Art + Science + Vision = Microsculpture

Some of you who are artists may have created pieces to hang in what are called “small works” shows. Those six-inch-by-six-inch paintings or eight-inch-tall sculptures would loom like giant Sequoia over the super-miniature and microscopic work created by other artists…and scientists and engineers.

If you haven’t seen work like this before, you may not believe your eyes. Above and below are two short videos of micro-art. The first is of pieces carved into the lead (or graphite) of pencils by a Brazilian artist named Dalton Ghetti. His works may not qualify as “micro,” but they are best appreciated with a magnifying glass. The second video shows the work of British artist Willard Wigan, who carves and paints sculptures that literally fit in the eye of a sewing needle. He carves them from grains of sand, using things like hairs and spider webbing as tools and paint brushes.

It’s worth noting that as a child Willard Wigan suffered from dyslexia and learning difficulties. He found joy in miniature art. “It began when I was five years old,” he has said. “I started making houses for ants because I thought they needed somewhere to live. Then I made them shoes and hats. It was a fantasy world I escaped to where my dyslexia didn’t hold me back and my teachers couldn’t criticise me. That’s how my career as a microsculptor began.”

Scientists and engineers have delved into a world of even tinier microsculpture as part of developing new technology. Engineers in Japan used lasers to carve into plastic a 3-D bull the size of a blood cell. South Korean scientists used similar technique to carve a micro version of Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker. IBM engineers in Switzerland used nano-sized needles to create one-to-five-billion scale version of the Matterhorn.

Photographer Kaito Takahasi didn’t create the apparent micro-sculpture of a toilet shown below; he just took a picture of it after finding it on an integrated circuit. Takahasi takes photos through an electron microscope, which for serious close-up shots puts a Nikon to shame.

I'll let you think up the caption for this one.

Given that it’s a presidential election year, I should add a final note that another micro-artist, John Hart, a University of Michigan engineer, has created what he calls a “nanobama.” It is an image of the President’s face made of 150 million nanotubes of carbon. Check it out here: http://www.nanobama.com/

Beauty in Each Grain of Sand
Thanks to Notebook friend (and brain trust member) Dina for passing along a link that fits right into this theme: Check out these close-up photos of grains of sand:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2011471/Pictures-sand-Close-photographs-reveal-incredible-beauty.html

I’ll be back with the Puzzler answers and more brain teasers next time…

An Amazing Bridge

A work of art and engineering, the Trench Bridge in the Netherlands, offers a baseball-dugout perspective on the water.

Two Notebook friends in the Netherlands sent along images of the unique and environmentally friendly bridge above, which allows visitors to cross a moat to reach Fort de Roovere, a 17th century Dutch defensive installation. Built of a sustainable wood product called Accoya (which is made of renewable soft wood but is said to be as durable as the sturdiest tropical hardwood), it’s officially called the Trench Bridge but has been nicknamed the Moses Bridge because it parts the waters. It was designed by RO & AD Architects, a Dutch firm, which didn’t want to spoil the historical look of the fortess with an above-water bridge. Indeed, if the moat is viewed from afar, according to our Dutch friends, the bridge vanishes from sight.

With the world’s oceans rising, and half of the country’s land less than a meter above sea level, the up-to-the-lip-in-water bridge also seems like a metaphor for the precarious coastal setting of the Netherlands in an age of climate change.

I need to ask my engineer brother why the sides of the bridge don't collapse from the weight of the water.

Meet Our Whales
I mentioned last month that whales make great holiday gifts. Hard to wrap, but they’re beautiful, educational and inspiring. We just gave ourselves two of them.

Allied Whale and the Bar Harbor Whale Museum have an adopt-a-whale program that helps fund their research into these magnificent, at-risk mammals (whose distant ancestors walked on land, by the way). For the Notebook we decided to adopt two finback whales, a mother and a calf, who have been named Acadia and Schoodic. Finbacks can grow 60 feet long, which I think is longer than The Naturalist’s Notebook building in Seal Harbor. Here is the description of our duo on the adopt-a-whale website:

“Acadia is recognizable to researchers by a nick in her dorsal fin in the shape of a half moon. She has been frequently photographed off the coast of Maine. Her calf, Schoodic, was born in 2003 and was named for Maine’s Schoodic Peninsula, part of Acadia National Park.”

We’ll keep you posted on our adoptees’ latest whales’ tales. If you’d like to look into adopting a whale of your own, go to http://www.barharborwhalemuseum.org/adopt2.php.

Our new mother and calf.

