Week 9: Space

As we wrapped up the last blog post, this week’s discussion regarding Space completely pieced all of the previous blogs into one. I found it extremely interesting from the perspective that Professor Vesna taught it by giving the historical perspective up to the space race and now the privatized dominance of the industry. 

What I never thought about before, but really got me thinking about afterwards was in the second lecture, “the Space Race sparked the need for more math and science classes.” I knew that the space race was mainly a Kennedy-funded mission for economic and social reasons but not necessarily for scientific reasons. However, the idea that public education started to put a higher emphasis on math and science to gain a global advantage is really intriguing to me.

The art that comes from space definitely has to be the design of these futuristic ideas that haven’t come to fruition yet. Thinking about the designs of these future (or simply fictional) projects, it’s cool how nanotechnology, robotics, and mathematics all come together with artistic concepts to design engineering marvels like the space elevator to possibly become a reality. 

I also realized during the lectures that by putting anything into pop culture, the public’s interest and even governmental interest can become of it. Watching the likes of The Jetsons or Star Trek changes a person’s perspective on the once impossible becoming a reality and creates an obsession. 

This "obsession" idea to me, is the culmination of this class. I had an epiphany watching the last lecture, that whenever something reaches popular culture, people immediately create a bias and label the “right” or “wrong” side. This has happened recently with art. Nowadays, people value jobs that are mathematically or scientifically driven, but as I learned in this lecture and countless others: art is what holds them all together. 

Word Count: 309

Works Cited

Marshall, Elizabeth, and Oziem Sensoy. "Rethinking Popular Culture and Media." : Introduction. Web. 1 June 2015.

"Space Program." - John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. Web. 1 June 2015.

"The Space Race." NebraskaStudies.Org. Web. 1 June 2015.

Vesna, Professor Victoria. "Space Pt6." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 1 June 2015.

Vesna, Professor Victoria. "8 Space Pt2 1280x720." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 1 June 2015.

Week 8 : Nanotechnology + Art

Nanotechnology has easily been the most fascinating unit so far in my opinion because of it’s potential to help society and what little we know of it. 

Starting with the first lecture, I was amazed by the STM, or Scanning Tunneling Microscope. The fact that we can combine scientific research and make a picture out of an atom artistically, which is something we can’t even see is incredible. Quantum dots as well really blew me away because when it comes down to it, we are creating a picture of energy at the most basic form. 

Aesthetically thinking, creating a picture from a movement (electrons/atoms in general), is fascinating because it links art and science, thus creating a third culture that was talked about during week one. 

The most encouraging thing I learned about this week however was regarding nanoshells. Nanoshells were discovered very recently by a team at Rice in 2003 and they have been linked to antibodies that recognize cancer cells. This discovery could lead to huge steps in cancer research which would progress society immensely.  Also, the fact that nanotechnology can be used to regenerate tissue and organs amazed me. By designing molecules with the capacity to self assemble into nano fibers, once the molecules injected into the body with a syringe they can regenerate cells of tissues and organs.

Overall, I was fascinated by nanotechnology and specifically the aspect that we cannot see the science behind atoms but we create artistic representations to help us conceptualize the science. I thought a lot about the MedTech unit in comparison to this one and I realized, the medical world specifically relies so much on artistically representations to make sense of the science. For example, in the fifth video this week when it talked about cervical cancer cells and their structure, Dr. Gimzewski broke down the structure of the cells and how form fits function. Therefore, if we can get a structure of a cell down to a consistent picture, then scientists can predict what it’s function will be.

I’m realizing more and more how art benefits science and I hope that others who live in the belief that sciences are “superior” realize that their models and representations are based upon artistic related concepts. 

Word Count: 375

Sources:

Boyd, Jade. "Nanoshell Therapy to Be Tested in Lung Cancer Clinical Trial." Rice University News & Media. 2 Nov. 2012. Web. 25 May 2015.

"The Scanning Tunneling Microscope." The Scanning Tunneling Microscope. Web. 25 May 2015.

Vesna, Professor Victoria. "Nanotech Jim Pt5." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 25 May 2015.

Vesna, Professor Victoria. "Nanotech Jim Pt6." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 25 May 2015.

"What Is Nanotechnology?" What Is Nanotechnology? Web. 25 May 2015.

Week 7 : Neuroscience + Art

In watching the first video, what struck me to be interesting was the idea of “being” conscious and the idea of the mind being separate from the brain. As the definition states in the video, “A sense of one’s personal or collective identity.” Could the existence of a person itself be a consciousness of them or do they have to attain movement in order to be considered conscious? If you think about it in the literal sense, the only use the body has for the mind is to make it move. If one takes that standpoint to thinking about the mind, the mind is a collection of ideas, beliefs and dreams whereas the brain could be looked upon as the aid to the body, or the captain of movement. 

Thinking about it aesthetically, if the body never moved, what would be the point of having a brain? A collection of ideas, beliefs, and thoughts themselves would serve useless if one could not act there thoughts out. 

Another thing that stuck out to me about this topic is that researchers openly admit they could be wrong. In the second lecture, there’s a Freud quote in which he says, “All I’m doing is pointing out…And I can assure that in a hundred years time our work will still be rejected.” 

This was really refreshing to me because it seemed in previous topics such as religion vs science, science vs art, etc that there was an open controversy but ultimately one side was right. The thing about neuroscience is it’s such a complex topic that there’s no real answer. Similar to art, it’s open to the viewers interpretation and that’s what I enjoyed about it.  

Word Count: 289

Works Cited

"Existentialism." Philosophy Talk. 7 Mar. 2006. Web. 18 May 2015.

"History of Neuroscience." Columbia.edu. Web. 18 May 2015.

Sarich, Christina. "The Mind vs. Brain Debate (What Is Consciousness?)." The Cuyamungue Institute. Web. 18 May 2015.

Satel, Sally. "Distinguishing Brain From Mind." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 30 May 2013. Web. 18 May 2015.

Vesna, Professor Victoria. "Neuroscience-pt1.mov." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 18 May 2015.

Vesna, Professor Victoria. "Neuroscience-pt2.mov." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 18 May 2015.

Week 6: BioTech + Art

In society, it seems that we value “artistic” things as those related to the natural arts like drawing, singing, and

acting. However, just as we talked about in the first week of lecture, the bridge between science and art can be

linked to a third culture if we stop portraying art and science as two different things. In biotechnology for

example, by seeing the videos about the rats and animal testing, how much different is a scientist than an artist?

An artist modifies their work to create it to their sense of what they deem beautiful. A scientist in biotechnology

modifies genetics to fit what they deem beauty. Beauty, is in the eye of the beholder in the case of art and in

biotechnology, beauty can mean a range of things: physical beauty, beauty in the way it could help technology,

or beauty in the way it will help mankind. 

I believe there should be more restriction for scientists in biotechnology than students in the academia world.

Similar to the morals displayed in the movie in movies, especially in the newest Jurassic Park, Jurassic World,

“playing God” by being the overall creator and artist of a living organism is in my opinion, too much

responsibility. Other things like stem cell research that can be used to help people and simply help a person

rather than recreate them, I think can be explored more in depth and have less restrictions. One thing I am

completely against is genetically modifying food. We have too much wealth in this world to not

have enough supply. 

Last but not least, what intrigues me is after watching these weeks lecture and resources is pondering if human

creativity should be limited. I think enviably, we progress as a human society with the improvement of ideas and

technology. It is the ideas that lead to the technology evolution. However, I think by being a society rooted in

ethics relating to that of the Bible, creativity in regards to human life will always come with a limit. This limit is not

a bad thing whatsoever and I think, similar to learning about the Hippocratic Oath, it’s always good to have an

ethical standard to live up to. 

Word Count: 369

Works Cited: 

"Genetic Modification." Genetic Modification. Web. 11 May 2015.

Munger, Dave. "Seed Magazineabout." Agriculture in the Wild § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM. 10 Nov. 2010. Web. 11 May 2015.

Resnik, David. "National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences." What Is Ethics in Research & Why Is It Important? NIH, 1 May 2011. Web. 11 May 2015.

Schuler, Barry. "Genomics 101." TED-Ed. TED. Web. 11 May 2015.

Vesna, Professor Victoria. "5 BioArt Pt3." YouTube. YouTube. Web. 11 May 2015.