THE PHOTOGENIC BACTERIA

Three mounths ago I was in Milan with Mika (my physicist boyfriend) for the Roger Water's concert (yeah The wall...yeah it was F.A.N.T.A.S.T.I.C. but I want to do a next post about it).
We have found a street exhibition linked with "BrainForum", an annual forum about neuroscience.
It was called "The color of thought" and there were almost 30 panels with giant brain images compared to most famous last century painters modern art paintings.

Here some examples:


To the left of the image of a neuron. To the right of 'The Fountain' by Gustav Klimt (1909)


To the left brain damage. To the right 'Camouflage' by Andy Warhol (1987)


To the left growing astrocytes. To the right 'Red Plastic' by Alberto Burri (1961)

Pretty amazing, isn't it?
The tecnique they used for make these photos is called “Brainbow” technique and it works some ways like tv or computer monitor.
I try to explain: the colors in old monitors were formed by mixing three primary colors: cyan, magenta and yellow. In graphics is called Tri-color technique.
Actual monitors uses four-color process or more (adding for example green in the primary colors). It's the reason because when you try to run an old videogame the computer asks you to change the monitor resolution to 256 colours.

In neuroscience there was an old tecnique to "colour" brain cells invented by Camillo Golgi in 1873 but it allowed to color just feaw neuron at time.
The 256 video resolution.

This new tecnique, developed in the Spring of 2007 by a team led by Jeff W. Lichtman and Joshua R. Sanes, both professors of Molecular & Cellular Biology in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, consist in a genetic engineering stuff.

In substance they have modified the DNA of some mice with inserted fluorescence genes from coral, jellyfish and a bacteria called Cre(ahahah here we are...long long long speculation for a good title.)

And this fluorescents ints hundreds of brain cells at a time in about 90 various colors. And, most important, you can see how cells interact together. Instead of having a vision of just one cell within a circuit, you have a vision of the circuit itself.

Ok those are the good facts.
The bad ones are:
1. It works only with modified mice. No normal mice and mostly no human. Mh good point.
2. It costs a fortune. For see this wonderful pictures you've to buy several hundred thousands dollars fluorescent microscopes. Ok it's a problem.

My own speculations about this street exhibition are on the perspective of humanistic vision of it. I wonder how is possible that something that already exists in nature, although in tiny and hidden form, is visible an paintable for some genius artistic minds.
In some way it's like they paint what they have in their mind VISUALLY that unconsciously was what their mind was PHYSICALLY.

Keep thinking...
for now keep watch the stars. In your tiny and gorgeus brains.

TOMORROW PREVIEW: BEAT CANCER IN A BREATH

bye
Elena

link
http://www.brainforum.it/
http://espresso.repubblica.it/multimedia/fotogalleria/28671087
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7166/full/nature06293.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainbow