8oinks

Beautiful new photos from the HiRISE Camera - Picture Of Sand Dunes on Mars.
(read more) Make sure to watch in High Res.

see also: Mars: a collection of over 1,500

Jenism - Somewhere in south america, Mazel tov, Festivus, Pomp, unexpected grid. Illustrations by Jennifer Crouch

As a conceptual photographer often heavily invested in his process, Hiroshi Sugimoto has always been interested in photography’s ability to capture light as well as the medium’s capacity to frame and objectify its subject. In Lightning Fields, Sugimoto references the history of photography by pursuing two distinct projects related to William Henry Fox Talbot - inventor of the photographic negative. The first part is Sugimoto’s literal and meticulous reprinting of two of Talbot’s botanical photograms while the second is inspired by the pioneer’s explorations with electricity.

In Lightning Fields, Sugimoto plays with the tenuousness of positive and negative by purposefully incorporating electrical charges as part of the photographic process. Without a camera, Sugimoto applies a Van de Graaff 400,000-volt generator to his large negatives to create photogram-like records of transitory sparks and static electricity.

This richly layered process creates works that, in the tradition of Talbot before him, elegantly blur the boundary between science and photography. (read more at Shotgun)

see also 7 Days 7 Nights

Tamishir on flickr and 8oinks

This image of the male sex organ of a flowering plant took first place in Nikon’s annual Small World photomicrography competition this year.

Chosen for both its scientific and artistic qualities from among a record 2,000 entries, this image was captured by Estonian scientist Heiti Paves. (via)

See 137 contributions of this year’s competition at Nikon small-world and check out the small-world winners from 1977-2009.

The nineteen century German biologist Ernst Haeckel is famous for his fantastically illustrated book Artforms of Nature. The copyright for this book from 1904 has now expired and thanks to Wikimedia Commons it is available for everyone to appreciate. Haekel’s artistic interpretation of the biological forms he studied have a clarity of symmetry and detail that has been a source of inspiration for many artists and engineers over the years. They provide the perfect subject matter for the Fractal Explorer plugin. Read more at subblue.

These new Mars pics were snapped by the High Resolution (HiRISE) camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on August 3. The Orbiter has been studying Mars since 2006, and the new shots below add to a collection of over 1,500 taken by the HiRISE camera since April.

Read more at dailygalaxy and download the images in amazing resolution at HiRISE

Levi van Veluw, born in 1985 Hoevelaken, is a multidisciplinary artist, he lives and works in the Netherlands.

With the 4-piece series ’Landscapes’ Levi van Veluw reinterprets the traditional landscape painting, removing plots of grass, clusters of trees, babbling brooks from their intimate 2 dimensional formats and transposing them onto the 3 dimensional contours of his own face. Thus a fresh twist is given to the obsession inherent in the romantic landscape of recreating the world and simultaneously being part of it. The romantic landscape and self-portrait genres are combined as a means of re-examination. (via)

For his experimental short film „Energie!“, Thorsten Fleisch puts 30.000 Volt through photo paper. via nerdcore

A very interesting research that might correlate genetic diversity with neural evolution. Theories of neural evolution (G. Edelman) can include a genetic element within neurons that allows for diversity in neural behavior.

“This is a potential mechanism to create the neural diversity that makes each person unique,  the brain has 100 billion neurons with 100 trillion connections, but mobile pieces of DNA could give individual neurons a slightly different capacity from each other.”

More importantly, knowing that LINE-1 elements are jumping around in the brain opens up a new way to look at neurological disorders. “Dysregulated jumping could be contributing to the problems seen in these conditions.” The Salk researchers are planning to look for changes in jumping frequency in the brains of individuals affected by Rhett’s syndrome and other diseases.

Read more on physorg.com / dailygalaxy or k21st

Tiffany Bozic has spent the majority of her life living with and observing the intricacies of nature. Her work often incorporates richly pigmented acrylic paint on solid maple wood panels.

A two-minute animated voyage through nature’s life cycle, following the trials and tribulations of a humble apple seed.

