Following our expedition into the field for the start of spring last month, it's now time to return to the lab for a closer analysis of our samples and new experiments. The laboratory is a unique space, where protocols involving hundreds of precise steps may unfold over days, on equipment arcane to the uninitiated, to reveal startling results. In the intense focus of the lab, such protocols take on aspects of art and performance, of precise motions and total attention, a dance of intuition and technique where even a small variation can have great consequences or lead to a surprise discovery. This month we examine the laboratory as imaginative and creative arena, where the unexpected gleams in rigorously orchestrated processes, a site of ritual and invention.
Plants display a remarkable degree of plasticity, able to completely regenerate from dissociated single cells. The root tip of the model laboratory plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, houses a group of stem cells that constantly divide to allow growth. Remarkably, if the tip of the root (including all stem
The film Inscapes was created to help solve an immediate, practical problem inherent to a branch of neuroimaging research called "resting state" functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Usually for these scans, subjects lay inside the MRI magnet and look at what we call a fixation cross (a stat
When a wide-eyed 10-year-old girl visits her fathers insect laboratory, she receives an unorthodox education in genetics.
These little moments were made by mixing drops of supravital stains like Brilliant Cresyl Blue, Crystal Violet, Congo Red, Methlyene Blue, Neutral Red, Safranin, Janus Green, Eosin and recording the interactions and phase changes at a perspective of 40x and 100x. There is no manipulation to color or
Brazilian physicists used their own text analysis technique to study the Voynich manuscript, a mysterious book supposedly written in early 15th century in an unknown alphabet. The expectation is to help deciphering this text, one of the most enigmatic known. Through advanced statistical tools, physi
For the last 30 years renowned Utah-based botanist and environmental activist Sam Rushforth has been contracted with the state of Utah to protect its water supply. Every 4 to 6 weeks he drives hundreds of miles from his home to several remote reservoirs in Utah's Wasatch mountain range. He collects
Microscopy, timelapse, and observation beautifully captures a lab's full study of squid embryonic development. Original score gives a momentum and underscores the aesthetic beauty of these images and data. Squid Development with music composed and performed by Kristina Dutton and Nathan Clevenger.
Students at UW Madison spend their summer in the wetlab preparing for the 2010 International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition.
A poetic soaring within a laboratory of genetics . With Marie Coutelier & Nicolas Maille A movie from Marie Coutelier (Scientist) & Alexandre Labarussiat (Filmaker) With the collaboration of Michel Dequet & Nicolas Maille The team thanks l'Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière (ICM) &
Anna Vasof's patented "Non-Stop Stop-Motion" technique creates an unusual time loop which leaves every type of virtual reality far behind.
Alya Red is a project of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center for simulating a human heart. In this video we explain the scientific background of the project, and show scientific visualizations of simulations using the computational electromechanical model applied to a rabbit heart. Winner of the 201
Simulation Beach depicts the paradox of our intensifying search for control over the elements in an era in which we have recognized ourselves as a geological force, "the anthropocene".
A Foundation reporter, Isidor Dukas comes to the Institute to make a report. For the purpose of objective reporting, the Foundation uses agents with induced, synthetic identities. In confrontation with one of the test subjects, what was supposed to be a routine control turns into a never ending maze
"Future craft" is an emerging genre of research-creation that encompasses a number of traditional maker methodologies, merged with the tools and methods of scientific, technological advance. This video forms a didactic visual narrative about processes of mammalian tissue engineering on hand-woven pr
Shot entirely at the Department of Radiology and the Department of Oncology at Odense University Hospital, Denmark, Cross Section is an ethnographic exploration of man and machine interaction in the pursuit of curing cancer and other deceases. In this visual and sonic environment, the machines dicta
There has not yet been any applied work of Metacinema. It was necessary to give the path to methodological problems. That is the reason why I decided to choose the purest subject to analyze. That is a subject composed of a single "substance".
MINIPOND For this film I reviewed all the video clips captured in the past several months, and tried to find something interesting to edit. Eventually, I thought a petri dish is like a small pond in the lab. Take a journey with our imagination we will find that trembling bubbles look like the unveil
An eminent professor navigates family life and the academic world as his work pushes against the limits of scientific integrity. He faces difficult dilemmas when old choices come back to haunt him. Film produced by Leiden University and Crochetta Films.
Highly complex ideas from medicine and research are embedded into experimental storytelling. The result: a kind of artistic performative "Activity" gameplay. A non-verbal explanation attempt. Illuminated Point and Click inside a human brain. Dancing science!
We take a poor human person, like you, and treat them like a pawn in our game. Watch as neuroscientist, Wallace L. Graybill, attempts to receive money coins from grants for his important research. It will be candy for your tum tum.
People have always been building things. We often marvel at the huge, and tallest constructions we achieved to make. But what about the tiniest of scales? Researcher Joep van der Weijden builds polymersomes on a nano scale.
Nico shows us the sequential stages for staining and image mouse embryos in Marc Tessier-Lavigne's Laboratory of Brain Development and Repair Nico is from Paris, France. He received a B.S. is Cell Biology (2006) from the École Normale Superieure de la rue d'Ulm and a M.S. in Neuroscience (200
Observing development conjures in even the least fantastic mind wild analogies and metaphors which are then built into the explanatory language of developmental anatomy, in this case of heart formation. Stemming from heart fields, come the insinuations of certain intercellular communication:appearin
We all have this energy that we can feel, a vital life force inside of us… what would it look like if we could see it? Amy Karle connects her body and consciousness to technology to create art, repurposing a Sandin Image Processor as an electrophysiological visualization device. While meditat
Brain scientist Dr. Sheri Myes lives through a bombing that changes her forever. She is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough to revolutionize human understanding of the world, when she is fired from her job and must climb up from the bottom. In a home lab, she develops drugs and body augmentati
Using over 6,000 collages, actors Mary Pickford and Janet Gaynor are appropriated from their early silent features and cast into a surreal epic.
Experimental short video in which guanine flakes in solution reflect light to allow the observational turbidity around a fictional elemental symbol. Flow visualisation is a fast-evolving field that often sees the merging of technology and scientific endeavour. For this work, a sans-serif logo was de
Loop is about what can be seen and what cannot, how scientists imagine their work and how they describe it. The film is based on the work done in Dr Serge Mostowy's lab on septin assembly in cells, using a zebrafish model. Lab members describe the intricate sub-cellular septin dynamics and structure
In this small formation history of atmospheric chemistry, flying and thinking beings emerge as the result of high levels of oxygen in the air which is owed to earth's forest and plant cover. In the midst of the oxygenic forest, a science-fictional performer manipulates a multitude of ingredients&nda