Art of Science

Apparently BISMUTH BLING is a thing: http://bit.ly/1JiRbt5

Image courtesy amazingrust.com.

Gorgeous photo of the new Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, which is in the final stages of construction. The project is designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects. Watch the progress via construction webcams: http://acee.princeton.edu/building/web-cameras/

Image courtesy Nicole Wagenblast.

Mutant daisies near Fukushima, four years after the nuclear disaster. According to International Business Times, this is the result of 'fasciation,' a rare condition found in vascular plants. Photo courtesy via Twitter. http://bit.ly/1GEoz7b

EYEWIRE. "The stilt-legged “creatures” are actually ganglion nerve cells, and what appears to be their long 'noses' are fibers that will eventually converge to form the optic nerve that relays visual signals to the brain." More on Sebastian Seung's crowdsourced neuron mapping project in this blog post from the National Institutes of Health: http://1.usa.gov/1O8rz1b

Lovely video edited by the Atlantic & featuring entries in this year's Nikon Small World in Motion competition.

Our Incredible, Microscopic World Highlights from Nikon's Small World in Motion competition, featuring zebrafish embryos, cancer-killing T cells, and much more

The world's first scanning electron microscope music video?

Arbeitsgruppe Metaphonetik - NanoTropics NanoTropics is the first musicvideo ever that was created using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). https://www.facebook.com/Metaphonetik || https://soundc...

We've heard of RAINBOW MARS, but does Mars have rainbows? Because Mars does have a pot of gold! Check out this image of 'Pot of Gold,' a softball-sized rock on Mars covered in 'knobby nuggets atop short rock stalks' (knobby nuggets atop short rock stalks ... say that again five times, very fast).

Alas those knobby nuggets are made of hematite, not gold. But if this were actual gold, and if Mars did have rainbows, would that mean that... Martians are related to the Irish? Get back to us on that. In the meantime, may the luck of the Irish be with you - happy St. Paddy's Day!

Image courtesy NASA/JPL.

The first-ever "snapshot" of light behaving simultaneously as both a wave and a stream of particles, from Fabrizio Carbone's lab at EPFL. "This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum mechanics - and its paradoxical nature - directly," said Carbone. In 1905 Albert Einstein proposed that light - thought to only be a wave - was also a stream of particles. This insight led to the quantum revolution in physics and earned Einstein the Nobel Prize.

More from EPFL: "The experiment is set up like this: A pulse of laser light is fired at a tiny metallic nanowire. The laser adds energy to the charged particles in the nanowire, causing them to vibrate. Light travels along this tiny wire in two possible directions, like cars on a highway. When waves traveling in opposite directions meet each other they form a new wave that looks like it is standing in place. Here, this standing wave becomes the source of light for the experiment, radiating around the nanowire. This is where the experiment's trick comes in: The scientists shot a stream of electrons close to the nanowire, using them to image the standing wave of light. As the electrons interacted with the confined light on the nanowire, they either sped up or slowed down. Using the ultrafast microscope to image the position where this change in speed occurred, Carbone's team could now visualize the standing wave, which acts as a fingerprint of the wave-nature of light."

GEO-ORGEOUS. American Scientist features the "seismic visions of middle earth" from Jeroen Tromp of Princeton University and his collaborators. Seismic data, new mathematical models, and powerful supercomputers are giving us a better understanding of the invisible world deep beneath our feet. More images and fascinating background here: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2015/2/seismic-visions-of-middle-earth

The exquisite, secret world of the sea, revealed by Sandro Bocci.

...meanwhile... Gallery: https://juliasetcollection.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/meanwhile/ Meanwhile in a world far, far away ... This is a short film created during the "Porgrave"…

Congratulations to JENNIFER GUYTON and TYLER COVERDALE, who are coauthors of a report in the current issue of the journal Science on the role termites play in creating oases of plant life in arid ecosystems. Jen & Tyler's "Kite photograph of a termite mound" is in the current Art of Science exhibit, which is on display in the Friend Center on the Princeton University campus through the end of April. The AoS online gallery can be viewed here: http://artofsci.princeton.edu/2014-gallery/

KITE PHOTOGRAPH OF A TERMITE MOUND
By Jennifer Guyton (graduate student), Tyler Coverdale (graduate student)

"Using a point-and-shoot camera mounted on a kite, we collected images of termite mounds (the termite mound is the light spot at bottom center). Termite mounds play a vital role in Kenya’s semi-arid landscape because their subterranean microenvironments – aerated, moist, and nutrient-rich – benefit plant and animal life. The mounds occur in strikingly uniform “polka-dot” patterns; understanding the ecological significance of the patterns could yield improved measures for planting, pollination, and pest control."

Water & Oil: Edward Burtynsky at [video] http://ow.ly/IaIdG via https://twitter.com/PrincetonWater