UCLA SCI|ART NanoLab

Wednesday, February 09, 9:30 AM–12:00 PM
Murray Hill Suite, 2nd Floor, Hilton New York
Chairs: China Blue, The Engine Institute, Inc.; Jill L. Conner, White Hot Magazine and Parsons The New School for Design
Spectral Temporal Aesthetics and Human Perception
China Blue, The Engine Institute, Inc.
Sound as Sculptural Sensation
Michael Brewster, Claremont Graduate University
Witnessing Space
Andrea Polli, University of New Mexico
Developing an Aesthetic: Soundwalking as a Tool for Understanding Urban Sonic Spaces
Jonathan Farrow, City College of New York, City University of New York
Looking at Sound: The Exhibition Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary
Carey Lovelace, International Art Critics Association
Discussant:Jill L. Conner, White Hot Magazine and Parsons The New School for Design

XU TIAN embodies the American dream to an extent that many of his fellow Americans might well envy

Dr. Xu is a world-class geneticist. A Yale professor and one of roughly 340 American scientists endowed by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to pursue their wildest research desires, he seeks a holy grail: the key to what makes a mouse tick, gene by gene by gene. The implications for human health are profound, as the mouse and human genomes are substantially the same.

At Yale, he devised a process that allows mass production of genetically altered mice, an important step toward decoding the genome. At Fudan, he perfected it, and he is putting it to work at laboratories that hold one of the world’s largest collections of test animals. Soon, the new campus will sprout another building in the neo-Classical style: the Fudan Institute of Developmental Biology and Molecular Medicine, of which Dr. Xu is a co-director.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/world/asia/29china.html

When inexperienced chess players sit down to play against experts, they probably wonder what it is that makes the experts so good that it seems they are almost playing a different game. New research suggests that one difference is that the experts use more of their brains.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/science/25chess.html?_r=1

For some genes, either the father’s version or the mother’s version is active, but not both. Which version of the gene works is determined before conception, as the sperm and egg are developing, in a process called imprinting. By mimicking that process in the lab, and turning off a gene in mice, scientists have produced a change in social dominance behavior. In laboratory tests, mice with the paternal version of the gene known as Grb10 inactivated were more aggressive in their behavior, according to new research in the journal Nature.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/science/01obgene.html?_r=1

From February 9th to 12th, 2011, the 99th Annual Conference of the College Art Association will present more than 200 stimulating sessions, panel discussions, roundtables, and meetings on topics in all areas of art scholarship and practice.

For further information about the program visit:

http://conference.collegeart.org/2011/schedule/specialevents.php

Architects love saying their buildings have brains. Now, apparently, they’ve got brawn, too. The latest intelligent-building tech from New York architects Decker Yeadon is a mighty, muscle-y structural facade that fights solar heat-gain by flexing its guns.

Find out more at:

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662975/mighty-building-facade-beats-solar-heat-with-mechanical-muscles

Dr. Yoel Fink and his collaborators announce a new milestone on the path to functional fibers: fibers that can detect and produce sound. Applications could include clothes that are themselves sensitive microphones, for capturing speech or monitoring bodily functions, and tiny filaments that could measure blood flow in capillaries or pressure in the brain.

Find out more :

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/insidenova/2010/08/mit-smart-fibers-take-in-and-send-out- sound.html

Patricia Olynyk’s prints and installations frequently employ microscopy and biomedical imaging technologies to explore the intersections between art and the life sciences. Her work frequently calls upon viewers to expand their awareness of the worlds they inhabit—whether those worlds are their own bodies or the spaces that surround them. She is Director, Graduate School of Art, Washington University

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