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ISSN: 1530-5775
March 2010, Vol.12 #3
Poetry! Wecome Spring
Read this feature from past issues.
You can see more by David Donar at http://politicalgraffiti.wordpress.com/.
Read this feature from past issues.
Walk through the structure of lungs. Learn why identical twins develop physical differences. Look at micophotographs of cell forces. These are just some of the winners of the 2009International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. Co-sponsored by the NSF and Science Magazine, these and others show art can be used to convey scientific principles. The representation of lung cells forming capillaries would arouse jealousy in the heart of any macrame artist. Created by biologist Peter Lloyd Jones and architect Jenny Sabin, the 3.5 meter tall sculpture of colored wires represents 5 snapshots of a computer simulation of the process. This is a magical approach to illustrate a very complex and detailed set of data. The 3-dimensional datascape provides a tactile and functional picture much more manageable and understandable than graphs could ever be. In "The Epigenitics of Identical Twins", Harmony Starr and Molly Malone illustrate how different life choices and environments change the actual genetic makeup of people who start out identical. With props like cotton clothesline pieces, glass-topped pins and a rolling pin, they bring understanding of complex genetic concepts. Sometimes we can achieve clarity with very simple props. A photograph made during a study of forces that cells can exert yielded a photograph that could easily serve as a quilt pattern. Taken by Russell Taylor, Briana Whitaker and Brian Carstens during a study of cells can stitch together skin wounds, it exhibits a lovely hexagonal symmetry in a flower design. Complicated scientific ideas can be visualized in marvellous ways. Check out all the winners. And for the bigger picture, check out the Astronomy Picture of the Day, which always has marvelous images of astrophysical science.
Spring Poetry
from David Donar
Datascapes and Flower Power: Images of Science
Peyton Manning in the Corner
A Shaman's Challenge for the New Year
Understand Emotional Eating
A conversation in Poems
Celebrate International Women's Day
Can Georgia Pull It Off?
Near death...
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Irma Hudson
Early Morning
The timid deer are out
when I get up
to enjoy the cool breeze
sparkling birdsong
dawn's pink glow.
Life
lacks map, directions --
wanders
into the unknown
one step at a time
Hummingbird
returns to the feeder
right after the downpour.
Where did she hide
from raindrops
almost as big as she?
Spring
Deer munch the daffodils --
squirrels, raccoons vandalize
the bird feeder --
gnats hatch in profusion.
Maybe winter
was not so bad.
Chinese Market
So many vegetables. Crowds
press in, graze with their eyes,
plant tentative fingers
on eggplants, daikon radishes
make careful selections...
then haggling begins.
Lane Willey
Later Years
In my bones I know
September has past
yet I have only begun to decide--
decide about my journey
to here or there
trying to make the world peaceful
for the ones who are still
starry eyed and hopeful,
not mired in the muck of the impossible.
The Future
I watched them
Flesh of my flesh,
but not quite my own.
Together,
for once not bickering
smiling at the glistening snow.
Wih an unspoken word
the snowboards slid silently
down the homemade ramp.
My used up words
(no longer mine)
echoed across the stillness--
"Be careful".
Treasure
A gift not wrapped in colored tissue
with a fancy bow to ooh and ahh
then forget.
No, one whose very sight
turns corners up
melts hearts
gives strentgh.
First thought is fragile,
needing help,
until the grip of that tiny hand
on an arthritic finger
moves forward
calling me to follow her blond pigtails
and smile.
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