I fell in love with geological illustrations when I was taking geology in college. Of all my copious and fast scribbled notes, the illustrations and diagrams I made received the most attention, probably too much. These aren’t my illustrations but they beautifully capture what I loved about trying to encompass and visualize vast, slow and transformative processes happening on a geologic time scale. I found these years ago on the West Virginia University Geology 101 class page.
Ocean Life – By James M. Sommerville
Schussele, the first professor in drawing and painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, was chiefly a genre, history painter and portrait painter, yet his subject matter occasionally reflected Philadelphia’s scientific tradition, as in this watercolor. One of the earliest American submarine illustrations, this picture was executed expressly for lithographic reproduction in a pamphlet of the same title published in Philadelphia in 1859. James M. Sommerville (1825 – 1899), a physician, amateur naturalist, member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, as well as an artist and a trustee of the Pennsylvania Academy, was probably the designer of the watercolor. He collected the specimens, wrote the text of the pamphlet and lithographed the image.
Molecular animators and biological cinema
“All that we had before — microscopy, X-ray crystallography — were all snapshots,” said Tomas Kirchhausen, a professor in cell biology at Harvard Medical School and a frequent collaborator with Dr. Iwasa. “For me, the animations are a way to glue all this information together in some logical way. By doing animation I can see what makes sense, what doesn’t make sense. They force us to confront whether what we are doing is realistic or not.” For example, Dr. Kirchhausen studies the process by which cells engulf proteins and other molecules. He says animations help him picture how a particular three-legged protein called “All that we had before — microscopy, X-ray crystallography — were all snapshots,” said Tomas Kirchhausen, a professor in cell biology at Harvard Medical School and a frequent collaborator with Dr. Iwasa. “For me, the animations are a way to glue all this information together in some logical way. By doing animation I can see what makes sense, what doesn’t make sense. They force us to confront whether what we are doing is realistic or not.” For example, Dr. Kirchhausen studies the process by which cells engulf proteins and other molecules. He says animations help >him picture how a particular three-legged protein called clathrin functions within the cell. clathrin functions within the cell.
Campi Phlegraei
‘Campi Phlegraei’ was first published in 1776 with a supplementary volume released three years later covering the 1779 Vesuvius eruption. The first volume consists mainly of letters sent by Hamilton to the Royal Society with the majority of plates appearing in volume two. The sketches by Pietro Fabris were reproduced as sixty two engravings for the publication and were assiduously hand-coloured in gouache.
The Cephalopoda
The images for this post were sourced from: ‘The Cephalopoda Part I: Oegopsida Part II: Myopsida, Octopoda Atlas’ by Carl Chun, 1910 {1975 reprint}, online at the Biodiversity Heritage Library (there’s a small drop-down menu to toggle between atlas and text).
Titan Arum
The week of July 21, 2003, media broadcasts including national news announced that a Titan Arum, (Amorphophallus titanum) was about to bloom at the United States Botanic Garden, Washington, DC. Throngs of the curious endured the blazing sun and long lines to get a look at this spectacular plant, native to Sumatra. As is usual for this species, the peak opening lasts for only a day or two and by Friday, deterioration was evident, with total collapse inevitable the next day. The U.S. Botanical Garden agreed that it would be in the best interest of science to preserve a specimen of the Amorphophallus before it fell into total ruin.
Why make a specimen? Scientists use dried collections to survey the tremendous diversity among and within species. By carefully comparing the critical characteristics of each specimen, plant taxonomists (scientists who give names to plants) develop a much clearer understanding of the definition of each species and their relationship to other species. The more specimens a researcher has to compare, the more complete is the assessment. Specimens may also serve as vouchers for research that is done in related fields or other applied sciences using plant material.
Specimens of this Amorphophallus titanum will reside at the United States National Herbarium. The U.S. National Herbarium dates back almost to the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution in 1846, and now contains 4.6 million specimens. The herbarium had only two collections of this species, made in Sumatra in 1935-6. There were fruiting specimens and specimens of leaves, but no male and female flowers. This would be the first flowering material for the United States National Herbarium, an important enhancement to our reference collection.