Click on the image to visit the full-size sketch.
The Mapunity folks are creating tools for users to make their own maps for whatever purpose they choose. The ones I like the most are these, dealing with innovation in rural parts of India. Here is where local, user based solutions to problems like disease control in cumin crops or remedies for animal wounds can be mapped to particular areas and described.
http://honeybee.mapunity.org/main
and a regional innovation listing here: http://ruralinnovations.mapunity.org/main
More projects are in the works, and they were working on a new interface even as we talked. Go check them out…maybe even create your own community!
I ran across this today while searching for some mitochondrial gene information. It’s the MitoWheel (re:blogged via pimm). Gábor Zsurka, a mitochondrial geneticist, produced it in flash with actionscript.
click image to visit
When compared to, say, The National Center for Biotechnology Information’s mapviewer of human mitochondria, the difference and accessibility are unmistakable.
Well, it looks like 23andMe finally went online. It’s been over a year since I did this sketch (left) and less than that since Google invested heavily in their startup costs. So when I opened up the New York Times today and saw their article on 23andMe’s launch (that’s effective PR), I still couldn’t help but be surprised that they had gotten going so quickly.
The key question for me is about their interface and interaction design. Will it compare to the same old bioinformatic machine style gene representations (square genes; primary colors), or will there be evidence of a concerted effort to push the visual language of the genome into something that connects with the wide array of meaning associated with genes? After I’ve had a chance to browse their site a bit, I’ll
report back with some visual analysis. One thing is certain; they’ve definitely internalized the web 2.0 visual style of rounded corners and big type!
The transdisciplinary project “I Gene Visions” of the Cologne artist and researcher Karsten K. Panzer PerZan is developing a visionary grammar of science and the arts, of biology and the esthetics. PerZan creates a connecting and binding meta-language between the binary codes of the genetic DNA and the archaic Chinese opus “Yijing”, Book of Changes, by using a binary color system (FR 64) as a mediator and transmitter www.PerZan.de.
A collaboration with the Arts & Genomics Centre
As part of the Penny Stamps Lecture Series at the University of Michigan School of Art & Design, the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange will perform excerpts from Ferocious Beauty: Genome on April 5th at 5pm in the Michigan Theatre, Ann Arbor, MI.
Liz Lerman, founder and artistic director of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, recently completed a four-year collaboration between scientists and choreographers culminating in Ferocious Beauty: Genome, a multi media dance/theater work that explores the human implications of discoveries in genetic science. Created with geneticists from organizations including The Institute for Genomic Research, Wesleyan University, Stanford University, Princeton University and Howard University, Ferocious Beauty has toured from Connecticut to California, deepening dialogue between science and the arts. Lerman will be joined by two dancers who will perform excerpts from Ferocious Beauty: Genome.
more…
http://www.art-design.umich.edu/ev_lectures.php?aud=e&menucat=ne#lerman
http://www.danceexchange.org/performance/ferociousbeautygenome.html#ff
“The project makes a gigantic leap in the distribution of biological data–moving it beyond the conventional representations of names and numbers to embrace the visual and organismal aspects of cellular and molecular forms”, says Harp.
“Organelle View is a scientific visualization application allowing users to dynamically generate a visual interpretation of data from Organelle DB. Organelle View presents a searchable interface with a three-dimensional representation of an archetypical cell. Rather than representing organelles and subcellular structures by text, Organelle View offers an artist’s rendering of a cell and its major organelles. At present, we have chosen a budding yeast cell (S.cerevisiae) as the model for Organelle View, largely because protein localization has been studied quite extensively in yeast; future versions of Organelle View will incorporate additional cell types from other organisms.”
(Wiwatwattana, N., Landau, C.M., Cope, G.J., Harp, G.A., & Kumar, A. (2007). Organelle DB: an updated resource of eukaryotic protein localization and function. Nucleic Acids Research, 35, D810-D814.)
Organelle View is a collaborative project aimed at developing the role of visual media (versus verbal) in the exploration of bioinformatic semantic networks. In cooperation with the Kumar lab and in my role as creative director and project manager, I led the team through the proof-of-concept stages of development with a successful grant application and navigation through the complex task of translation among scientific, IT, and artistic goals. In this instance, A virtual reality model dynamically linked to a bioinformatic database and designed to increase the use of rich media in collaborative learning. Developed with support from GROCS, the University of Michigan Office of the Provost, IBM, and Apple Computer, Organelle View allows users to learn about organelles and protein localization in a yeast model cell.
As a result of the Organelle View project, team members Chris Landau and Jamie Cope went on to form N Formation Design. The project is now being taken further in affiliation with the Kumar Lab. An animated version demonstrating the cell cycle in in the works.
