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Giant Artwork Reflects The Gorgeous Complexity of The Human Brain

The new work at The Franklin Institute may be the most complex and detailed artistic depiction of the brain ever.

Your brain has approximately 86 billion neurons joined together through some 100 trillion connections, giving rise to a complex biological machine capable of pulling off amazing feats. Yet it’s difficult to truly grasp the sophistication of this interconnected web of cells.

Now, a new work of art based on actual scientific data provides a glimpse into this complexity.

The 8-by-12-foot gold panel, depicting a sagittal slice of the human brain, blends hand drawing and multiple human brain datasets from several universities. The work was created by Greg Dunn, a neuroscientist-turned-artist, and Brian Edwards, a physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, and goes on display at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. 

“The human brain is insanely complicated,” Dunn said. “Rather than being told that your brain has 80 billion neurons, you can see with your own eyes what the activity of 500,000 of them looks like, and that has a much greater capacity to make an emotional impact than does a factoid in a book someplace.”

To reflect the neural activity within the brain, Dunn and Edwards have developed a technique called micro-etching: They paint the neurons by making microscopic ridges on a reflective sheet in such a way that they catch and reflect light from certain angles. When the light source moves in relation to the gold panel, the image appears to be animated, as if waves of activity are sweeping through it.

First, the visual cortex at the back of the brain lights up, then light propagates to the rest of the brain, gleaming and dimming in various regions — just as neurons would signal inside a real brain when you look at a piece of art.

That’s the idea behind the name of Dunn and Edwards’ piece: “Self Reflected.” It’s basically an animated painting of your brain perceiving itself in an animated painting.

To make the artwork resemble a real brain as closely as possible, the artists used actual MRI scans and human brain maps, but the datasets were not detailed enough. “There were a lot of holes to fill in,” Dunn said. Several students working with the duo explored scientific literature to figure out what types of neurons are in a given brain region, what they look like and what they are connected to. Then the artists drew each neuron.

Dunn and Edwards then used data from DTI scans — a special type of imaging that maps bundles of white matter connecting different regions of the brain. This completed the picture, and the results were scanned into a computer. Using photolithography, the artists etched the image onto a panel covered with gold leaf.

“A lot of times in science and engineering, we take a complex object and distill it down to its bare essential components, and study that component really well” Edwards said. But when it comes to the brain, understanding one neuron is very different from understanding how billions of neurons work together and give rise to consciousness.

“Of course, we can’t explain consciousness through an art piece, but we can give a sense of the fact that it is more complicated than just a few neurons,” he added.

The artists hope their work will inspire people, even professional neuroscientists, “to take a moment and remember that our brains are absolutely insanely beautiful and they are buzzing with activity every instant of our lives,” Dunn said. “Everybody takes it for granted, but we have, at the very core of our being, the most complex machine in the entire universe.”

Image 1: A computer image of “Self Reflected,” an etching of a human brain created by artists Greg Dunn and Brian Edwards.

Image 2: A close-up of the cerebellum in the finished work.

Image 3: A close-up of the motor cortex in the finished work.

Image 4: This is what “Self Reflected” looks like when it’s illuminated with all white light.

Image 5: Pons and brainstem close up.

Image 6: Putkinje neurons - color encodes reflective position in microetching.

Image 7: Primary visual cortex in the calcarine fissure.

Image 8: Basal ganglia and connected circuitry.

Image 9: Parietal cortex.

Image 10: Cerebellum.

Credit for all Images: Greg Dunn - “Self Reflected”

Source: The Huffington Post (by Bahar Gholipour)

(via Incredible photographs capture groups of bug-eyed dragonflies | Daily Mail Online)

🌱🌼Hippie home, Off the grid living🌲🌙

Adorable Handmade Jewelry with Real Plants Inside by Ural Nature

Married couple Mary and Stanislav from Ural Nature create unique designs using organic materials encapsulated in miniature glass sculptures. Inspired by the Russia’s Ural Mountains, each flower is handpicked and preserved under a layer of clear resin.

Using various wild materials, including leaves, moss, lichen, fern dandelion and tree bark, each piece is a piece of the wild forest. Ethically designed, all jewelry is constructed using real plants that have been carefully collected in a herbarium and preserved with non-toxic crystal resin. The woodsy tools add a touch of magic and rustic sensibility, which allow you to carry a piece of nature everywhere with you. You can find their entire collection in their Etsy shop.

