Bathgate returns with new Sculpture

After dedicating a few months to his small edition One and Two, Chris Bathgate is back on more familiar ground, creating a one of a kind sculpture that not only looks good, it's fun to play with.

Built around a turnbuckle system where each sphere, designated as either a right hand or left hand sphere, is joined by a bronze bushing that drives a brass turnbuckle bolt.

Check out the complete set of Chris Bathgate blogposts.

Connecting Godot Machines and Ant Ballets

I'm used to coming across new words, as i have a horrid vocabulary. But when Google's 'define:' function didn't help, I got a bit worried. So I went straight to the source; lead member and founder of the Physical Virus project, Ollie Palmer.

Perhaps you've already recognised, as I nearly did, that 'Godot' originates from the play Waiting for Godot, which portrays the scenario in which two characters wait, in essentially the one place, for a mysterious person named Godot that never arrives. Thus a Godot machine is a mechanical device that keeps a subject of interest in once place at all times. In Ollie's and Physical Virus's case, the subject is an ant.

Godot Machine 1.0-1.5 from Ollie Palmer on Vimeo

Into the Crucible of a Collaboration

Into the Crucibles of Nature
In what was 2009, the year of Astronomy, a unique partnership was formed between artist Fiorella Lavado and Scientist cum Author Arthur I. Miller to facilitate an exploration of the cosmos like never before. In concert with the Benaki Museum of Athens for the purpose of the exhibition, Into the Crucibles of Nature, Fiorella, with direction from Arthur have created a unique collection of art that recreates the science of the universe.

Fiorella’s weavings work particularly well with black holes. They contain a stillness that is unsettling which evokes a cautiousness to their exploration as the viewer. Likewise wormholes and nebulas which also feature are still very unknown quantities but there is reason to be very cautious about their exploration also, which is captured marvellously in these weavings.

Jaws of Darkness | Ultra Fine Wire Weave | Fiorella Lavado | Photography Noel Mclaughlin

Heretical Science: Parallel Universe Exhbition

The idea that our world contains more dimensions than the physical three dimensions of space and one dimension of time is both unsettling and fascinating. Not only can we not experience these dimensions, the very thought of them causes our brain to run in circles. In contrast, mathematics and computers have no problems adjusting to this realisation.

Ian Carlo Jaucian is not a computer. He is troubled by these same problems. If extra dimensions exist, what might they be good for? What do they look like? Why are some physicist focusing their entire careers on the search for these illusive dimensions?

To tackle these questions Ian has devised a unique collection of original art pieces which he has titled Heretical Science, which has been on display in the Parallel Universe exhibition at the Cultural Center of the Philippines from the 26th of August until 2nd of October.

Behind the NeuroArt #1 @ TheBeautifulBrain

Brain slice preparations, which make up the bulk of neural microcircuitry research to date, have greatly added to our understanding of how distinct neuronal cell types are connected in different parts of the brain. However this method is limited because it gives only a snapshot of a cold lifeless brain. That is, it can not show the relationship between connectivity and function in the intact functioning brain.

However a recently developed technique by researches at the Salk Institute which is being displayed at The Beautiful Brain promises to unleash a wealth of new understanding by opening up the functioning brain to traditional brain connectivity study. For the first time an analysis will be able to be made concerning the fine-scale connectivity of the brain in living organisms.

And it has all been made possible using a dash of fluorescence and smigin of Rabies virus.

Monosynaptic tracing rabies virus with EGFP gene | The Beautiful Brain

The Undivided Mind Exhibition

When I saw the bellow pictures, I said, WOW!

This exhibition, sponsored by the Imaginary Foundation is probably the most outstanding example of science meets art I've seen thus far. I feel like I only said that this week, but I have a feeling I shan't be saying that for quite some time, now that I've found The Undivided Mind

Smashing Baby: Lead Ion Collisions from the LHC

In November CERN announced the intention of the LHC to switch from protons to lead ions - lead stripped of their electrons - in order to probe "matter as it would have been in the first instants of the Universe’s existence".

