Biochemical Soul Musings on Nature, Science, Evolution, Biology, and Education

6Jun/104

Laughing Mantis Studio

Well, I've done what I've been meaning to do for quite some time: put together my artwork in a bit more coherent way.
To this end I've created my new Art Website/Blog:

Laughing Mantis Studio

"Laughing Mantis Studio" - http://LaughingMantis.com

Prints of my works are now available in my Redbubble store at http://LaughingMantis.redbubble.com

17May/104

The Making of “K-T”

I know of at least a couple of people who were curious how I went about making my latest art, "K-T." Here is an abbreviated walkthrough...

First came the idea. I've had the general idea of the composition in my head sometime: a view from a mammal ancestor's burrow of the distant K-T meteor.

When I decided to actually make it with the free and open-source Blender and GIMP, I first made a very quick (like 5 minute) sketch of my idea layout (Note: You can click on all images for larger versions):

Hilarious sketch up of the idea. Looks like it was made by a two-year-old.

Next up: modeling the creatures. All objects are modeled as a 3D mesh, working with them and sculpting them at times much like clay - except it's all in the computer.

Velociraptor polygonal mesh

Velociraptor Model - color and shadow to help see curvature

Next up comes the coloring, texturing, and addition of fur.

Velociraptor Texturing and Fur - an early test

In reality, the coloring and texturing is done on 2D images (using the free photoshop-like GIMP), which are then mapped onto the 3D mesh:

Velociraptor Color Map

Next up: a poseable armature has to be made and applied to the 3D mesh. Think of this as an actual skeleton that the mesh will deform with.

Velociraptor Armature Rigging

The armature has to be tested with lots of poses to make sure the mesh warps correctly.

Smile for the camera!

Rinse and repeat for the other objects:

Mammal with fur

Your great x 10 to the alot grandpa

Now start putting objects into the scene:

Basic Scene

More detail

And finally we have everything in place

Scene Mesh

Scene solid objects

At this point alot of time is put into positioning lights and tweaking textures so that everything looks good. Lighting is probably the hardest thing to get right (especially with fur).

Finally, the image is rendered and the image levels and coloring and effects are tweaked using GIMP.
Note: you can get a super high-res large poster of this artwork here.

"K-T"

"K-T" Close-up

All in all, the entire process took 3 weeks. I could have easily spent another 3 weeks tweaking and fixing many aspects of the piece and adding more details, but I was pretty much ready to move on to something else. So, I got it to the point where I was happy with it as is.

I hope you enjoyed it!

13May/108

Artistic Depiction of the K-T Extinction Event

Okay - so I've been "away" for a while. What can I say? I've been busy with other things.

However, one of them is now complete. I present for your viewing pleasure, my new paleontology-inspired artwork:

"K-T"

The Cretaceous-Tertiary Boundary

Sixty-five million years ago, a daily struggle occurs in the midst of the world-changing event that would result in the demise of the non-avian dinosaurs and the eventual rise of our own lineage of mammals.

If you or someone you know would like a poster print of this work, you can BUY IT HERE. Or you can browse a couple of my other pieces (more forthcoming).

Note: The poster is MUCH larger and higher resolution (these web images don't do justice to the actual level of detail). I can make other sizes available (or on other products). This took me three weeks to create, using the free and opensource  Blender and GIMP software packages.

Here's a cropped piece to give you an idea of the true detail level:
Close up

10Mar/0934

Medical Research on Animal Models – Where Do You Stand?

Our self-aware cousins

Our self-aware cousins

This weekend I heard an incredibly interesting story on NPR's This American Life titled "Almost Human Resources" (Act 3). The story was all about the issues surrounding chimpanzees in the human world surpassing their usefulness and how we should care for them. Apparently this now includes retirement homes with TVs.

This story, along with a recent tangential debate over at Southern Fried Science and PETA's "sea kittens" campaign, sent my mind down a familiar path - one that anyone working in biology inevitably travels from time to time: the ethics of animal research for science.

There have been myriad writings, books, movies, discussions, and laws surrounding the practice of using animals for research. I'm sure most of us in the science world have come to very similar conclusions on the subject, though we may vary widely in the details.

Nonetheless, I'm very interested to hear where YOU, my readers and my fellow scientist peers, currently stand on the subject. I would like this post to be interactive.

First, I'd like to give my own thoughts.

In general, I view all living things as uber-complex organic robots (humans included). All life is amazing, precious, and beautiful - from bacteria to humans - but I still see us all as robots, running our nearly unfathomable genetic programs, developmental processes, and higher-level emergent programs of conscious and sub-conscious thought.

Mirror Test

Mirror Test

At the same time, I feel - for no rational reason really - that consciousness and self-awareness inherently grant those that harbor them the right to live relatively free from human induced suffering. This is a feeling. We all feel it, at least for humans. We feel the immorality of conducting experiments on other human beings (though this was not always the case). Why? Because it's...just...wrong.

It's for this reason that I'm completely opposed to any medical research on chimpanzees or any great apes. There is no doubt that our great ape cousins share many if not most of our own emotional and sensory perceptions, as well as similar intellectual abilities (similar in type - not necessarily degree). For all intents and purposes, I see them as people. Not human people. Not anthropomorphized animals. But sentient to semi-sentient beings.

It's hard to measure degrees of self-awareness and know whether another creature has it. But the classic mirror test is one simple way to find when the answer is a clear yes. As of right now, great apes, dolphins, elephants, and at least one bird species, the magpie, have passed the test and shown that they have some understanding of "self."