An Animated Collection
A good book comes to life when you read it. But apparently books can be even livelier when left alone. After watching the video below, I might need to put a hidden camera on the more than 1,000 titles that are spending the winter at the Notebook. Perhaps they haven’t been hibernating.

Is it just me, or do these rocks popping up through our ice make you think of dinosaur eggs hatching? O.K., it's just me.

Animal Humor
The Toronto Zoo has done a series of a funny animated ads. Whether you like or hate zoos, I think you’ll enjoy the two clever clips below.

Answers to the Last Puzzlers
1) The inner core of the Earth is solid. The diagram below (courtesy of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) gives you a cross-section of our planetary home:

2) Loofah sponges are made from a fruit that grows on a subtropical vine.

Today’s Puzzlers
Answers will appear in the next post.
1) Study the map below of South America. What happens in the 26,000-foot-deep Peru-Chile Trench?
a) Two of the Earth’s geologic plates meet, and one slides under the other
b) A strong southward current pulls warm tropical water down to Antarctica
c) Nothing. It is the only section of ocean in which no form of life exists.

The trench runs along the west coast of South America, suspiciously close to the Andes mountains. Hmmm....a clue?

2) How fast does a typical raindrop fall?
a) 7 mph
b) 14 mph
c) 20 mph

3) We’ve all heard of Google. Have you heard of a googol? It’s a large number whose name was invented in the 1930s by a mathematician’s nine-year-old nephew. How big is a googol?
a) a 1 followed by 20 zeroes
b) a 1 followed by 100 zeroes
c) a 1 followed by 1,000 zeroes

Trivia note: Google’s name is taken from the word googol and is meant to reflect the large quantity of information Google allows computer users to search.

Ice, Football and Smart Women

Subzero and single-digit temperatures have made Maine an icy place lately, even for ocean creatures like this sea star that live on our tidal doorstep.

Here’s a mid-winter question to ponder: What if, instead of freezing over, bodies of water froze under? That is, what if ice sank instead of floating?

Answer: We would all be dead.

Say what? Well, here’s what would happen, according to marine geophysics professor Harold Tobin of the University of Wisconsin, whose Great Courses oceanography lectures Pamelia and I have been watching on DVD. In colder regions, crystals of ice would sink to the bottom of the oceans. Those oceans (and parts of others) would gradually freeze solid from the bottom up. Sea life would die. The Earth’s climate would change dramatically. The planet would become, as Tobin puts it, “uninhabitable.”

These frozen disks in the low tide by our house are called pancake ice. Wave action makes them round. You see these pancakes floating in the cold waters of many northern oceans.

We’re quite lucky that ice does float. Most materials are denser in solid form than in liquid form. If the oceans were made of molten iron, for example, a piece of solid iron would sink to the bottom. (We’re particularly lucky that the oceans are not made of molten iron.) Water, however, forms a crystal structure and expands in volume by 9 percent when it freezes. That makes it less dense.

Why is ice so slow to form on the surface of the ocean? One reason is the churning of the waves, of course, but another reason is that ocean water is salty. Salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water. Cold sea water (which is denser than warm sea water) tends to sink to the bottom before it gets cold enough to freeze.

By the way, if you lick a newly frozen piece of open-sea ice, it will taste salty, though over time, the pockets of salty brine will drain out. Glaciers and icebergs aren’t salty; they’re formed from compacted snow and ice. In fact, when Pamelia and I were doing a magazine travel story a few years ago, members of the cruise-ship crew took a small boat out and chipped off pieces of a glacier for passengers to put in their drinks. The super-hard glacial ice popped loudly as it released air bubbles that had been trapped inside for thousands of years. And yes, the ice floated.

Scientific Young Women
Studies have shown that in fourth grade, boys and girls are about equally interested in science. By eighth grade girls are half as likely to be interested. The decline has traditionally continued through high school and college, but that trend has been changing.

Today half the undergraduate science majors at MIT are women. So are half of the U.S.’s medical school students. As you may have noticed if you’ve visited The Naturalist’s Notebook, we try to highlight women scientists and naturalists, in part because they still go unrecognized and in part because they are accomplishing so much.

