Changing Perspectives - you will want to come to this!

The University of Bristol’s exciting series of art-science activities – Changing Perspectives – is fast-approaching.  With free exhibitions, talks, workshops and a family-friendly day of circus-inspired science, there is something for everyone...

More information and a full list of events is available at bristol.ac.uk/changingperspectives

Saturday 19 March 10 am – 5 pm
Experience Changing Perspectives
Watch aerial circus performers, learn how they accomplish their extraordinary feats and discover how your body works with TV presenter Alice Roberts.  Take part in body painting and talk to researchers from the University of Bristol about cutting edge research – in anatomy and physiology, neuroscience, robotics and biomechanics – happening in your city.
Venue Circomedia, Portland Square, Bristol BS2 8SJ

Saturday 26 March – Saturday 30 April 2011
Monday – Saturday 10 am – 5 pm
Changing Perspectives exhibition at the Grant Bradley Gallery
A vibrant exhibition of art inspired by the life sciences and medicine, including medical student and patient reflections, research images as art, science-inspired fiction, and chances for you to share your perspectives on the body.
Venue Grant Bradley Gallery, 1 St Peter’s Court, Bedminster Parade, BS3 4AQ

Friday 1 April – Saturday 30 April 2011
Monday – Friday 10 am – 6 pm; Saturday – Sunday 10 am – 5 pm
Changing Perspectives exhibition at the Bristol Gallery
How do we visualise and express things we can’t see?  Explore the complex worlds of mathematics, physics, chemistry and physical geography through a stunning range of sculpture, drawings, film and animation, and photography.
Venue Bristol Gallery, Millennium Promenade, Harbourside, BS1 5TY

Talks and events:

Tuesday 29 March 2011, 6pm
Out of Our Heads: where art meets medicine
http://www.bris.ac.uk/public-engagement/events/2011/31.html

Monday 4 April 2011, 4 pm
The 100-year hunt for Red Sprites
http://www.bris.ac.uk/public-engagement/events/2011/39.html

Tuesday 5 April 2011, 6 pm
Fragility
http://www.bris.ac.uk/public-engagement/events/2011/35.html

Thursday 7 April 2011, 6 pm
Inspired Engineering
http://www.bris.ac.uk/public-engagement/events/2011/32.html

Tuesday 12 April 2011, 6 pm
Manipulating biologies: convergences and divergences of bioart and biosciences
http://www.bris.ac.uk/public-engagement/events/2011/40.html

Tuesday 19 April 2011, 6 pm
Science-inspired fiction - Open Mic Night
http://www.bris.ac.uk/public-engagement/events/2011/36.html

Changing Perspectives is a series of free public exhibitions, talks, workshops and performances that explores the fascinating connections between art and science.  We’ll be seeing what happens when fiction meets cell biology, when chaotic systems meet crochet and when medicine meets art.  We invite you to participate and share your perspective with academics, students and artists.  

More information and a full list of events is available at bristol.ac.uk/changingperspectives

Download the flier here (PDF, 1.1MB), and follow us on Twitter for new, provocative perspectives throughout March and April – CPE_Bristol #chngpersp

Philip Ball Talks About Colour

Philip Ball seems to me something of a force of nature. He studied Chemistry and then received a PhD in Physics from Bristol University, a contemporary of our own Dean of Science, and now he is science writer extraordinaire - just check out his website, the list and breadth of publications is, well, breath-taking! Actually, I had expected him to be much much older... he seems to have fitted in an immense amount already!

I was excited about hearing him talk about "The Invention of Colour" yesterday as the Autumn Art Lecture in the Wills Memorial Building, and first impressions did not disappoint: he wore a red shirt and a red and yellow striped tie. Nice. The topic was one he dealt with in a recent book, Bright Earth, and it was fascinating. He took us on an hour-long tour through the history of art by examining the materials used. He told us about paint.

Now I'd not thought much about paint. Apparently, neither do today's painters, given the vast choice of colours available in every good art shop. But it was not always so. The earliest painters, like those who painted on the walls of caves, just used earth so the tones were brownish and reddish. Ball explained how every culture seems to have begun with the same palette of colours, in the same order: Black, White, Red and then Yellow/Green. And then the colour palette began to widen. He showed how one element can be treated to produce different coloured pigments - Cadmium, for example, can be yellow, orange, red or even black.) Ultramarine was highly prized, coming from the very expensive lapis lazuli. And as new pigments were discovered, the colours in paintings changed and this changed how painters approached what they painted. Also, pigments, which were dry powders, were first mixed with egg yolk to make paint and then later on with oil, which made for an entirely different painting.

Towards the beginning of the 20th century, Ball explained, pigments began to be synthesized, and in fact almost every major chemical company today began by making synthetic paints. And this led to mass production and every colour under the sun. He showed us a picture of International Klein Blue, an astonishing colour which just wouldn't look right on the computer screen, developed by artist Yves Klein using synthetic ultramarine. The paint is almost matt and I wanted to reach out and stroke it.  Funnily enough, I had just read Zero History, William Gibson's latest novel, in which a character wears a startling Klein Blue suit.

