Diatom Art

Diatom: a family of minute unicellular Algae having a siliceous covering of great delicacy, each individual multiplying by spontaneous division.

diatom art
Flickr Artist: Trazy
The photographer has entered this photo in the 2008 Nikon Small World Contest.

The photographer has this to say about this image,

"This is a prepared slide that I found in an old dusty box. The slide is dated April 5, 1897 and contains exactly nine diatoms of three different types, meticulously arranged into an ornate pattern. The botanist that prepared this slide near the turn of the century was F.F. Forbes. The label on the slide reads "Diatoms in center from Hammonds Pond Brookline, Mass. Navicula peripunctata"."

2008 Yunnan Revisit

Rice farming in China presented here as art. Excellent capture.


2008 Yunnan Revisit
Flickr Artist: peace-on-earth.org

Love Potion #9...

So what is in this potion that is so effective? Click on the image to find out this photo was taken.

Love Potion #9...
Flickr Artist: ttstam

Sci-Art Guess of the Week

From the site What is it?, a member of the Sci-Art Alliance, here is this weeks Guess of the Week.

This ball reminds me of the menacing ball in the movie Phantasm. It does have strange markings and who knows if it is capable of levitation? Could it really be this ball of horror?


What do you think the top photo is. Go to What is it and find out.

Periodic Table as Art? You Betcha!

This week's SOTW comes from the mind of an artist that goes by the name AzureGrackle aka Jennifer Schmitt.

Where does inspiration come from? Well for Jennifer it came in the form of previous artwork laid out for review on the floor and noticing that the layout of the prints resembled a Periodic Table of the elements. This connection between art and science might have been missed if the artist's mother hadn't been recently retired from teaching high school chemistry and physics for 30 years.

Once an artist is inspired Zymurgy's first law of evolving system dynamics takes over. What is this law? Well it states that "Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can." The idea was out there and there was no going back so Jennifer put the word out and the result is fantastic. For more insight into this project read an interview with Jennifer in Etsy.

From the project site

"Ninety-six printmakers of all experience levels, have joined together to produce 118 prints in any medium; woodcut, linocut, monotype, etching, lithograph, silkscreen, or any combination. The end result is a periodic table of elements intended to promote both science and the arts."

Well done to Jennifer and the 96 contributors!

via Reality Carnival Unleashed