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Space is the zone beyond the earth's atmosphere that is considered a vacuum, where there is no air to breath or atoms to move light.¹ Shown in the video “Powers of ten”(Figure A), space is infinitely bigger than any person could imagine. They are able to show this by continuously zooming out by powers of ten starting at one square meter². After watching the video, the meaning of life seemed to have a significantly less weight to it. A majority of people know that space is a part of the large unknown void that exists beyond reach, but a few scientists and engineers believe it can be as close as a simple structure. There are proposals for a space elevator(Figure B) that would lift mass out of earth's atmosphere against gravity.³ The main idea is to use a cable connected at one end to the earth, and at the other end to a satellite that is propelled forward with acceleration to move at the same rate as earth's rotation⁴. While that may sound crazy, there are many people and sc...

This week I was able to attend the 132nd faculty research lecture, an event that happens bi-annually and rotates between speakers from the humanities and speakers from the sciences. The university holds the lecture to showcase the achievements of its staff and allow more people to learn from their expansive knowledge. The 132nd lecture featured Alice E. Shapley, a professor in the physics and astronomy department who studies the formation of galaxies(Figure A).  Figure A: Event registration  A galaxy is a collection of gas, stars, and dust held together by gravity. As inhabitants of earth, we are part of the milky way galaxy. As Shapely described most of what we know about galaxies are based on the images we are able to capture of them. Overall we have found that there are two major types of galaxies. The first is the elliptical(Pictured below, Figure B) which has a smooth elliptical shape normally shining a cooler blue color  with little variation in particles. With litt...

  NanoTech + Art:  This week we looked into the development of nanotech over the years and analyzed its connections to art. The term nanotech was coined by Japanese professor and scientist Norio Taniguchi¹ to describe the process scientists have developed to manipulate at the scale of a single atom. Nano is the greek root for dwarf and tech is an abbreviation for technology hence technology used to work with extremely small scales. So small in fact, that a single nanometer is approximately three atoms long². Seen below (Figure 1) is a diagram that shows what scale a nanometer would fall under; between a singular protein and the size of a virus.  Figure 1:  1 *, Name. “Size-Comparison-Bio-Nanoparticles Nanometer Scale Comparison Nanoparticle Size Comparison Nanotechnology Chart Ruler.” Wich Research Lab , 3 Aug. 2017, https://www.wichlab.com/nanometer-scale-comparison-nanoparticle-size-comparison-nanotechnology-chart-ruler-2/. While the technology has been developing ...

This week I was able to attend the screening of the short film (Figure A) “This Mortal Plastik” by Jess Irish. It was a short nonfiction “film which dives into the world’s most impersonal substance: plastics”¹ (Figure B) Figure A: Zoom confirmation screenshot Irish uses today's infatuation with media and film to frame her work on environmental justice. Specifically in “This Mortal Plastik” Irish is hounding down on single use plastics, and analyzes their necessity in our everyday society. She used artistic representations of plastics matched with sounds to target the senses. At one point in her film the narration called single use plastics as synthetic skins, which really stood out to me. The idea that we need a barrier between us and the products we use is just an idea that has been pounded in by the thought of normalcy. She highlighted three questions about these synthetic skins, are they useful? Are they necessary? And are they required? After she asked these key questions she h...

 THE MIND: The human brain is split into arguably two generic differentiations, the conscious side, and the unconscious side. Both of which have numerous fields of study enamored with them The conscious side of the mind has direct connections with neuron transmission, or the communication between the outside world and the body. As defined by the University of Queensland Australia, “Neurons are the fundamental units of the brain and nervous system, the cells responsible for receiving sensory input from the external world, for sending motor commands to our muscles”¹ They are the very systems that allow us to have connections outside of ourselves, whether it be to other people, the environment, or other living organisms. Unseen from the outside they make up the very roots that ground us to this earth. Scientists and artists for years have been contemplating the best way to represent neurons in a physical manner to illustrate how they work. Two of these representations really stood out...

At first glance, it is hard to see the similarities between biotechnology and art, but through this week the studies have proven that there are more than I personally ever thought. One of the first groups to introduce connections between biotech and art was a group called SymbioticA, an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning, critique and hands-on engagement with the life sciences¹ Which made many advancements in both the studies of art and science Fish and Chips, the robotic arm controlled by fish neurons.  Pictured above is an image of a machine they built called Fish and Chips which was a robotic limb that was triggered to move by the firing of neurons in goldfish. SymbioticA is able to study a new kind of science that produces art. But combining tactics of bio manipulation and creation doesn't always please everyone, in fact there are large debates surrounding the ethics of using genes to force a certain visual outcome². In another study pictured below artist M...