The Eagleman Stag

15 May

I first saw this incredible animation a few months ago and I’ve been wanting to post it up here ever since. Last week, the film’s director Mikey Please (who, quite fabulously, recently changed his middle name to ‘Yes’) finally released it onto the interweb.

I won’t say too much about it, save that it tells the story of a scientist who’s obsessed with the speeding up of time as he gets older. It features the vocal talents of the actor David Cann and backing music by Mikey’s brother Benedict Please, and it won gazillions of awards last year, including the BAFTA for Best Short Animation and the top prize at the Imagine Science Film Festival, .

So find yourself a spare 9 minutes, hit the maximise button, sit back (but don’t fall off your chair), and soak up the animated loveliness.

If you repeat the word ‘fly’ for long enough it sounds like you’re saying ‘life’. This is of no help to Peter. His answers lie in the brain of a beetle.

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The Astronomical Drawings of Monsieur Trouvelot

8 May

Back in the late 19th century, when astrophotography was still in its infancy, stargazers had to get creative if they wanted to take snapshots of the heavens. Luckily, there were people around like Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, a talented French artist with a penchant for astronomy. Trouvelot moved to the States with his family when he was in his 20s, and is probably best known for an unfortunate incident in which he introduced the gypsy moth into North America – now a notorious pest of hardwood trees.

The upside of this mishap, though, was that Trouvelot turned to astronomy and began to draw what he saw in the night sky. For some of his illustrations – the close-ups of the planets and the Moon, for example – Trouvelot used some of the most powerful telescopes available at the time, such as the 26″ refractor at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.. For others, like his depictions of the comet and the meteor shower, Trouvelot just drew what he observed with his naked eye.

In 1882, the artist published fifteen of his drawings in a book – the Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings Manual. Here are some of my favourites, starting off with a stunning aurora and a Cyclops-esque Jupiter:

The aurora borealis (Northern Lights), observed 1st March 1872

The planet Jupiter, observed 1st November 1880

Continue reading →

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Songs of Science #6: Björk

6 Apr

Last year, everyone’s favourite Icelandic songstress (that’s Björk, in case you’re wondering) released Biophilia, an album inspired by science and nature. The song “Moon“, for instance, features repetitive musical cycles that pay tribute to the lunar cycle, whilst the bassline in “Thunderbolt” is the sound of a Tesla coil’s electrical discharge.

Probably the most accessible track on the album, though, is “Cosmogony”, a hymn-like song about the birth of the universe, built around a beautiful, heart-rending melody. Each of its four verses describes a different version of the creation story: Native American, Sanskrit, Aboriginal, and then, finally, the scientific version:

“They say back then our universe wasn’t even there / Until a sudden bang / And then there was light, was sound, was matter / And it all became the world we know.”

Here’s a performance of the song recorded for Jools Holland last November. It’s slightly different to the album track, with some extra backing vocals provided by an all-female choir, and some marching percussion in the final verse. I defy anyone not to get at least a little bit emotional watching this:

For more science-themed music, click the image below to read an article based on my Songs of Science posts, written for the new issue of Guru magazine. There’s even an accompanying mixtape (well, a YouTube playlist anyway).

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Quantum physics goes to the movies

30 Mar

This movie shows one of the most beautiful – and mind-boggling – experiments in physics: particles behaving as waves as they pass through a diffraction grating.

Each speck of light represents a single molecule that has passed through the grating. If the molecules obeyed the laws of classical physics – the laws that describe the motion of everyday, macroscopic objects – we’d see a pattern corresponding to the slits in the grating, as if we’d thrown a load of blackcurrants through some railings (as you do).

Instead, we see an interference pattern, even though the molecules go through the grating one by one. This can be explained by each molecule having its own wavefront which goes through all the slits at once – it’s a bit like a blackcurrant turning into a wave (of Ribena?), rippling through all the railings, and combining again into a blackcurrant as it hits the wall. Crazy, I know.

This phenomenon is called wave-particle duality, and this movie is the first time it’s been captured on camera for large molecules. As physicists carry out these kinds of experiments with larger and larger molecules, they’ll be able to understand more about the differences between the world we see around us and the strange, surreal world of atoms and molecules.

If you’re interested in finding out more, I wrote an article about this movie for physicsworld.com – click here to have a read.

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I’m a Moderator, Get Me Out of Here!

23 Mar

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been helping out with I’m a Scientist, Get Me Out of Here – a science engagement project that takes place via the magical medium of the internet.

The two-week event sees scientists being grilled by hundreds of schoolchildren around the country. The students are assigned to a zone (e.g. “Space Zone”, “Quantum Zone”, “Energy Zone”) in which they can send questions to five scientists, as well as taking part in live chats. During the second week, one scientist is voted off each day, and each zone’s winner receives 500 shiny pounds to spend on a science engagement project of their choice.

My job as moderator was to help manage the questions and make sure the live chats ran smoothly (at least, as smoothly as you’d expect when a class full of hyperactive schoolkids is let loose on the internet). For this event, there were eight zones, plus another six zones in a sister project running for the first time (I’m An Engineer…). This meant A LOT of questions and live chats. In fact, working on the questions was sometimes like painting the Forth Bridge – you’d put a batch through only for the students to send through 50 more.