The lecture really changed my thinking about how the materials available affect the art that is produced. I know how writing on the computer is different for me than writing by hand, but I can't imagine having to make my materials myself. Ball ended with a wonderful quote about Picasso - a note that he had written that sounded like a poem but was in fact his shopping list for colours. It does feel as though we may have gained a great deal with synthethic pigments, but something has also been lost along the way, an artist's direct and tangible contact with her materials.

London lit mag wants fiction inspired by science

So, you think you might fancy writing fiction and you love/do science? Well, here's an opportunity from one of the UK's coolest short story magazines. Just do it!

Litro Call for Submissions: Short stories (50-3000 words) on the subject of Science

Litro, London's premier short story magazine, wants to see your stories about science and scientists. Flash fiction is very welcome, as are short stories up to 3000 words. Please send as a Word or RTF attachment by Tuesday March 1 to editor@litro.co.uk

April: Science

Science is at the root of everything, but how often do we read stories about it? From hard sci-fi to speculative, near-future fiction, we’re looking for your work involving science, scientists, and your wildest technological imaginings.

Coming live from the lab

It's been a while since I've done this, I've been remiss, I apologise. Blogging takes a certain level of commitment, and I've slipped! But soon I will be presenting an opportunity for new bloggers to join me, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, today's lab meeting was interesting both because of the chocolate cupcakes and because it was the first time I'd been to the lab's "Journal Club" where one of the lab members picks an interesting journal paper they've found and discusses it. This time it was not one but two papers, both published in the same journal within a few months of each other and both seeming to deal with exactly the same question: Does a wound cause hair follicle stem cells to contribute to tumour formation? What is fascinating is both why the journal chose to publish two seemingly quite similar papers so close together, and also the fact that one has a much "sexier" title than the other although both actually mean the same thing!

I'm learning a lot here about publishing in journals - but to be honest I couldn't really even understand the introductory paragraph of either paper. The interesting detail I gleaned was that the possible relationship between injury and cancer was first thrown up in 1863... which just gives an indication of the evolution of scientific ideas, that nothing happens in a week or even a decade, sometimes a question is put out there and over 150 years later it is still be investigated.

The discussion of these papers also touched on something that is particularly interesting to me: what aspect of this research reached the "public"? The researcher in the lab mentioned how he had told his girlfriend about the papers and she had immediately panicked and said "Does that mean when I get a cut I could get cancer?" This might sound like an overreaction, but then I googled to see what the press has made of these publication and I found headlines such as:

How a paper cut could trigger skin tumors

which is not in the least alarmist, eh?!

But, I have to say, it's not such a stretch from the titles of these papers to the headline of this article. However, I'm sure the scientists involved would never want a wave of public panic about paper cuts! So, an interesting point to ponder about science communication. Where's the disconnect? Whose responsibility is it? Any comments?

 

Thought lab life was dull and boring? Think again!

One of the scientists at the lab I am writer-in-residence in sent this around yesterday and I think it's wonderful! It's for all of you non-scientists who think science is about hard fact, about right and wrong, about automatons in lab coats who reveal the truth of existence on a daily basis. Umm, no, not quite...

The Perfect Egg in Nature

I'm delighted to have a short story in the Futures section of the venerable science magazine Nature this week - it's just gone online today and is in the print issue which I believe comes out tomorrow. It's called The Perfect Egg,  and it was sort of my first real attempt to write science fiction. Yes, some of the short stories in my book might be kind of SF-ish, but that wasn't my aim when I was writing them. Nature Futures is "a forum for the best new science-fiction writing, exploring some of the themes that might challenge us as the future unfold" and I never expected to get my first submission to them accepted. This story seems a bit different from the other Futures stories I have read, so I am delighted to have made it - and rather thrilled that in their email to me they addressed me as "Dr Hershman"! (Don't worry, I put them straight on that...) Anyway, comments can be left on the online version, should you feel moved to! (No pressure). Read it here.

Short story inspired by the discovery of GFP

Manchester-based independent publishers Comma Press are doing something very close to my heart: commissioning fiction writers to be inspired by "eureka" moments in science across various disciplines, pairing them up with a scientist, and asking them produce short stories that explore this concept which will be published in an anthology in May.

Being commissioned is both wonderful and fairly scary. First, there was quite a detailed brief for this project. And second, it had to be a minimum of 2500 words. For someone like me who hasn't written anything over 1500 for 3 years, that was like asking me to write a novel (ok, not quite, but fairly daunting!)

 Transgenic tadpoles expressing Green Fluorescent Protein

Well, I managed it by approaching it as a set of short short fictions, and got to 2500, just... And the result, We Are All Made of Protein but Some Of Us Glow More Than Others, is inspired by the discovery of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), which has transformed molecular biology, as I have learned well from the biochemistry lab here and from Nicholas Love, the researcher in the Amaya Lab at Manchester University that I was paired with. GFP allows a researcher to see inside a living organism in real time. It's amazing, as the pic above from his lab shows...

You can read my story here and Nicholas' afterword here. And there are more stories on the Comma site, for physics, chemistry and neuroscience, written by, among others, Annie Clarkson, Stella Duffy and Kate Clanchy. This is very exciting, I'm delighted to be involved...!