Just four days later CERN completed it's transition from protons to lead ion beams and the results of the first few runs are now available for all to see.

These first set of images are from the ATLAS detector.

Beautiful Tunes @ TheBeautifulBrain

The other day I tweeted about something I couldn't keep a secret. If you had paid attention, you probably wouldn't need to read this post.

The Beautiful Brain, to which I've only recently become aware of, has some of the most beautiful imagery and amazing stories crossing the science art divide I have seen anywhere.

Take for instance their series Inside the Brain, Behind the Music authored by Joseph LeDoux, neuroscientist and singer/songwriter for The Amygdaloids. Joseph writes of the motives and science behind the creation of select songs from their most recent album Theory of My Mind. In doing so he also unleashes the thought processes of an scientist, artist and a musician. A little bit of neuroscience isn't the only thing you'll pick up when reading these brilliant insightful articles.

Fearing | The Amygdaloids from Couple 3 Films on Vimeo

Chris Bathgate Small Edition #2

Hot of the heels of Small Edition #1 comes Chris Bathgate's second small edition.

These latest small editions are yet another extension of Chris's knack for solving problems: A not so rapid prototype of an idea that may be explored in more detail in one of his larger works.

SL324454291 | Copyright Chris Bathgate

FeverPicture @ TEDxAdelaide

Capturing information is the most important aspect of communicating. Charts, graphs and other tools are sometimes a little to formal and limited in what they can depict.

So when TEDxAdelaide, a place to introduce and discuss new ideas, needed to record their speakers talks, it was most probably very logical that FeverPicture play an important part in recording the days events. Especially so as FeverPicture has illustrated for TEDxAuckland.

FeverPicture, created by Gavin Blake, is an illustrative approach to telling stories, recording conversations and explaining complex systems.

James Fosdike @ TEDxAdelaide

Saturday, 10am CDT. Adelaide was hit by a TEDx event that rocked the city in to the early hours of Sunday morning. Aftershocks continue to reverberate throughout the city as the ideas once on the edge, continue to spread out from the epicenter and seep into the consciousness of stunned observers.

James Fosdike, creator of Visualante and Deadly, was on hand through out the day lending his talents to TEDxAdelaide in order to catalogue the days topics in his unique style of Illustration.

Augmented Reality | James Fosdike

SaCrIt_Twitter

Last night I attended the TEDx Adelaide event at the RiAus. Starting at 9am and not finishing for me until 12pm when I got home, it was a long day.

The social media aspect, which was all around me on the day and the lovely people I've talked to over the 12/15 hours has convinced me that I need Twitter.

What you'll see from SaCrIt on twitter is many daily micro blog updates. I currently have many drafts that I know won't finish in a full article for one reason or another but I still want to get the information out there for people to be aware of. This is where twitter comes in.

This will allow me to keep SaCrIt for the pure art science that I intended it to be. The blog will contain the premier unique content and the twitter account will contain many things I find through out the day that I just don't have the time to blog about.

So follow SaCrIt on twitter via twitter or via rss or whatever. I'll have lots to tweet in the near future - after I recover from the massive day at TEDxAdelaide.

Epic Art Science Exhibit & Exploration

I have just read about a new exhibition, Behind the Dawn featuring not one but four exhibitions and many events that deliver science and it's methods to the public through the medium of art.

A quick look tells me this is something I wish I knew about earlier.

Chris Bathgate's Small Edition #1

Chris Bathgate contacted me last week to tell me about his latest work and fascination. It was only two weeks ago that I let you know of his latest major work, yet we find our selves here again, albeit in a scaled down form.

A Series of 5 Sr622224431773524's lined up next to each other | Copyright Chris Bathgate

DomeLab 2010

Western Australia's 'destination cinema' and 'full screen format' expertise swelled over the weekend with the arrival of the worlds leading full dome cinema production experts for the Domelab 2010 experience.

