Feynman’s Flower

In a wonderfully timed article in Cosmos, I learn that some very insightful students are creating a yeast that will make resveratrol as it ferments beer. That means the benefits of resveratrol will not simply be reserved for snotty red wine lovers (of which I proudly claim membership), but also beer swillers. Here’s to a long life of dark pubs and tipsy darts!

(I say wonderfully timed, since I have resveratrol on my brain due to the launch of my latest molecule offering, the resveratrol necklace.) Resveratrol is interesting because it does wonderful things in mice - from improving cardiovascular health to preventing cancer to significantly increasing lifespan. But don’t go buy yourself a jar of resveratrol pills, just yet. Very few benefits have been shown in humans.

In a clear case of genetic engineering used for the powers of good, these brilliant Rice undergrads are putting resveratrol-making genes into yeast. A (currently still imaginary) libation created with their yeast has been given the unfortunate name BioBeer, but that won’t stop me from buying a case as soon as it hits the shelves. Considering that the project is still incomplete and will have to jump through a number of FDA hoops, this will probably be a ways off. Although I imagine there will be a few fortified keggers in the meantime.

Read about it in Cosmos Magazine

Part of MIT’s iGem competition for students creating cellular machines

Jeff Hoke, Museum of Lost Wonder

That’s really what science art is about, to me: Re-introducing people to the wonder and awe they felt from exploring nature as children. Besides the Particle Zookeeper, another person I was pleased to meet last weekend was Jeff Hoke.

If you are not familiar with Jeff’s book The Museum of Lost Wonder, go familiarize yourself with it now. A synthesis of science, alchemy, and philosophy, it is also a one person’s journey pondering big questions. It will have you pondering these, too.

Jeff’s drawings are amazing, reminiscent of Edward Gorey and Chris Ware. His lines contain so much emotion and mystery. More amazing are his models, which can be cut out and assembled into 3D, often moving, dioramas. He has truly created his own world, a dusty library of a world with magic and secrets and symbols and endless possibility contained within.

Jeff has an interesting day job, too. He is an exhibit designer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. He designed a exhibit with “lots of velvet” for jellyfish. Really, so cool.

I admit that I first checked out his book at the local library. But before I had finished reading, I had ordered 6 books to be scattered among my friends and family. Come to think of it, I may need a few more for Winter Solstice gifts.

Visit The Museum of Lost Wonder

Last weekend I showed my stuff at Wonderfest, the Bay Area science festival held one day at Stanford and one day at UC Berkeley. Despite the pouring rain and thunder outside, the turn-out was great. My favorite part of Wonderfest was meeting other people who combine art and science in fun & amazing ways. One of these people is Julie Peasley who creates cuddly subatomic particles.

Julie, from LA but previously from the bay area, hand sews her particle softies. She has the complete standard model collection, including the - still elusive in real life - Higgs Boson. Many of her creations contain fun hints at the particle’s identity. The strange quark has three eyes.

In a most insipred bit of geekiness, Julie weights the plushies to reflect the relative weights of the particles. And, of course, they all come with a little story card about the particle. *swoon* I love those covert science lessons!

See the awesomeness of the Particle Zoo

Szechuan Peppercorns, for toothaches or for fun!

Eating Szechuan peppercorns has to be one of the strangest culinary experiences I’ve had. If you haven’t grabbed a few of the reddish pods, crunched them between your teeth, and let them sit on your tongue for a few minutes, go get some and do it now.

While your experience may differ, mine (and the typical experience) goes something like this. In a few seconds, your tongue numbs, then you taste pepper, then lemon, and then you experience a cool-and-hot sensation. Lastly, after maybe a minute, you feel a very strange buzzing sensation on your tongue.

“There’s a war in my mouth,” I told Diana Bautista, the UC Berkeley professor I was interviewing.

Bautista’s work is so cool. She identified the first family of touch receptors through studying the Szechuan peppercorns. Why these? Well, pain receptors were discovered through chili peppers, and then others identified through wasabi and mint and some other very wonderful plants. So spices and medicinal plants that people have noticed affect our senses and bodies are a good place to start.

Baustista’s work has many applications, like alleviating chronic pain, for example, but I would - for now - rather focus on sensation. My question - what the hell is going on that a receptor sensing heat (or cold or touch) can be triggered by a molecule that a plant makes?

A heat receptor that signals through a structural change when hot is elegant and simple, probably pretty ancient. Probably more recent are (endogenous, made by the body) molecules that can trigger the receptor to undergo the same change when it isn’t hot. Such a shortcut to tap into an already existing pathway is brilliant! Then the plants come along and make molecules that are similar enough to the endogenous molecules to trigger an unpleasant response in mammals, which don’t particularly want their mouths to feel they are burning, as protection. But humans - so often an exception - are willing to acquire the taste, for the pleasant endorphin response to the crying pain receptors.

This topic is just waiting for an artist! These are the most sensual molecules and pathways - by definition. And people do love their plant-based pain and touch receptor triggers. Capsaicin from chili peppers, menthol from mint, garlic, wasabi: there are fanatics for each of these. (And I may be an example of a fan of them all!)

Note to self - a chart to flesh out:
trpa1 receptor - wasabi (pungent isothiocyanade compounds), garlic (pungent thiosulfanates), and cannabinoids
trpm8 - mint (menthol)
trpv1 - chili peppers (capsaicin)

Links:
Diana Bautista research sumary
Nature Neuroscience paper on Szechuan peppercorns
David Julius discovered the capsaicin receptor and much more

Some people believe that learning science takes away one’s wonder of the world. They fear that science reduces Nature’s beauty into ugly clockwork. I believe that science helps uncover the beauty of Nature. Richard Feynman, physicist and communicator agreed with me:

“I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree with very
well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, ‘Look how beautiful it is,’ and I’ll agree, I think. And he
says, ‘You see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you, as a scientist, you take
this all apart and it becomes a dull thing.

And I think that he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other
people and to me, too, I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is.
But I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time I see much more about the
flower that he sees. I can imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also
have a beauty….

Also, the processes, the fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to
pollinate it is interesting - it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: Does
this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting
questions which shows that a scientific knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery
and the awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand how it can subtract.”

So, that’s where Feynman’s Flower comes from. This blog will reflect my interests: art that communicates the the beauty of Nature we discover through science, my work towards communicating science through creative means, and science discoveries in the realms of molecules, microbiology, and physics that are too good not to share.