Above is a video of a TED.com talk by the three student winners of the Google national high-school science contest. They are all young women. Their intelligence and poise will blow you away. You may not understand everything they’re talking about (I didn’t), but just enjoy the enthusiasm and curiosity that each one exudes. And if you watch long enough, you’ll learn how to marinate grilled chicken in a way that makes it less likely to cause cancer. (If you watch the State of the Union address next week, you might see another young woman science whiz, who is a semifinalist in the Intel high school competition despite being homeless: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/homeless-ny-science-whiz-invited_n_1210606.html)

I’m always delighted by the number of bright, ambitious, science-and-nature-loving young women who stop in at the Notebook. They don’t feel limited by old stereotypes. Whether they’re in grade school or grad school, they’re ready to become marine biologists, doctors, astronomers, botanists and cancer researchers. They’re eager to do things like save the world’s tigers by developing advanced cloning techniques.

What sparks that strong interest in learning about the physical world and how it works? I’ve read a lot of interviews with scientists and naturalists of both genders that touch on why they followed their chosen course in life. Most mention an adult (frequently but not always a parent) who spent time with them doing simple things like looking through a microscope or a magnifying glass or walking through the woods studying bugs and leaves. A little time and a few words of encouragement can go a long way. It’s interesting that decades later so many of those scientists and naturalists remain filled with the same childlike curiosity shown by the Google winners.

Equal Time
O.K., so girls certainly aren’t the only smart kids. Last weekend 60 Minutes did a segment on an especially amazing 13-year-old boy named Jake who is a math and science prodigy. He is an honors student in college who gives credit to his autism (which often is linked with exceptional talent in a particular area) for his remarkable ability and drive. I’m guessing he would have done all right in the Google high school science fair…but he skipped high school, having taught himself the entire state of Indiana curriculum for grades 6 to 12 in slightly more than a year.

Birds and Bees
Timeout for a photo from our early 2012 pre-season preparations:

While working on projects in her studio, Pamelia shot this beautiful glimpse of a new piece we'll have at the Notebook this year. What is the piece? You'll have to wait and see.

Chemistry in American Football
I say “American” football because, according to Facebook, The Naturalist’s Notebook now has regular online followers from 18 countries, including India, Thailand, Poland, Lebanon, Indonesia, Greece, Chile and Saudi Arabia. In those and nearly all other countries “football” means soccer. Here I’m talking about American-style, helmets-and-pads, National Football League (NFL) football.

With only four teams left in the NFL playoffs, it’s time for our annual analysis of who will win. Our method is unusual. We compare teams’ quarterbacks by looking at the chemical elements whose atomic numbers match the players’ uniform numbers. The atomic number is the number of protons in the nucleus of one atom of the element. (If not for a Nixon-era CIA cover-up, you would all know that “pro football” is actually short for “proton football.”)

Neon and New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning share number 10—suggesting, perhaps, that bright lights and another Super Bowl championship are in the Giants' future?

So here are this weekend’s matchups. First, New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning (neon, element number 10) vs. San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith (sodium, element number 11). Except when he throws a touchdown pass, Manning seems quiet and unexcitable, much like neon, which is—surprise—the least reactive chemical element. But electricity (of playoff games) lights up Eli and brings out his best, as it does with neon when a charge is sent through a Times Square marquee sign. Sodium is, of course, best known as part of table salt, which in large doses can raise the blood pressure—the same effect Alex Smith’s uneven play has had on 49ers fans over the years. In a big win last week, however, Smith showed another side of sodium: its explosiveness. In the description of esteemed science writer Theodore Gray, author of one of our favorite Notebook books, The Elements, “if you throw [sodium] into water, it rapidly generates hydrogen gas, which seconds later ignites with a tremendous bang, throwing flaming sodium in all directions.”

Sodium is found in both table salt and toxic drain cleaner, a dangerous range of possibilities for No. 11.

Prediction: The sodium reaction seems a bit out of control, suggesting that Smith will throw too many interceptions. The neon glow signals a Giants victory.

The other matchup: Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco (boron, element number 5) vs. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (magnesium, element number 12). Don’t underestimate boron, even it sounds bor-ing. In nature it’s found in borax, whose grit can help wash off grime, and in combination with nitrogen, boron forms a crystal that is almost as hard as diamonds. Boron is a key ingredient, Theodore Gray tells us, that “gives Silly Putty its amazing ability to be both soft and moldable in your hand, yet hard and bouncy when you throw it against the wall.”

The Patriots’ defensive linemen hope to find Flacco soft and moldable in their hands when they grab him and throw him against the hard ground in Gillette Stadium, but to win the game their team will need its magnesium. Brady and element number 12 are both among what Gray calls “the truly marvelous structural metals.” Magnesium-Brady is strong, reliable and—when ignited, because element No. 12 is highly inflammable—dazzlingly bright. The first photographic flashes were made by blowing magnesium powder into a candle flame.