By combining a select group of experts and an experimental and risk-taking over finished-product approach, Domelab hopes to foster an environment where attendees can focus on the production of new skills, techniques and tools for creating more immersive cinematic full dome experiences.

Explanation iDome options by Paul Bourke

TEDxAdelaide This Week

TEDxAdelaide launches this week. The RiAus will be playing host to what is sure to be an exciting mix of people and ideas who are ready to shape the future of our communities and cities.

Events kick of @ 9:30am Saturday 6th November. If you can't make it to TEDxAdelaide or you missed out, You can still watch it live online.

Just a Minute in October

It's not every day I'm inspired to post by a feminine design and art blog. However, today is one of theose days. A recent blog post by good friend, Daydream Lilly, has set the continuation of a meme started by anotheer blogger of a similar genre, August Street.

The idea, the meme, is to post a monthely update at the end of each month on exactly what you have been Making, reading, watching, listening to or whatevering. This has proved quite popular among thee feminine design and art blogs, but I think it could be equally interesting if the process was to cross over to the science blogging world. Who wouldn't want to know what they're favourite physicists, biologists or chemists etc have been making, watching, listening to etc.

So as someone who enjoys both science and art and who also perceives this meme as some sort of cultural experiment, I figured I'd help out and try and start sometheing that tastes a bit like science.

Finding Geek Ink

Back in 2007, The Looms blogger Carl Zimmer chanced upon a scientist friend with a rather geeky DNA tattoo. On enquiry he discovered that the DNA art etched into the epidermal layers of his Drosophila fly gene studying friend encoded the his friends wifes initials "EEE".

Then, remembering he had previously noticed the geeky skin art of other scientist friends, Zimmer bemused,

"have I bumped into the tip of a vast hidden iceberg, or do I just happen to know the few scientists with tattoos of their science"

That Covers It | The Tree of Life--carbon, glucose, light, DNA, and the golden rectangle. A tattoo by Kevin Riley. On the chest of a PhD student in molecular biology | Copyright Carl Zimmer

Right Now! Display Your Wares @ The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art

Well, not my work. But your work could be, if you have any. That's the idea behind the MyWorkIsInTheAustralianCenterForContemproaryArt project.

The Australian Centre for Contemporary Art is offering earth's public to submit their art to the HP ePrinter and have it displayed within the gallery's halls and online for all to see.

Periodic Table of Irrational Nonsense (PToIN)

If you haven't already heard about it, you should have. I know that I am very Irrational at times, but i also have the ability to laugh at myself - which is why I find Crispian Jago's PToIN so very clever and humorous.

Copyright Crispian Jago

Dreamy Science Experiments with Art

Since Aristotle first claimed that "a person awakes from sleep when digestion is complete", the act of shut eye has been a very misunderstood phenomenon. It took Sigmund Freud arching back to ancient Egyptian and Greek times who believed dreams could be interpreted to reveal hidden meaning to revolutionalise our thoughts on sleep.

However since the 1970s our old ideas have begun to crumble in the face of harder scientific theories. Thus the question begs, should we shed our earlier notions and put our trust in the new regime? Is hard science the only way forward? Does imagination, invention and art not get to play a role?

Somnolence Structures | Copyright Lisa Carrie Goldberg

Physics Photowalk Winners Announced

On the 7th of August five of the world's leading particle physics laboratories in Asia, Europe and North America welcomed more than 200 amateur photographers from around the world for some happy snaps of each facility for the purposes of the 1st Physics Photowalk. The submitted photos were judged globally by a jury and the people leading to the peoples choice awards and the global jury's choice awards.

Winners of the 1st annual Physics Photowalk have now been announced.

Latest Work From Chris Bathgate

Chris Bathgate creates art by experimenting with mechanical engineering.