If a creature can have any understanding of what is being done to "them," I am completely against it. Recently Orac at Respectful Insolence posted on the discontinuation of using dogs for teaching surgery techniques. He caught some flak from a few commenters for showing an emotional relief that dog use was being halted - at least partially because he loves dogs. As if any decisions on the use of other beings for our own benefit could be arrived at using only reason!

No - we as humans place some inherent value on consciousness, on self-awareness. Dogs may or may not be "self-aware" as defined by behavioral scientists. They can't pass the mirror test, but anyone who has had a dog knows that they clearly experience something akin to guilt, and a whole host of emotions similar to those of our own (I'm being careful here not to anthropomorphize). They know when they have done something wrong.

As any behavioral biologist, psychologist, or cognitive neuroscientist knows, there is no clear dividing line between conscious being and automaton. What about rhesus monkeys and the other more "primitive" primates? I personally feel that much monkey research - particularly those studies on the cutting edge of such diseases as A.I.D.S. - are critical right now. However, I also know that I could never be one to perform such studies. There is a mental hypocrisy here in my own mind. I would feel wrong performing primate research. But I support it to a limited extent.

But for some animals, it seems clear when they are well beyond that gray fuzzy line. Xenopus frogs, as far as any observation or measurement can tell, are much too dumb to have any sort of self-awareness. The same can be said of mice or rats. They simply do not have the cognitive capacity - the hardware - to generate emergent properties like self-awareness as we know it. It seems more than clear to science, I believe, that these creatures are fuzzy automatons. I have performed studies (using incredibly regulated and humane methods) using these creatures, and I have no qualms about it, so long as the use of animal models are absolutely critical to the study at hand. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved or vastly improved by such studies. Few people alive today (in America at least) can imagine what the state of human health would be without mice and rat studies.

And just to go one level further "down" the evolutionary ladder, consider fish.

Fish are NOT "sea kittens." We understand at least at a basic level what overall types of brain structures and neural pathways are required for higher cognition. Fish do not have these structures. They are insanely complex, from a genetic standpoint. They are beautiful. They are unimaginably important to the ecosystems of the earth. But they are still slimy scaly robotic automatons incapable of "suffering" in any human sense.

And invertebrates? Well, they're clearly organic machines. Would any of you really argue otherwise?

However, with all of the above being said, I often think about how barbaric people were only a generation ago (or sometimes less), and I wonder which of my beliefs will be considered equally barbaric by the next generation. As Richard Dawkins mused in "The God Delusion," perhaps animal rights is the issue upon which our generation will be judged to have sinned. Perhaps our ancestors will cringe at our actions (while praising the 500 year lifespans our research has given them - kidding).

What do you think? Take these polls and leave your comments below.

[polldaddy poll="1444538"] [polldaddy poll="1444551"] [polldaddy poll="1444559"]

12Feb/092

Darwin Day Linkfest – My Favorites

Though we are nearing the end of the "official" Darwin Day celebration, considering Charles Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, 2009 is sure to be the Year of Darwin. In fact, a slew of events will be filling the entire month of February and there are bound to be internets full of evolutionary goodness throughout the year.

The entries for the Blog for Darwin "blog swarm" are only just beginning to roll in. In this post, you will find my favorite Darwinian entries.

First and foremost, I would like to ask you all to read my own post, Darwin and the Heart of Evolution, which recounts a simplified evolutionary history in the development of our cherished organ - the heart.

On to the link love!

  • The Beagle Project Blog gives their own rundown of the best Darwin posts, here, here, and here.
  • The Digital Cuttlefish sings us the single most amazing science song ever written. It is pure beautiful poetry. Everyone should read it and hang the lyrics upon their wall.
  • Richard Wiseman Blog brings us an amazing afterimage optical illusion of Darwin himself  - a great alternative to the ubiquitous and similar Jesus illusion.
  • Observations of a Nerd explains why she is not a "Darwinist" (and why no one should be, really). As I like to say, Evolutionary Theory is to Darwinism as the blue whale is to Pakicetus.
  • If I ever gave Valentine's Day a second thought, I would most certainly give this Valentine's Day Card to my wife (hat tip to The Oyster's Garter). Thankfully my wife views the wretched holiday in the same light as I do.
  • FYI: Science! tells a great tale of teaching evolution in high school biology classrooms.
  • The Southern Fried Scientist and WhySharksMatter over at Southern Fried Science, and Kevin Zelnio of The Other 95% and Deep Sea News have begun a massive undertaking, celebrating both Darwin's birthday and the Origin's publication in November: They are growing beards from scratch between now and November for "The Great Darwin Beard Challenge". Now that's some dedication!
  • Life Science Tools of the Trade gives an incredibly entertaining look at Darwin's methods of specimen collection. In Darwin's own words (describing a rare and now critically endangered fox), "He was so intently absorbed in watching the work of the officers, that I was able, by quietly walking up behind, to knock him on the head with my geological hammer."
  • It's Alive!! speaks of Darwin's ecological villainy. It's in the same vein as the previous link - you just have to read it - short and very funny. Excerpt: "Darwin did eat a bunch of endangered turtles, lizards, birds and other animals during his voyage. It’s one of 10 fun facts about Darwin. Hah! Take that vegans."
  • Mike of 10,000 Birds gives a beautiful rundown on why birders should love Darwin.

Those are all the posts I've managed to read through thus far. I am certain that many new and wonderful posts will arise over the coming days, my favorite of which I will continue to add to this post.  Cheers! And have a Happy Darwin Day!

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