RyanWuDESMA9

To begin this week's blog post, I really want to share some space-themed music. I love space, I've always been fascinated by it, and I think that the artist, A.L.I.S.O.N, really captures the celestial "vibe" of experiencing the cosmos.  Space has often been described as "the final frontier", a direct reference to the opening lines spoken by William Shatner in the original run of the now-iconic science-fiction series Star Trek . Many people genuinely see it as such, and it's not difficult to understand why. We exist on a tiny speck, in a little system, somewhere in the middle of a single galaxy, amongst billions upon billions of other galaxies, all of which have countless little systems and tiny specks of their own. Whether the thought terrifies you or reassures you, as far as we know, we are the only thing that makes our planet unique. Space is has done wonders for human art, both as an inspiration and as a medium. In fact, I'd go so far as to argue ...

 Nanotechnology is a relatively new field in science, the term having been coined in 1974 by Norio Tanaguchi in the context of controlling processes within semiconductors on a molecular or atomic scale. Similar ideas, though not formally defined, were discussed by Feynman years prior and later elaborated upon in a book by Kim Drexler in a book titled "Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology" (UC Online). Nanotechnology is defined by Merriam-Webster as "the manipulation of materials on an atomic or molecular scale especially to build microscopic devices", but can be more loosely understood to refer to the manipulation of objects and technologies on the scale of nanometers. Though it originally did strictly refer to the first definition, in recent years, the range of products being developed began focusing less and less on how small they could be, and more on maximizing functionality.  I think it's hard for people to understand nanotechnology, no mat...

This week's topic, neuroscience and art, should once again be introduced with a definition. This time, it's crucial to define "consciousness", as the exploration of the human consciousness and psyche is at the center of the bulk of the research surrounding neuroscience. As defined by Merriam-Webster, consciousness is "the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself", "the state of being characterized by sensation, emotion, volition, and thought", and "the totality of conscious states of an individual" (Merriam-Webster). Provided that the understanding of the human mind is limited, and we do not truly understand what it is that causes us to be conscious, to be able to perceive ourselves and the world around us, I personally believe in dividing the effort of understanding consciousness into two fields: psychology and biology. Some people look down on psychology as a soft science, especially when isolated from prop...

I attended the event titled "The Unnatural, that too is Natural: Artistic Explorations in Synthetic Biology" hosted by Anna Dumitriu. The first half of the event was focused primarily on her work and various pieces on or formerly on exhibit, while the second half was centered around the chicory flower and how she explores it in her art.  She explored her background in synthetic biology, first, by discussing a piece wherein researchers were researching the possibility of developing living beings with more amino acids than the standard twenty; she represented a HIV antibody comprised of twenty-one amino acids by using clay-polymer beads and stringing them along in a protein sequence identical to the one engineered. This use of beads to represent the antibodies reminded me of the second week of lecture, when the presenter demonstrated the creation of contemporary geometric beadwork, as both the beading and the patterning of the beads could be construed as a practical application...

This week's topic, Biotechnology and Art, is a controversial topic for many reasons, ranging from the safety of consuming and using genetically modified produce, to the ethics of testing on animals in both control l ed and uncontrolled environments. A succinct definition for biotechnology comes from Merriam Webster, as  the manipulation (as through genetic engineering) of living organisms or their components.   It is in the manipulation of "living" organisms that the subject has been the source of heavy scrutiny. History presupposes us to the notion that science can be dangerous, and tells us to constantly examine whether live subject experimentation is ethical, and whether our perception of what is and is not ethical i s wi de enough to even cover the myriad of possibilities.  The roots of what we now consider biotechnology come as early as the Neolithic period, when early humans began to selectively grow crops in a way that ensured only plants maximally beneficial to th...