If you can cast your mind back about 2 weeks, You'll remember that I introduced Chris's work with my Chris Bathgate is Engineering Art blog post. Little did I know he was just about to unleash a new beauty.

Today I bring you Chris's latest work, fresh off the home made lathes and with the milling lubricant still steaming.

A Commentary of Josef Kristofoletti's LHC Mural

Normally I wouldn't cover a story already covered by the larger more active blogs, but my large passion of street art and fondness for the science of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has over ruled my ambition to stay positively unique.




The above time-lapse video depicts the creation of mural featuring the ATLAS experiment of the LHC @ CERN. Titled, "Angel of the Higgs Boson", the mural features the impression of a collision between two particles travelling at near the speed of light that are assumed to produce the Higgs Boson: an as yet to be discovered theoretical elementary particle.

Josef Kristofoletti painted this mural in 2008 for the Redux Contemporary Art Centre as part of "The Sun Machine is Coming Down" exhibition. It was this mural that attracted the attention of ATLAS communicator Claudia Marcelloni who subsequently invited Josef to paint the walls of the real thing - or at least a service building of the real thing.

Remember AIDS?

The following posters were kindly donated by James Lapides to Elizabeth Resnick, Professor and Chair of Graphic Design @ Massachusetts College of Art and Design who has organised the Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters 1985–2010.

Bellow are four of my favourite posters.

Chris Bathgate is Engineering Art

You wouldn't expect a painter to piece together a custom brush bristle by bristle. A Photographer doesn't spend his time improving an optical lens made by cannon. Nor do illustrators make their own pencils or pastels.

Which makes Chris Bathgate a very unique artist: If he needs it, he builds it.

These are the mostly unforeseen works, the product of the Chris Bathgate process. Over the years necessity has prompted the formation of Computerised Numerical Control (CNC) machines (a large mill and two smaller lathes), Digitally operated kilns, electroplating tanks and anodizing equipment that you wont find in any gallery or private collection.

Robert Langs Origami as Art & Science

The perception of Origami held by most is that of an obscure Japanese folk art. Challenging this perception is the work of Robert Lang who's detailed and highly complex folds are in keep with Origami's recent transformation from art to science.

The 1980s marked a turning point for Origami as it increasingly became the subject of mathematicians, scientists and engineers. The next decade welcomed a flood of ideas, theories and genuine breakthroughs exposing a truth and power in Origami marking it's renascence and future direction.

Scorpion HP, opus 541 | One uncut square of Korean hanji paper | Copyright Robert Lang

Art Imitating Hard Science

Inspired by the physics of Fermilab on a recent tour with physicist Teppei Katori, joint curators Chuck Przybyl and Edyta Stepien have encouraged a pose of artists to create an ensemble fit for showcasing the universe.


Hard Science - Any of the natural or physical sciences wherein facts or truths are derived from empirical investigations or experiments based on scientific method.
Unlike scientists of other disciplines, particle physicists perceive their work through mathematical equations, charts, models and various computer generated data sets. Whilst this method of communication is useful for those in the know, the message would be lost on anyone outside of this particular realm.

Appreciating this fact and the overwhelming drive to be able to visualise all this information Chuck and Edyta realised the potential of the theories and experiments of Fermilab to be communicated through contemporary conceptual art.

Bellow are some of my favourite pieces from the Hard Science Exhibit.

Distilled Expressions

Using a polarised light, an optical microscope and an attached camera, BevShots sheds light on your favourite brew like never before.

Cocktails, Beers and other concoctions come to life with a unique set of colours and patterns with the uniquely developed method of microscopy available only at BevShots.

To date, BevShots remains unique in both science and art.

Piña Colada Copyright Michael W. Davidson and Florida State University Research Foundation, Inc

Our Universe, The Elegant Fractal?

For as long as we’ve looked up into the sky and marvelled at the beauty and elegance of nature, there has been an unrelenting urge to understand its very essence.

