STEAM

Urs Albrecht Winning Photographer of the Promega AG Art + Science Competition

Posted on by Nana Diarra dit Konté

The Albrecht Group in the Department of Biology at the University of Fribourg, investigates circadian rhythms in biological systems. Recently Urs Albrecht submitted a photo of baby squid for the Swiss Art + Science Competition sponsored by Promega AG. We have covered squid communication in a separate blog. Here we talk to him about the photo and the inspiration behind it.

How did you become interested in squids as an experimental model?

headshot of Dr. Urs Albrecht
Dr. Urs Albrecht

My lab works mainly with mice. Other professors work with different organisms such as Drosophila, C. elegans, plants, and yeast at our university. One of them, Simon Sprecher, became interested in marine biology and started a course for students. I immediately thought that’s a great idea because it is something different, and few actually look deeply into the biology of marine organisms. The literature on squids is scarce and old, and they are challenging to keep in lab conditions. Yet, my colleague ordered Loligo vulgaris eggs from Villefranche Sur Mer in France and started establishing them to hatch and grow in Fribourg. He was successful. The next step was setting up experimentation. However, squids have brains, and to carry out experiments with them, we needed to apply for authorization from the Swiss Government. I helped out, but it was challenging because there were no standards and regulations, as nobody works on these animals in Switzerland. Now we are interested in studying the communication between squids. It is easy to observe how they change color, because they are transparent. The change in color is related to their stress level and mood.

What went into taking the image “One Out”?

I’ve been a hobby photographer since I am ten years old. So when I went to my colleague’s lab and looked at the baby squids, I said, “Ohh, they are beautiful.” They looked really stunning, and some of them started changing colors in front of me. I thought that was a fascinating behavior, and I wanted to capture that.

One Out by Urhs Albrect Baby Squid communicating with color

Baby squids are transparent and colorful. I had to think about how I could best picture them. I decided to have them in a Petri dish and put them on a stand with lighting coming from below on a black background. I made several images. On one of them, there was this situation where one of the squids was changing color. It was very different from all the others. It immediately came to my mind that something was happening. They were communicating.

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Celebrating STEM/STEAM Day with UW-Madison’s Cool Science Image Contest

Posted on by Riley Bell

November 8th is National STEM/STEAM Day. For 11 years, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Cool Science Image Contest has celebrated and embraced the art of science. The contest illuminates art in the STEM/STEAM field as students, faculty, and staff submit images and videos that capture science or nature and leave a lasting impression of beauty or wonder. 

This year’s 2021 submissions were created with point-and-shoot digital cameras, cutting-edge microscopes, and both backyard and mountaintop telescopes. Contestants captured the art of science from the massive to the minute. Winning entries showcased animals and plants, the invisibly small structures all around us, and stars and nebulae resting lightyears away from Earth.

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Oh, the Places You’ll Go, Thanks to Science!

Posted on by Promega

Today’s guest blog is written by Aparna Shah, a Post-Doc at Johns Hopkins University. Aparna visited the Promega campus in Madison, Wisconsin on January 18, 2019 and offered to share her experiences.

Aparna poses with her artwork at the Promega Employee Art Showcase

I don’t recall ever having won a contest before, let alone the grand prize! In fact, I did a double take when I first read the email informing me that my SciArt submission had been selected as a winning entry for the Promega Art Contest for Creative Scientists. What did I win, you ask? A free trip to Madison, WI to meet with the team behind the contest and explore Promega’s headquarters!

I first heard about the contest on the HelloPhD podcast and considered participating primarily to support the SciArt movement. A couple of days later, I came across a perfectly-timed tweet about the contest that nudged me out of procrastination mode and reminded me to follow through with it. I’m going to take a second here to pitch both HelloPhD and Twitter to you. Regardless of whether you’re an undergraduate student interning in a science lab or a senior postdoc, the HelloPhD podcast is incredible at calming you down while you’re on the roller coaster ride called academia. As for Twitter, I can think of several pros for using it. But in the context of this post, it is one of the best resources for discovering opportunities that match your interests.

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Fun with Science for the Holidays: An “Actor’s” Perspective

Posted on by Julia Nepper

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to be a part of “Once Upon a Christmas Cheery in the Lab of Shakhashiri”. Bassam Z. Shakhashiri is a professor of chemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who is well-known for his fun science demonstrations and a fervent dedication to public science communication. Once Upon a Christmas Cheery started in 1970 as an end-of-semester treat for Dr. Shakhashiri’s freshman chemistry class; by 1973, the Christmas lecture had become so popular that Wisconsin Public Television offered to broadcast it during Christmas week, and this collaboration has continued uninterrupted ever since.

That’s 49 years of Christmas lectures, commemorated by making indium, the 49th element, the Sesame Street-esque “sponsor” of the show. It helps that indium burns bright violet, the name of Dr. Shakhashiri’s granddaughter and hence his favorite color. The color purple made a firm foundation for many aspects of the show: The chrysanthemums frozen in liquid nitrogen were purple, as was the balloon I inflated during my spiel on air movement. Most of the set was various shades of purple, too.

Bassam Shakhashiri and J. Nepper on the set of Once Upon a Christmas Cheery
The set was whimsical and very purple. Photo by Eric Baillies.
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Where Science and Art Meet: The 2017 Holiday Card

Posted on by Karen Burkhartzmeyer
The Promega Holiday Card
The Promega Holiday Card

University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate Celia Glime didn’t think she was creating a design for the 2017 Promega holiday card while doing lab work last winter for her introductory Chemistry 104 class. She was simply doing her homework.

Celia explains she was studying the progression of three chemical reactions in test tubes when she decided to take out her smartphone and snap some photos to use for her lab report. (Bonus points if you can tell from the photo what’s causing each reaction. Answers below.)

“I ended up creating an art project instead,” she says.

Celia, who at the time was considering a major in genetics and a minor in visual art, had been keeping an eye out for instances of science in real life. Her mentor on campus, Professor Ahna Skop, a geneticist and artist herself, had recently told Celia about the annual University of Wisconsin Cool Science Image Contest, sponsored by Promega. The contest aims to bring together the worlds of science and art by recognizing the technical and creative skills required to capture images or video that document science or nature.

Celia did exactly that.

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