View similar posts here!

TOP TEN COOLEST SEA SLUGS

Note: I have captioned the pictures for those of you who don’t like having to scroll back up and look at the pictures after you read the names. All you have to do is click on the picture to see the caption.

1. Hypselodoris kanga

2. Acanthodoris pylosa

3.  Cyerce nigricans

4. Elysia crispata (’Lettuce sea slug’)

5. Flabellina iodinea

6. Costasiella kuroshimae (’Sea sheep’)

7. Glaucus atlanticus (’Blue angel’)

8. Phyllodesmium poindimiei

9. Dirona albolineata

10. Hexabranchus sanguineus (’Spanish dancer’)

GET IT? HE’S EXPERIMENT 626

Crown shyness

What an interesting word. :D

“Crown shyness is a phenomenon observed in some tree species, in which the crowns of fully stocked trees do not touch each other, forming a canopy with channel-like gaps.“

How do the trees know not to touch each other?

Nobody knows though it’s been studied since the 1920′s.

in between plants |

Segev Kitchen Garden in Hod Hasharon, Israel by Studio Yaron Tal 

Anatomical Sculptures Composed From Delicately Arranged Flowers by Camila Carlow

Guatemalan artist Camila Carlow completed a stunning and delicate flower sculpture series titled Eye Heart Spleen, which is composed of 13 images, which symbolize human organs. Carlow’s personal statement reads: 

The most fascinating and intricate of biological structures, yet we rarely pay heed to the organs inside our body. Regardless of whether we fill ourselves with toxins or nourishing food, whether we exercise or not—our organs sustain us, working away effortlessly and unnoticed.

In a similar way, plants flourishing in the urban environment are a testament to nature’s indifference to our goings on. They grow out of the sides of buildings, in brick walls and between the cracks in concrete, despite of the traffic and pollution.

Click on the images to find out what organ each sculpture represents. 

10+ Galaxy Sweets That Are Out Of This World

Really nice recipes. Every hour.

Show me what you cooked!

Eevee The Adventure Cat

Photos by ©whiskered_away

Another wax model for your viewing pleasure.

Is this the only locality?

Here is a photoset of the Ornate Hawk Eagle (Spizaetus ornatus), the light of the world and an inspiration to us all.

(Credit: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4)

what is it about capybaras that attracts groups of small animals to them? Its not just mammals either its like birds and turtles and frogs too

national zoo pygmy falcon.

The goats are found in Morocco and they climb these argan trees each spring and summer to eat the leaves. How does a goat climb a tree? Well, like you or I would –via the low-hanging limbs. And evidently they have enough balance to tight-rope walk branches out to the tasty leaves and nuts. When a goat loses its balance – and it will – it falls out of the tree like a 100-pound acorn and lands with a thud. No biggie.

But here’s where things get weirder than a bunch of tree-climbing goats: The goats eat the nuts from the trees, but the farmers in the area want to harvest those nuts for oil. If the goats get to a tree before they do, the farmers collect the nuts the goats drop and they also pick through the goat’s manure to find the kernels of the nuts, from which they then extract oil. The oil is used for food. It’s so precious that people carry vials of it around their necks to pour into their couscous, according to The Dallas Morning News.

And now here’s where things get even more surprising than eating oil from nuts digested by tree-climbing goats: That oil is not only tasty, it also has anti-aging qualities. So, people don’t just want to eat it, they want to slather it on their faces to prevent wrinkles. In 2005, Prince Albert of Monaco, UNESCO, several chefs and “an army of grandes dames excited by the oil’s reputed anti-aging qualities” formed an alliance to create a global market for the oil, according to NYT. Why? Well naturally it has to do with the tree-climbing goats.

Apparently the goats were overgrazing the argan tree, and the tree was slowly going extinct. To protect the tree and its precious oil (which is so vital to the people who live in the area), the alliance hoped to make the oil popular to the greater culinary and cosmetic world. That would push the locals to protect the tree and come up with ways to harvest its nuts for a larger market. As part of this initiative, the alliance made some trees off limits to goats from May to August. That’s what I said – no tree-climbing goats from May to August.

Much to the argan trees’ dismay, the goats still climb them, though. And if you’re visiting Morocco and you’re like the Dallas Morning News writer, a guide will drive you out to see the goats in the trees, if you so desire. If I ever go to Morocco, I know I’ll want to see those goats.