Prediction: Boron will leave some deep scratches on the magnesium, but Brady and the Patriots advance to the Super Bowl.

One More Chemistry Joke
Add this to the list from our recent post:

Atom No. 1: “I’ve lost an electron.”
Atom No. 2: “Are you sure?”
Atom No. 1: “I’m positive!”

Answers to the Last Puzzler
Here are the temperatures converted from Fahrenheit to Celsius:
1) 100 degrees Fahrenheit equals 37.8 degrees Celsius
2) 60 degrees F equals 15.5 degrees C
3) 10 degrees F equals minus-12.2 degrees C

Today’s Puzzlers
1) Because we mentioned solid and molten iron earlier, here’s a heavy metal question: Is the Earth’s inner core—the Moon-sized iron-and-nickel sphere discovered in 1936 by Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann (yes, a woman), who was analyzing how earthquake waves traveled through the planet—liquid or solid?

2) NOT in commemoration of this week’s birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., I happened upon an ad for a bath sponge tastelessly called the Martin Loofah King. (Who comes up with these things?) More important, the ad got me thinking, where do loofahs come from? So here’s your question. Is a loofah made from:
a) the inner bark of a cork tree
b) a Caribbean sea sponge
c) a fruit that grows on a subtropical vine

Where a Forest Once Stood

The now abandoned Lowe's in Ellsworth, Maine.

As strange as it may seem, there is a certain economic logic to building a Lowe’s next door to an existing Home Depot. Customers are already in the habit of driving to the location to buy their lumber, hardware and other home fix-up supplies. Lowe’s and Home Depot become equally convenient. Lowe’s can compete with Home Depot purely on the quality of the stores. One might well drive the other out of business, but hey, who’s to argue with survival of the fittest?

A few years ago—just as the recession was starting—Lowe’s built a 117,000-square-foot store in Ellsworth, Maine, just up the hill from a Home Depot. Last fall the Lowe’s corporation announced that the Ellsworth location and 19 other underperforming stores would be closed. Pamelia and I drove by recently and took in the sad sight of economic logic’s having run its course: Where a dense forest once stood, a vast, empty parking lot now sprawls in front of an abandoned big box. Eighty-three workers lost their jobs in the closing. Nationwide, more than 120 million square feet of big box and department store space have been vacated since 2008.

The forest at the edge of the parking lot offers a glimpse of what once covered the hilltop.

I’ve tried to imagine alternate realities in which the builders of big-box stores and shopping centers would be accountable if those structures became abandoned eyesores. Perhaps they would have to tear down the structures—nowadays known as “ghostboxes”—and restore the original landscape. Or maybe in the construction process they could be asked to reinforce the ceiling and make the roof a greenscape, with grasses, shrubbery and trees. Or gardens. Birds and insects, at least, could make use of that rooftop environment. The roof would absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. It also would provide insulation for the building, reduce rain runoff and possibly even shade a portion of the parking lot on those summer days when the asphalt grows hot enough to melt tires.

To boost business in its garden department, a Lowe’s could invite customers to its green roof for planting tips. Perhaps Wal-Mart could stock its newly forested roofs with small game and create elevated hunting areas to boost gun sales. (Just kidding.)

Back to reality. The greening of the big-box store is still but a dream. In the meantime, what do we do with the 117,000-square-foot empty building in Ellsworth?

Find a way to use it. Artist Julia Christensen, a professor at Oberlin College, has written a book called Big Box Reuse on how people across the U.S. have transformed empty superstores. Some of the conversions have been quite creative.

Julia Christensen's book

In Austin, Minn., home to the Hormel corporation, which makes Spam, an abandoned K-Mart was redesigned to be more environmentally sustainable and is now the Spam Museum. In Round Rock, Texas, a former Wal-Mart has become the RPM Indoor Raceway—maybe not the greenest option but a fun way to keep kids out of trouble. A Laramie, Wyo., Wal-Mart is now an elementary school. Educators in Charlotte launched a charter school in a deserted K-Mart. Other former big boxes and department stores have been transformed into churches (Latham, N.Y.), fitness and wellness centers (Princeton, N.J.), flea markets (Fayetteville, N.C.), a college library (Savannah, Ga.), a guitar center (New Orleans), a medical center (Kentucky) and apartments (Virginia).