The philosophical notion that natures secrets lay in the patterns of nature and numbers gained momentum in the early modern period as mathematics, science, art and religion grew strongly. The Golden ratio was highly recognised as a leading contender because of it's mystical like properties, it's abundance in nature and it's perceived mathematical beauty.

A 21st Century Approach to Marquetry

Wall Piece | River | Copyright Theo Kamecke

Beauty in engineering is often a result of function or purpose, but it can also be deliberate as an aid to readability and maintainability.

Circuit boards are a great example. Look at any circuit board and you'll see groups of components and connections. Often the connections will flow from one, to another or around components creating a mirror, rotational or other symmetrical image.

On their own they can be quite beautiful, but wouldn't it be great if the beauty was more accessible, spelt out to us who are not so in tune with the symmetries of nature?

Introducing Theo Kamecke.

Painting With E. Coli

In the expanding space of scientific methods meets artistic endeavour comes another hybrid of human creation by the name of Growing Impressions: A scientific technique used to grow art.

Blue/white screening is a technique used to seperate and identify colony's of cells who's Chromosomal DNA have or have not been modified by introduced DNA. If the bacteria remain unmodified by the introduced DNA, they will turn blue as they continue to grow, like in the following photos. However, in Growing Impressions, you wont see any white E. Coli. These Ecoli have been produced especially to produce the blue pigment.

Amy Chase Gulden | E. Coli on Agar | Copyright Amy Chase Gulden

Poetic Science makes good Scientific Poetry

This blog post contains copyrighted material. Before reproducing text or images from this blog please contact the publisher and respective poets. Thank you.



Science Made Marvellous was launched in SA on the weekend at the Royal Institute of Australia's (RiAus) Science Exchange in Adelaide.

Nestled amongst a host of speakers addressing the science art divide, a Science themed Haiku inspired competition and a presentation of science meets art creations by the students of the Australian Science and Mathematics School: this was truly an event Where Worlds Collide.

Bellow you will find the published books as a result of the Science Made Marvellous competition. A poem from each book has been reproduced in full.

Each book is downloadable at no cost by clicking on the title or cover.

Sci-ku @ Where Worlds Collide

The Royal Institute of Australia brought Adelaide yet another gem of work last weekend in the event title Where Worlds Collide.

High lights of the evening where no doubt the readings of Sci-ku and Science Made Marvellous competition winners. However, not to be out done, featured talkers Erica Jolly and Roger Reiss gave insightful and passionate accounts on the collision between science and poetry and enlightened us on how these once disparate fields can conjoin to inspire and inform.

In collaboration with the Friendly Street Poets the RiAus announced the winners of the Sci-ku competition in which entrants were to write three line science themed poems inspired by the Japanese poetry haiku - although syllables/moras were not counted. Entries were enetered in either the primary school, secondary school or open age categories.

Cara Phillips: Ultraviolet Beauties

Whilst I'm waiting on various permissions to reproduce artists work in my much anticipated poetry blogs, I stumbled accross an interesting expose of Cara Phillips and her black&white Ultraviolet Photography.

Say what?

Cara Phillips | Ultraviolite Beauties | Copywrite Cara Phillips

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

In my daily trawling of art and science related news I came accross an article featuring the latest exhibition from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

As usual, click on the photos to open a new tab or be redirected to the original flickr photo stream.


Smithsonian Community | Two Coral Polyps | All rights reserved by aporanee

IBM Demonstrate New Nano Patterning Tool

Nanotechnology is perhaps THE cutting edge technology of the 21st century. However, production of nano particles of all types remain fairly expensive compared to more conventional ways of using the same materials.

However thanks to IBM researchers, the status quo could be about to change for the technique of nano patterning.

IBM scientists have developed a new technique that uses a nano scale tip, that when forced to a surface and heated sufficiently is able to carve away substrate material from the surface to create 2D and 3D patterns and structures as small as 15 nanometres at greatly reduced cost and complexity.