But the sheer brilliance of the questions prevented this from ever getting boring. There were questions about flying pigs, questions about ethics, questions about juggling, questions about Super Mario, and lots of questions about bodily fluids. There were questions about whether or not the world is going to end (general verdict: probably not anytime soon), and questions about whether or not aliens exist (general verdict: possibly, but the universe is so big that we might never meet them).

And there were also some brilliantly unique questions that only kids could come up with – the sorts of questions that are simple and profound at the same time. Here are some of my favourites from the past two weeks (click on the images to read the scientists’ answers):

Is there a gene for liking or disliking marmite?

Where does time go?

Is it true you can die from a broken heart?

If a turtle loses his shell is he homeless or naked?

For more great questions, read this lovely blog post by Adam Stevens, winning scientist in the Space Zone and one half of the legendary Team Tash.

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Songs of Science #5: Joanna Newsom

1 Mar

Ever wondered what the difference is between meteorites, meteors and meteoroids? In this 12-minute ode to her astrophysicist sister, “Emily”, Joanna Newsom attempts to explain:

“The meteorite is a source of the light / And the meteor’s just what we see / And the meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.”

The only problem is that Joanna’s got meteorites and meteoroids mixed up. Meteoroids are small chunks of rock and debris in the Solar System. In other words, they’re the “source of the light” because they glow if they fall through a planet’s atmosphere. If a meteoroid reaches the Earth’s surface and survives impact, it becomes known as a meteorite – a dull stone, “devoid of fire”. A meteor is just the visible path of a meteoroid as it passes through a planet’s atmosphere (a shooting star), so she got that one right.

But does anyone really care about this little mix-up? Probably not. And in any case, a small amount of artistic license is quickly forgiven when the song’s as beautiful as this one.

Click here to read all of the previous “Songs of Science” posts.

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An Exceedingly Curious Bestiary

13 Feb featured_bestiary

Somewhere in deepest, darkest Australia lurks a most terrifying assortment of animals. Shark-helicopter hybrids patrol the skies. Mechanically-enhanced rats wage war against robotic beetles. The bones of long-dead animals are reanimated into hideous configurations. And that faint sound of trickling water? That’s the sound of David Attenborough wetting his pants.

A Pilot Fish, guided by its fishy co-pilots (credit: Kaitlin Beckett)

For the past five years, Kaitlin Beckett has been bringing this nightmarish ecosystem to life. Based in Melbourne, Kaitlin makes artwork that is inspired by anatomy and the natural world, but with a distinctly dark and surreal twist. I couldn’t resist posting up some of her work, so scroll down for a selection of these weird and wonderful beasties, as well as an interview with Kaitlin herself.

Say hello to the Beetle Walker (credit: Kaitlin Beckett)

Kaitlin, when did you begin your magnificent bestiary?

I started painting seriously about 5 years ago, though I’ve been drawing and sketching all my life. I’ve always loved watching nature documentaries and sci-fi films so my bestiary started to develop from these. I’ve also been collecting gas masks and goggles for a while now so these pop up on my creatures all the time.

What’s your usual process for creating the artworks?

I normally turn an idea around in my head for a while before I sketch it out. Sometimes once it’s sketched I’ll work on it straight away. I create larger sketches, test colours and composition, and once I’m happy I’ll transfer it to canvas and ink in the outline. I add the colour next with my airbrush and some hand painting, then there are several layers of ink splats, pastel and ink linework before it’s finished.

A wise old Samurai Tubfish (credit: Kaitlin Beckett)

Do you have any favourite artists? Terry Gilliam sprang to mind when I first saw your work…

I am a fan of Terry Gilliam! A few of my all time favourite artists are HR Giger, Beksinski, Escher, Mucha, Lempicka, Kahlo, Bacon and of course Dali…too many to name!

Although the creatures are quite fantastical, their anatomy is often very detailed and intricate. What is it that appeals to you about mixing the real and the imaginary?

I think it’s an artist’s job to share a bit of their imagination and to look deeper into things, to reimagine and reinterpret. While I appreciate the technical skill behind photorealistic art, I can’t get excited about paintings that look like photographs, unless there’s a twist or a surprise, or some element of fantasy or surrealism. My creatures have an almost cartoon-like look, though I adore fine detail and texture so I’m trying to combine these elements in my work.

The Longhorn Octopus…possibly quite friendly (credit: Kaitlin Beckett)

If you were a mad scientist for the day, which of your creatures would you bring to life?

Perhaps not the fell beasts – they would eat me! I’d perhaps like to hitch a ride in my Pilot Fish shark helicopter, and my Longhorn Octopus could possibly be friendly.

Finally, what are your plans for 2012?

I had a crazy year last year with a solo show plus a few big group shows so in 2012 I’m taking it easy and focusing on getting better at airbrushing and sculpture. I’m taking part in a joint show in September with a very talented artist (my beasts meet vigilantes!), so I’m looking forward to that.

Frigate Bird – one of Kaitlin’s first sculptures

Now that Kaitlin’s beginning to work on sculptures, maybe it won’t be too long before the Curious Bestiary gets its own zoo. Let’s just hope the cages are securely locked…

Visit Kaitlin Beckett’s Curious Bestiary here!

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