The Ellsworth Lowe’s is for sale if you have a creative idea. While it’s on the market, maybe the place could at least be an indoor recreation center where people could walk for exercise during the long, cold Maine winters. Too expensive to heat it? The walkers can wear jackets. Maybe the building could house a simple skating rink?

Pamelia and I joke about what we would do if someone bought us a 117,000-square-foot building to house The Naturalist’s Notebook. Turn it into the world’s biggest exploratorium merging nature, art, science and never-ending curiosity? Or tear it down and bring back the forest? Either one would be be better than a ghostbox.

Want to Grow a Vegetable Garden In Your Window?
Here’s an interesting way to go green in an indoor space of any size. Watch the talk below to learn how you can grow certain veggies and fruits year-round in your home even if you live in a tiny apartment or in the far northern winter darkness of Finland. Wouldn’t you love to pick fresh strawberries in mid-February?

Building a Better Dinosaur (from a Chicken)
It might sound crazy—no it might be crazy—but here is a way that paleontologist Jack Horner says we could create a new living dinosaur from some of its genetic descendants….chickens:
http://www.livescience.com/17642-chickenosaurus-jack-horner-create-dinosaur.html

Answers to the Last Puzzler
Here are the temperature conversions:
1) 42 degrees Celsius equals 107.6 degrees Fahrenheit
2) 5 degrees Celsius equals 41 degrees Fahrenheit
3) minus-20 degrees Celsius equals minus-4 degrees Fahrenheit

Today’s Puzzler:
O.K., so let’s try converting temperatures in the other direction: from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Again it’s a good mental exercise.

Example: To convert 96 degrees Farhenheit, subtract 32 (96 minus 32 equals 64), then divide in half (half of 64 is 32), then add one-tenth (32 plus 3.2 equals 35.2).

So now convert these to Celsius:
1) 100 degrees Fahrenheit
2) 60 degrees Fahrenheit
3) (the tricky one) 10 degrees Fahrenheit

The Blue Jay and the Ant

Gifts often give back to the giver. For Christmas I presented my dad with a book on how to attract more birds. He’s been reading it and he mentioned to me on the phone the other day an interesting fact the book had taught him about blue jays: They engage in a behavior called “anting.”

That bit of nature knowledge was a return gift. And it’s an interesting one. Ants contain formic acid, which repels and kills parasites. So blue jays catch ants and rub their wings or bodies with them. Sometimes a blue jay will roll on top of an anthill for the same purpose. Parasite removal.

Formic acid can be nasty stuff. Ants emit it when attacking or being attacked, and it’s also contained in bee-sting venom. The acid has many commercial uses, including as an antibacterial additive to livestock feed and as an ingredient in some toilet-bowl cleaners. Naturalists—and no doubt blue jays—noticed as far back as the 1400s that anthills often emitted an acidic odor. That led to humans’ discovery of formic acid, whose name comes from the Latin word for ant, formica.

In case you’re wondering, the Formica used in countertops has no connection to ants, though its name does have a link to geology and minerals. Because it was first used as a replacement for mica in electrical insulation, it was named, well, “for mica.” Etymology doesn’t get much simpler.

Here’s a blue jay rolling on an anthill:

One More Thing About Blue Jays…
I also learned this week that the distinctive crest on a blue jay’s head reflects the bird’s emotional state. An erect crest means the jay is excited, surprised or aggressive. A crest that’s bristled out in many directions signals that the jay is frightened. If the crest is flat on the jay’s head, he or she is relaxed.

Answer to the Last Puzzler
By adding S and rescrambling the letters you can turn:
WILTED into WILDEST
HEATED into HEADSET
and HANGED into GNASHED

Today’s Puzzler
How good are you at converting Celsius temperatures to Fahrenheit? Doing the calculation in your head is a fun mental exercise, and with practice it becomes easy.

Let’s start with a simple C to F conversion, using 12 degrees Celsius as an example. First double the C temperature (12 becomes 24). Then subtract one-tenth (24 minus 2.4 equals 21.6—or roughly 22). Then add 32 (22 becomes 54). Voila: 12 degrees Celsius equals 54 degrees Fahrenheit. (Or 53.6 if you want to be more exact.)

Try converting 30 degrees Celsius. Double it (60), then subtract one-tenth (60 minus 6 equals 54), then add 32 (54 plus 32 equals 86). 30 degrees C = 86 degrees F.

Time for your test. Convert each of these Celsius temperatures to Fahrenheit…and yes, I’m throwing you a curveball on number 3:
1) 42 degrees Celsius
2) 5 degrees Celsius
3) minus-20 degrees Celsius