The film was funded by Adobe, made using their CS4 range of software. It was produced at Nexus Productions and features a soundtrack by Jape. It was made using a mixture of stop motion papercraft and 2D drawn animation.
http://www.vimeo.com/3715286
See making of here: vimeo.com/2425610

William N. Jennings (b. England, lived in Philadelphia 1860-1946) has been credited as the first person to take photographs of lightning (1882). His photos show that lightning does not travel in a zigzag pattern, a once common notion. Nature is beautiful and Jennings captured the mystery and power of atmospheric electrical discharge. Jennings is an interesting person to read about: his experiments with photography aided the development of flash photography and x-ray photography. (via potatobenevolence)

Jennings’ pioneering work in photography coincided with the rise of print media and publication. The ability of scientists to publish their work sparked an intellectual discourse of sorts, as scientists from all over the globe began reading and responding in writing to the work of their colleagues. The publication of his work caused Jennings’ name to circulate among well-known scientists of his day, and many of these men sent congratulatory notes in response to his articles and photographs. Joseph Leidy, the father of American vertebrate paleontology, said of Jennings’ photography: “It is truly excellent, I had no idea such could be taken.”

Read more about William N. Jennings’ work and explore a number of his essays on the Franklin Institue’s - case files

Geneva & Arles, announced a shortlist of twelve outstanding international photographers, from which one will be selected later this year to receive the Prix Pictet, the world’s photography prize for environmental sustainability.
Read more at photography for a greener planet

Prix Pictet’s Shortlist includes photo by Andreas Gursky
download in high resolution

The ESA uploads and shares many of their satellite images, maps and animations

in high resolution (free download, for educational use) :

Observing The Earth / Envisat Meris Image Gallery

When we think of networks, we think of humans and the cables we’ve run around the world to connect our species. Figuring out how to move electrons has transformed human society, but we are not the only species on earth that lives in a wired world.
Recent research shows that single-celled organisms are able to grow electrical connections out of their own bodies. Bacteria may be sending electrical-mails of their own. A feat beyond all mortals.

Read more at WIRED’s From The Fields Series, or at dailygalaxy

Emergence - flickrgroup

about:

Emergent properties, behavior and patterns, decentralized systems, complexity, order out of chaos. Please read the wikipedia article on Emergence to get an idea of what this group is about.

The universe is complex. Random assortments of things, coupled with simple rules, can give rise to complex patterns that are sometimes counterintuitive, frequently beautiful, and almost always interesting. Computers allow us to explore the emergent properties of mathematical constructs, for example the Mandelbrot set and the Game of Life. Outside the world of Mathematics, emergent behavior is all-pervasive, yet it is frequently hard to identify. Think about the [lack of central] organization of an ant colony. Think about the flight formation of a flock of geese.

Can you show further examples? Can you help discuss how complex behavior and/or patterns arise from simpler rules?

Boids with predators by mattie_shoes
Flickr Video

Boids is an old programming geek thing to show off swarm behavior. Essentially, you make a bunch of artificial birds (boids, ha!) and make each one follow very simplistic rules.
1) try and stay towards the center of the group
2) avoid hitting your neighbors
3) try and match velocities with your neighbors
Assuming the rules are set up correctly, your flock of boids will behave similarly to real flocks of birds.

Not only the colours and shapes of Microorganisms are very inspiring; but also their behaviour. Providing no mutational event occurs the resulting daughter cells are genetically identical to the original cell. Hence, “local doubling” of the bacterial population occurs. Both daughter cells from the division do not necessarily survive. However, if the number surviving exceeds unity on average, the bacterial population undergoes exponential growth. 

Q: “The artist’s intention is not exactly to reveal the world beneath the surface, but, rather, to deepen the mystery. (more)

Hans-Christian Schink works with  a phenomenon which was already described in 1857 by William Henry Jackson  - the solarization. Photograph the sun with a long exposure time and it will appear not white but black. H. C. Schink exposed different places around the globe for exactly one hour to create a grainy black and white image with a moment frozen in time.

UFO, Jellyfish Crop Circle found in Oxfordshire Field Telegraph Published June 2, 2009

Take a look at the complete set on Flickr.

STAR CLUSTERS

Omega Over TSP

Ink Spot

Star Field

Snake Nebula Cloud

Snake Nebula Close Up