{"id":1087,"date":"2022-08-22T12:49:49","date_gmt":"2022-08-22T12:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/?p=13637"},"modified":"2022-10-10T14:25:14","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T14:25:14","slug":"13637","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/2022\/08\/22\/13637\/","title":{"rendered":"Neurons as Works of Art"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-13638 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Capture-decran-2022-03-07-105746.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"415\" height=\"369\" \/>If you visit the website that I\u2019m going to tell you about today, you\u2019re likely to kill a lot of time there, as I just did. But if visiting a museum to enjoy beautiful art isn\u2019t really killing time, then neither is visiting <strong><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><a style=\"color: #808080;\" href=\"https:\/\/neuroart.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NeuroArt\u00ae<\/a><\/span><\/strong> \u2014an online gallery of gorgeous images of neurons and the brain, produced with dyes, tracers and a variety of other technical methods.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>NeuroArt invites scientists from all over the world to submit images of the brain in all of its wondrous complexity and resulting visual beauty. Not only will you be blown away by all the fascinating shapes and psychedelic colours, but you can also learn a lot about the brain and nervous system, because for each image, you can display a brief description by either hovering your mouse over its thumbnail or clicking the \u201ci\u201d icon beneath the enlarged version.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><a style=\"color: #808080;\" href=\"https:\/\/neuroart.com\/gallery\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Image Gallery<\/a><\/span><\/strong> is the part of this website that most closely resembles a museum experience; it must contain pretty close to 400 images! Which reminds me about two scientists whose artworks I\u2019ve discussed before on this blog. In a 2012 post, I wrote about Greg Dunn and his highly precise, shimmering <strong><span style=\"color: #808080;\"><a style=\"color: #808080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gregadunn.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u201creflective microetchings\u201d<\/a><\/span><\/strong>, created using data generated by various imaging techniques. And in 2020, I wrote about the intricate pastel-coloured <span style=\"color: #008080;\"><a style=\"color: #008080;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/14\/using-science-to-create-art\/\">paintings of David Goodsell<\/a><\/span>, which interpret electron-microscope images of the inside of human cells in a way that makes their complexity intelligible as well as enchanting to the eye.<\/p>\n<p>We tend to have relatively few mental images of the complex world inside our bodies. We say, \u201cYeah, it\u2019s complex,\u201d and leave it at that. But technologically generated images of living cells, like those on NeuroArt, as well as artworks created by scientists like Dunn and Goodsell, help us truly take in all this complexity and realize that complexity and beauty very often go together.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you visit the website that I\u2019m going to tell you about today, you\u2019re likely to kill a lot of time there, as I just did. But if visiting a museum to enjoy beautiful art isn\u2019t really killing time, then neither is visiting NeuroArt\u00ae \u2014an online gallery of gorgeous images of neurons and the brain, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[415,50],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1091,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions\/1091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog-thebrain.org\/beginner\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}