Milos Rajkovic is an anti-war Serbian artist who makes animated GIFs showing the inner-working of authority figures like generals and politicians. The busts are filled with ridiculous characters (clowns, machines, birds, etc. buy viagra professional online https://pavg.net/wp-content/languages/en/viagra-professional.html no prescription
) which poke fun at the ruling class. It’s all rather mesmerizing…
A word from the artist:
“I think that satirical humor is the best form of criticism and thats the reason why I use it so much in my work. The interesting thing is that people who don’t understand that kind of humor always thinks that my art is scary and disturbing. buy levitra free viagra online https://pavg.net/wp-content/languages/en/levitra-free-viagra.html no prescription
I’m sorry to start your Friday off on a somber note, but it appears that the Ebola virus has made its way to the United States (specifically, Dallas), and this has initiated an expected interest and fear in the deadly disease. The CDC claims on their website that the virus poses “no significant risk to the United States.” Well, now Ebola has likely spread to more than one person in the area, so I wanted to take a moment to describe how the Ebola virus works its black magic.
Why bats you may ask? Bats are mammals (like us), and can carry many of the same illnesses. When bats fly around through the air, the body heats up to extreme temperatures. This kills off many bacteria and viruses that may live in the bat blood stream, but some mutate and survive. The Ebola virus was able to adapt to high temperatures in bats, and thus, the human immune system doesn’t usually stand a chance to stop or even slow the robust infection.
Here’s a good video describing this line of thought:
At some point, Ebola made the jump to humans, infecting virtually all cell types, including endothelial cells, macrophages, and parenchymal cells of multiple organs. Viral replication is associated with cell necrosis which leads to blood leaking through the vessels, destruction of the immune system, liver failure, and more.
Most people are visual learners, so take a look at this infographic, which describes the pathogenesis of the Ebola virus in detail:
After an incubation period of ∼7–10 days (range, 3–16 days), the patient abruptly develops fever, severe headache, malaise, muscle pain, nausea, and vomiting. Continued fever is joined by diarrhea (often severe), chest pain (accompanied by cough), weakness, and depressed mental abilities. Millions of virus particles shed in the sweat, vomit, diarrhea, and any other excretions that the sick person is letting out. If anywhere from 1 to 10 particles gets in your system by eating with your hands, rubbing your eyes, etc… you can be the next victim.
I wholeheartedly believe that the United States can prevent Ebola from spreading, but there is one thing that is working against it: the number of uninsured people. Even with Obamacare, approximately 41 million people have no health insurance. What if there’s an infected person out there that foregoes a hospital trip and starts to spread the disease among a poor, underserved community. buy levitra soft online https://www.sanjeevanam.com/products/wp-content/languages/new/levitra-soft.html no prescription
Thankfully, the virus is not airborne, but any physically contact can lead to infection. So, the major rule of Ebola, is YOU DON’T TOUCH ANYONE! (read that article, it’s awesome!). As long as the virus doesn’t mutate and become airborne, the government should be able to keep it contained.
The folks at Fabulous Cat Papers in Athens, Georgia have put together an incredible collection of hand embroidered notebooks featuring a bunch of beautiful designs. The classic anatomical illustrations really come to life with the addition of red and blue (arteries and veins, respectively) thread accents.
Will Scobie is an artist from Brighton who has worked for a whole host of companies including TED Talks, Skype, IBM, Vine, and Audi. This series of minimalist bugs is called “The Fly, the Spider & the creeper,” and I find it quite delightful. The illustrations are sort of a whimsical mix of technical drawings and graphic design.
Here’s a word from the artist:
“My approach to illustration plays with the idea of the continuous line, whilst maintaining a graphic simplicity and communicating an idea through a playful and optimistic perspective.”
You can pick up prints here or check out more work from Will at his site.
Welcome to “A Journey Through The Visual System”! I made this video to promote brain awareness for the general public. As a neuroscience researcher, I’ve always believed it’s important to help people understand the complexities of the human nervous system. Thus, I hope this video can be appreciated by kids and adults alike, and something will be learned by all.
