS for future generations.

Each walker, 12-years-old and above, is required to raise at least $25. T shirts are awarded for at least $100 in fundraising, but historically walkers easily average above $200. Family members and coworkers are encouraged to form teams who walk and fundraise together in support of a loved one with MS.

Teams and individual walkers can register online, http://www.walkMSgne.org, to take advantage of e fundraising tools. Registrations are also accepted by phone, 1-800-344-4867 opt. 2, and in-person on walk day. Volunteers are also needed. Send questions about walking, fundraising, or volunteering to walkMSgne@nmss.org.

Donations in support of walkers and teams may be made online, at walkMSgne.org. Click on ‘Donate’, select “Massachusetts, Dartmouth ‘Donate/ePledge’”, and enter the individual or team you want to support.

Of the many sponsors that make Walk MS possible each year, their most loyal and generous are Biogen Idec & lan, EMD Serono & Pfizer, Bernie & Phyl’s Furniture, Data Associates, Patients Like Me, WCVB TV5, Honest Tea, and Pure Protein. Visit http://www.walkMSgne.org for details.

Early and ongoing treatment with an FDA-approved therapy can make a difference for people with multiple sclerosis. Learn about your options by talking to your health care professional and contacting the National MS Society at nationalMSsociety.org or 1-800-FIGHT-MS (344-4867).

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Dartmouth walks toward a world free of Multiple Sclerosis

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‘Eccentric sensation’ fashion show raises money for Multiple Sclerosis research

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Written by Lyndsey Sager Wednesday, 28 March 2012 20:27

Danielle Flowers, sophomore fashion design major, does the model’s make up behind the scenes of the Multiple Sclerosis Benefit Fashion Show, March 28. Photo by Chelsae Ketchum.

The Exquisite Inc. Modeling Troupe raised $500 for Multiple Sclerosis research at the fourth annual MS Benefit Fashion Show Wednesday night.

The theme of the show was eccentric sensation, which includes styles similar to Lady Gaga, said Jazmine Woods, freshman news major and Exquisite model.

The show, which took place in the Student Center Ballroom, included collections from six designers and dances from AFOE and Legacy, two dance teams at Kent State.

Tickets were $5 in advance, or $10 at the door. All proceeds went to the Kym Sellers Foundation for Multiple Sclerosis.

We dont get 10 percent or 5 percent, Woods said. Absolutely all of the money will go to the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation.

Cory Froomkin, junior broadcast journalism major, hosted the event.

This is the type of stuff I kind of want to do one day, Froomkin said. I know when I anchor one day, Ill have to do stuff like this so its good practice.

Diamond Towns, junior marketing major and Exquisite president, said Exquisite Inc. also hosts a Fall into Fashion show during fall semester.

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‘Eccentric sensation’ fashion show raises money for Multiple Sclerosis research

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