Click on the images bellow for a thorough explanation and access to higher resolution pictures.

Image courtesy of Advanced Materials

Art and the Atom

I came across a news release recently, via Google news and discovered that in Christchurch, New Zealand, there is an interesting exhibition merging nanotechnology and art.

The exhibition is a collaboration between the University of Canterbury and the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Material and Nanotechnology that aims to bring scientists and artists together in order to communicate a brilliant 21st century technology to the public.

Nanotechnology is the engineering of materials the size of 1 billionth of a meter. When materials are built at such a small scale and of variant sizes, different properties, that which don't appear in it's chemical makeup at macro sizes spring forward, often surprising the scientists at work: Nano silver is completely anti-bacterial, carbon nano tubes are execellent conductors of electricity.

The MacDiarmid Institute donated $2000 dollars to be awarded to the best nanotechnology picture of the exhibition.

David Garret | Towers of Vertically Aligned Nano Tubes

Vogue: Water & Oil

Steven Meisel Oil & Water Vogue August 2010
The August issue of Vogue Italia features a series of images by photographer Steven Meisel showcasing the devastation and impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Model Kristen McMenamy plays the protagonist in Stevens work. Dressed in black feathers or slick skin attire and shot splayed over jagged rocks and chocking on black sludge, Kristen simulates the suffering of the victims of the spill, raising emotions and unsettling her audience.

I believe the use of Kristen is important, because it connects us to the images more successfully. As a species, we're inclined to view one of our own kind in distress as being more devastating than that of another species and so the use of Kristen is used to drive home the emotion behind the images and adds to the success of Stevens work.

Khemia: Living Alchemy Exhibition & Workshops - Part 2 - Exhibition Run Down

The artists featured in this article were profiled in Khemia: Living Alchemy Exhibition & Workshops - Part I - Artists Introduction

Enter the world of Khemia, where separate and disparate things fuse to make the new and art and science are not as seperate as you might think.

Three artists: Niki Sperou, Angela Valamanesh & John Willanski.

Chimera - Niki Sperou
The centre piece of the exhibition, Chimera aims to drive a merger of biotechnology, material manipulations and ancient Greek cultural paradigms, using art as it's vehicle.

Niki Sperou | Chimera | Wall Mounted Photos

Projecting the future

New Scientist brings us stories and videos from the 37th SIGGRAPH International Conference & Exhibition of Computer Graphics and Interactive Technology.

I call it, technoart!

A Cookie with Seven differen tastes
Got a taste for Augmented reality? Then we have 7 different flavours!

Caleb Charland

A quick blog about something I found today.

What happens when you have someone who is curious about how things work and they also happen to be a kick arse photographer? You get these...

Caleb Charland | Light Sphere with My Right Arm and Cigarette Lighter

Dr Dre Instrumental

Finally I get to blog about something other than that which is visual, although this is a small blog.

Yet again from one of my favourite sites, New Scientist, comes a piece on Dr Dre.... I never thought I'd see that!



Dr Dre's threatnin' to mix science with art in a new instrumental album that has been inspired by the solar system.

"An instrumental album is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I have the ideas for it. I want to call it The Planets."

Dre explains he's been studying the planets in his spare time over the past two years which has allowed him to learn the personalities of the planets and thus give the planets their own sound.

"It’s just my interpretation of what each planet sounds like. I’m gonna go off on that. Just all instrumental."

"I wanna do it in surround sound. It'll have to be in surround sound for Saturn to work."

I welcome this advance. Any way in which we can help make science a little more cool, I am happy with.

You can see a snippet of the original interview, concerning Dr Dre's upcoming album Detox at Vibe Magazine.

Khemia: Living Alchemy Exhibition & Workshops - Part I - Artists Introduction

Khemia is an exhibition celebrating the nexus of science and art through the talents of some of South Australia's established and up and coming artists.

