Nano+Bio+Art

The “wild and fun-filled” night began with a rather large bass drum playing in the background, accompanied by a surprisingly young 15 year old singer named “Kitten”. As a stereotypical science or art geek, parties and concerts were never a common routine. After a few minutes (or rather a few seconds) of attempting to assimilate to the [...]

Today Sara and Pinar talked about vision and different types of optical illusions. First they discussed the different sources of light, including the sun, which absorbs all wavelengths in the spectrum except for that individual color. Our retina within our eyes which includes cones and rods then help with peripheral vision, and help detect color which [...]

Today Miu and Romie talked about different molecular nanostructures, and using biomolecules as nanomachines. Using molecular machinery, or a tour of the protein data bank, we can utilize different components of our body such as proteins, nucleic acids, sugars, and lipids. Nadiran Seeman was one of the first to consider using three dimensional lattices of DNA [...]

            The human connection was the main topic of discussion for Mattia and Rita today – concentrating on sound, color, and smell. The sound waves are the variations in pressure hit the ear drum, and affect the emotion, evolution, and sound for each individual. The emotional response to music is an important aspect, and also is [...]

            On Saturday we went to two different museums – the California Science Center and the Santa Monica Museum of Art. At the California Science Center there were eight exhibits – including underwater, desert, arctic, rot, river, global, wind, and extreme. The underwater exhibit featured many of the different aquatic animals that live amongst each other. [...]

The last day of the first week for the Art|Sci program finally arrived with a presentation from the guest speaker John Carpenter. He talked first about diffusion tensor imaging of a mouse’s spinal cord, and the combination of 7 of its pictures – thus changing the pictures a information into art. He based the technique off [...]

For our fourth day at the Sci|Art NanoLab program, we learned about optics and the beauty of color through science from Sarah and Pinar. First we discussed the electromagnetic spectrum, and the differences between the gamma rays and radio waves. We continued by discussing light dispersion prism and how it can be used to break up [...]

The third day at The UCLA Sci|Art NanoLab program began with a lecture on pattern formation and the function of morphogenesis from our instructors Miu Lam and Romie Littrell. They began with discussing the geometrical patterns in different animals such as giraffe, zebra, and peacock. Miu also continued by discussing the importance of not only the [...]

The study of fluorescent particles has become more and more commonplace since the beginning of nano-technology. In today’s laboratory at the UCLA Sci|Art NanoLab, research is being done to utilize fluorescent nano particles not only for identifying certain compounds, but also to increase the effectiveness of quantum research and information processing. In an experiment conducted by [...]

In the broad and expanding field of nano-technology, it can be used and applied in various aspects in society today. One of the most common and well-known uses is the advancing studies of nano-medicine, and the benefits as well as the potential detrimental effects. Although it has not yet been proven to be foolproof, nanomedicine is [...]