CHEM 106

Stumbled across an old, but really cool TED Talk from 2011: Nathan Myhrvold, author of Modernist Cuisine. In his TED Talk he introduces his book, which is a cookbook that teaches scientific concepts in fascinating ways. He  cuts every appliance he uses in half in order to create these insane images that he includes in the cook book. It seems that people in various fields are trying to find ways to bridge the gap between art and science.

Check out his TED here:

https://www.ted.com/talks/nathan_myhrvold_cut_your_food_in_half?language=en

At the end of last semester, I decided to stop putting heat to my hair. After years of going through a routine of straightening my hair, I was ready to embrace my natural curls and figure out what kind of products work with my kinky frizzy texture. In my journey, I read many blogs about “natural hair care” basically providing, reviews for good and bad products for my hair type. Then, after wasting countless dollars on products that I never use, I stumbled upon a book called The Science of Black Hair: A Comprehensive Guide to Textured Hair. This book, unlike any other article or blog I read, took a different approach to hair care, which I believe to be an art or an esthetic.  Everyday we fix our hair to be presentable for the public but hair care goes beyond just making your physical appearance “beautiful”. As someone who has an irritated scalp, this book coupled art and science by outlining the biological and chemical concepts that are important to understanding hair, specifically coarse and textured African American hair. I think that since I’ve cut my hair, I’ve been more attentive to the way I treat my hair, and especially what I put into my hair. I never considered that maybe certain products didn’t work well with my hair because of the science behind how they interact with my hair, but this has definitely been a growing and rewarding process for me!

I really enjoyed this class because I’d never really considered the relationship between art and science, and I liked the challenge of thinking about how to represent scientific concepts through art.

Coming from an entirely art perspective, I really didn’t think there was a lot of significant science in art, but I now realize that they are very related. I do wish that we had done more science-related art than art-related science. One thing I thought of as something to learn about is the chemical reaction of applying patina to metals; in my sculpture class last spring we cast wax pieces in bronze and then applied to patina to it, and it would have been really interesting to learn more about the chemical version of that.

This course has taught me how to think about science and art from a new point of view, and I will definitely utilize and consider these concepts after graduation!

As other classmates have mentioned, this course has been quite interesting. As a non-science person who would say that I don’t remember many chemistry concepts from high school, I came in to this course ready to face my fear of chemistry and redeem myself by learning, and I guess re-learning these concepts. To be honest, even when we couple art and science, I still struggle to fully grasp some of these concepts. However, after our class Ruhlman last week, a faculty member who watched our presentations came up to me and said that our presentations were very cool, and that she was fascinated to learn about the science behind our projects through the artworks we created. I have to say that I have gained a bit of confidence now that I can explain a few scientific concepts. Learning about emulsions was a breakthrough for me because I really did have to sit down and teach myself how this process works which proved to be more meaningful than learning about it for a quiz or examination.

I liked this way of learning scientific concepts through art, hands on demonstrations and experiments. I think I’ll remember what I’ve learned in this class, because I’ll remember what kinds of artwork I made to convey scientific messages.

My favorite class was the kuru experiment when we split into groups of anthropologists and physicians. I liked the mystery/ problem-solving aspect of it and it was more engaging (and memorable) than simply being given the answer right away. It also demonstrated the importance of sharing information from different experts. My group (physicians) was so sure the disease must be genetic, because we didn’t have information about brain eating practices in the village.

At Utrecht University in the Netherlands, Gün Semin studies people sweating. Under different conditions of course, but sweating nevertheless.

Researchers recruited 12 Caucasian males to provide sweat samples for the study; each was exposed to clips meant to induce a different emotion while working out. The three were fear, happiness or neutral. 36 women were then recruited to smell the sweat samples (YUCK! For science!) of the three emotional states they were produced in.

When the women were exposed to sweat produced while watching clips that made the male recruit feel afraid, referred to as “fear sweat”, EMG electrodes showed that there was greater activity in the medial frontalis muscle, characteristic of the facial expression that indicates fear. Sweat produced while watching clips that made the male recruit feel happy caused the female recruit exposed to the sample to reflect this state and appear happier. Thus, the recipient of the happy sweat scent reflects the happy state of the male recruit. “This suggests that somebody who is happy will infuse others in their vicinity with happiness. In a way, happiness sweat is somewhat like smiling—it is infectious.”

Unfortunately, after smelling “happy sweat,” the women didn’t score as high for happiness on an emotion survey as the male recruits who produced the samples did. This suggests a better way to become happy is to have a workout than to go to the gym and sniff people who are having work outs.

Furthermore, if humans are so good at picking up on fear and happiness, the ability almost resembles an evolutionary advantage. For example, if someone ran past me and I could smell fear on them, It would be an advantage as I’d then be on the look out for whatever they’re running from and run myself.

Overall, I think this was a wonderful course. I learned a lot about chemistry as well as science in general. I was able to pursue some of my own interests -ones I’d walked in on the first day with-, as well as learn about new ones -such as Kuru which I ended up watching a really interesting documentary on.
I really enjoyed the final presentation. I kind of wish it didn’t have to have an art component but I understand that this is Art of Science so it had to.
It would have been nice to have presentations more often about things we were interested in because I really enjoyed doing the research on mood enhancers and learning about my teammate’s substances.
The concept checks were nice. I liked being able to asses my knowledge and my understanding of the concepts, although I do wish they’d be shorter and more frequent just to be able to address any problems I might be having.
Well actually, I wish we’d had homework with practice problems so I might have practiced without being penalized.
I also really enjoyed the fluid structure of the class. It was very routine, but most things were completely up to me which I appreciated.

As a science person who always looked at textbooks and reactions this class was very fun! I had fun actually looking at real objects or real reactions that I can see with my eyes and learn the science behind it. Even in labs, I would have to rely on machines to know whether my reaction is happening or not. However this class was the opposite! I enjoyed the class when we learned about color vision and the various art works we tried were also interesting. I would recommend this class to science people as well because it is a new way of learning science!

I took this course believing that it would be the perfect “science for non science people” class. During the semester I was pleasantly surprised to find that I greatly enjoyed the science aspects of the course, especially the unit on color and vision. By using art to represent scientific concepts, the information becomes easier to digest and understand. By exploring scientific concepts through artwork, my interest in both subjects has greatly increased. The course did a great job in balancing both art and science, making one integral to the other. The color and vision unit really piqued my interest in art, especially art that uses bright colors and bold lines. It also raised my interest on the science behind vision and how we distinguish color and its purpose. I would definitely recommend this course to people who feel at home  in the science community and people who don’t, and prefer humanities.

When reading this article on global climate change, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/health/epa-emissions-plan-will-save-thousands-of-lives-study-finds.html?ref=science, I thought about how a combination of art and science are used to identify and solve problems.

In order to measure climate change, scientific tools and measurements must be made. Data about temperature, gas bubbles in ice cores, ocean acidity, and other variables, are taken and tracked. Ultimately, science will determine methods people and organizations can use to solve global warming.

But, in order to inspire people to make changes in their lives, reading studies will not incite change. Watching or engaging with art, like the film the Inconvenient Truth, will make people and businesses change their ways.

It takes the engagement of artists and scientists to approach and  solve complicated problems.