The project was inspired by the old Magic School Bus show I used to love as a kid. In the video, you will go on a 5-minute journey from the eye all the way to brain, learning the neuroanatomy along the way.
If you are feeling kind, you can vote for the video here (before Sept. 30th). This was submitted as part of a contest hosted by the Society for Neuroscience and BrainFacts.org.
Anyway, thanks for watching!
Here is the script for the video in case you missed something important:
“We begin our journey with the eye, specifically the iris, which gives the eyes its distinctive color. Now, the iris can be green, or blue, or brown, or black depending on the level of melanin which it contains. When the lights go off, the muscles connected to the iris contract, which makes the dark circle in the center of the eye, the pupil, get bigger. When the light goes on, the pupil gets smaller to allow less light to enter. This is how the eye adapts to light.
Ahh, that must be Ellie. She’ll be our tour guide on this journey through the visual system. Hi Ellie, how are you? To get a better look at the visual system, we’ll need some light. Let’s observe the anatomy of the eye in a little bit more detail. If we peel away the skin, we can see the arteries and veins, which supply important nutrients to the area. Next, we can see the surrounding muscles, which help move the eye in all directions. Now, let’s cut the eye in half to see how light enters the visual system. First, it hits the cornea, the protective layer of eye. Then, through the whole in the iris known as the pupil. Lastly, the job of the lens is to bend light to focus it correctly on the retina.
It’s time to enter the eye. Ellie has her jetpack and now we’re looking at the surface of the inside of the eye. The optic nerve on the right is where all the nerve fibers leave the eye heading toward the brain. Let’s follow Ellie has she heads toward that dark spot in the distance. This is the fovea centralis, a small pit in the retina responsible for our sharpest, clearest vision. Foveal vision allows us to do things like read books, or drive cars, or play video games.
Now, let’s look at a cross-section of the retina to see how neurons respond to light. Light is absorbed by rods and cones, which are specialized photoreceptors. This starts a chain reaction, which excites the bipolar cells and then subsequently the ganglion cells, to send electrical signals off toward the brain. The amacrine and horizontal cells work to modulate the circuit. buy cialis sublingual online https://healthcoachmichelle.com/wp-content/languages/en/cialis-sublingual.html no prescription
Visual information flows along the optic nerve like a river of electricity. At the optic chiasm, the signals split such that images from the left visual field head to the right brain, and images from the right visual field head to the left brain.
After the optic chiasm, the visual signals make a quick stop at the lateral geniculate nucleus, or LGN. The LGN is organized into 6 layers, which all receive extensive feedback control from higher visual areas.
From the LGN, the visual signals travel along optic radiations back to the visual cortex. The cortex is where we use the signal that originally came from the eye to construct our visual reality. The billions of neurons in the human brain work to encode and process the information. Information is sent forwards and backwards. See, the beauty of the visual system is that everything we see is affected by our memories, and our feelings, and what we’ve seen before.
Well, that concludes our journey through the visual system, see you next time.”
“Outbreak” is a series of incredibly detailed paper sculptures by Rogan Brown. The interconnected amalgam of cells and pathogens took about 4 months of tedious work to complete. buy lipitor online https://nouvita.co.uk/wp-content/languages/en/lipitor.html no prescription
Rogan discusses a bit of the process here:
“I want to communicate my fascination with the immense complexity and intricacy of natural forms and this is why the process behind my work is so important. Each sculpture is hugely time consuming and labour-intensive and this work is an essential element not only in the construction but also in the meaning of each piece. The finished artifact is really only the ghostly fossilized vestige of this slow, long process of realization. buy finasteride online https://nouvita.co.uk/wp-content/languages/en/finasteride.html no prescription
I have chosen paper as a medium because it captures perfectly that mixture of delicacy and durability that for me characterizes the natural world.”
I would most certainly be driven mad after one day trying to craft the paper into such delicate patterns. This brings to mind a Calvin Coolidge quote I would like to share:
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent… For more from the artist, head over to his site.