Angela Valamanesh
Angela is a well known South Australian arist known for her striking yet simple and inspiring work with ceramics. Graduating from the University of SA in 1993 before continuing her studies in the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, curtosy of the Anne & Gordon Samstag International Visual Arts Scholarship, Angela has since been established herself as an expert in her field.

Angela's work fits right in with theme of the exhibition, that being biological life forms as a lot of Angela's previous work has focussed on exactly that.

BioArt - An Evolution In Art

On Thursday the 5th of August I will be spending some time at the Royal Institute of Australia aka Science Exchange, getting acquainted with BioArt up close and personnel.

However, I have not, until recently heard about BioArt. So I introduced myself and decided to show you what I found.

BioArt grows, invents or transforms living organisms through various approaches using biotechnology. It is undertaken both by scientists and artists or a collaboration between the two.

Eduardo Kac, no doubt the most well known bioartist, who coined the term 'BioArt', praised the distinct form of art for filling a need to branch out of the bordering confines dictated by traditional arts.

However the ground ahead is laden with ethical land minds. BioArt forces us to consider our roles in the evolution of species on this planet and forces us to consider deep often religious and philosophical questions as well as showcasing the advances and usefulness of biotechnology. Critiques claim that it is yet another example of humans using animals for their own personal gain, and further endangering their well being.

Ethical issues aside, BioArt generates discussion, displays the sheer beauty and elegance of nature and is pushing the boundaries of thoughts and the sciences, which is exactly what art has done for centuries.

Screen Printing with Blood ReBlog

I swore not to blog whilst at work today, but this caught my eye and i thought i just had to reblog it.

I don't know a lot about screen printing, but i believe it's not normal when one uses their own blood as paint.

Check out these pics on how to drain your body of vital fluids in the name of art:

Draining the vein

MRS "Science as Art" Competition(s)

After uncovering the following photos, I decided that my first two blogs could be considered a practice... because the ensuring pictures blow the others out of the water!

These first two pictures of science imitating art are my favourites from the series. We are able to see these pictures due to the magic of the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). The "Field of Sunflowers" were produced by S.K. Hark, Chinese University of Hong Kong and won 1st prise in the 2008 sprint meet. The Second image was produced by Wen Hsun Tu, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan and titled "Nano-Witch" was the 2nd Place Winner in the 2009 fall meeting.

Both images are composed of what is known as nanowires. Each nanowire is about 10 nm in diameter and tens of micrometers in length. They were grown from a silicon oxide (SiOx) compound for the sunflowers and a zink oxide (ZnO) for the nano-witch. Both use a process known as Vapour-Liquid-Solid (VLS) to grow the nanowires.

Art of Science Gallary 2010

On the second day of SaCrIt i blogged some neat photos...

The following photos are held a Princeton University webserver. They appear to have run some sort of competition for the best science related photos and have done so for 2010, 2009, 2006 & 2005. Don't ask me what happened to the other years.

Here are the three winners. Click on the images to read about how they were created. Much of the details bellow are in deed paraphrased as i understand very little of it.

This Xenon Plasma Accelerator uses electronic and magnetic fields to accelerate xenon propellant to produce thrust. Xenon is a colourless gas but we can see a blue haze here due to the result of the xenon being excited by electric discharge - like the blue zap of static electric shock we're all too familiar with, although this is a form of electrostatic discharge, but you get the idea. Plasma Accelerators are a leading technology for future space flight... and it looks darn pretty too.

Credits:Jerry Ross (fac) - PPPL

Art On A Chip

In my daily reading of newscienist.com I came across their exposé of a flickr photo stream detailing parts of circuit designs and other related images that have an underlying beauty/symmetry. In fact, my hunger to share these images is what sowed the seed for creation of this blog.

Here are the photos New Scientist found most striking. Click on each image to see what New Scientist had to say about how these marvellous works were created.

(Image: Chris Sip and Albert Folch/University of Washington)