A SERENDIPITOUS MONOCHROMATIC IMAGE

What is this and why do all those dots look the same?

Why is it monochromatic - a single color?

And how can an image be serendipitous (to use Neil Shubin's favorite word)? Well, let me explain.

The image is serendipitous in that I found a magazine haphazardly laying about in Mr. Chabot's room last week (not to imply that Mr. Chabot's room is any less orderly than my own) and it opened itself to the article containing this image, and the one that follows. Doing a "quick read" of the article got me thinking about one of your student comments from last week. I realized I had struck gold.

As for the rest, read on, dear students, and comment on the FOLLOWING post.

FALSE-COLOR IMAGES; Why do they do that?

Thanks to all of you who jumped right in and wrote those great comments for last week's post! One of the most exciting things for me about writing this blog is that it allows us to establish a dialogue beyond the classroom on questions or topics provoked by a posting. There were many interesting comments and questions - some of them we worked into class discussions (e.g., phytoplankton blooms) but others, equally interesting, went unanswered. I'd like to use one of those questions as a jumping off point for this week's entry.

Mike asked about the need to create false-color images. Good question! It does seem odd to apply a false color to something that presumably has color. But not everything does emit energy that we can observe as "color".

Think about it. What is "color"? Color is visible light energy. You may remember from 9th grade science, or physics, that the visible light spectrum represents only a very small part of the electromagnetic spectrum of wave energy that travels through our universe. Radio waves, microwaves, infra-red waves, ultra-violet waves, x-rays and gammas rays travel through the universe undetected by human eyes. Yet that energy does exist, and there are times when scientists require a means to "see it".

Probably the most common example of a picture that presents false color, or color not readily seen by the human eye, are those pictures that show different temperatures zones in a geographical area, or weather map. UV (ultra violet) photography allows us to "see" hot areas as red, warmer areas as orange, and cooler areas as blue. This technique is also used to assess houses for insulation efficiency, and heat loss.

A true "false-color image" shows color where no color exists, or applies color to selectively separate parts of an image for analysis. Basically, scientists create a color key. Take a look at the picture at the top of this post. This remarkable picture shows us the nuclei (plural of nucleus) of a zebrafish embryo during its initial 24 hours of development. The image has been falsely colored to provide a key to the activity thats taking place. The green nuclei have locked in place. The orange colored nuclei are in motion - swirling in an ever tightening vortex, hurtling towards the center of the embryo in this initial phase of development called gastrulation; the process of differentiating an outside layer (ectoderm) a middle layer (a mesoderm) and an inner layer (an ectoderm).

Its like rolling a ball of Play Dough in your hands, placing the ball on your desk, punching the ball down, and enclosing the resulting hollow space. It's how life develops from a ball of undifferentiated (unspecialized) cells to an embryo. (That's for all of you who clicked your primary interest in zoology!)

The above image was created with a new technology developed in 2008. By falsely coloring different nuclei, scientists are able to watch processes that had previously been invisible. The single color image appearing above this post shows the end result. Note the cluster of nuclei running longitudinally from the top to bottom poles of the embryo. The false-color image shows us the path the nuclei used to move into position. Pretty cool stuff. I can't think of a better image to illustrate the idea we discussed last week that life has order.

Similarly, by falsely coloring the changing UV energy, scientists can "watch" phytoplankton migrate in the oceans. And by falsely coloring the shift in unseen UV energy emitted by stars, scientists can color and observe the most distant objects in the universe. (Light shifting due to movement is similar to sound shifting due to movement. Think of the difference in a siren's pitch as a fire truck approaches and as it moves further away from you. This is called the Doppler Effect.)

Of course, some of this unseen energy (UV light) is unseen to us, but is in fact visible to other organisms. Birds use the UV light emitted by the sun to navigate along migratory routes. Bees use wavelengths of energy unseen humans to locate flowers for pollination. The need for false-color images is often just a human one. The wavelengths of energy that flow around us are often used, and sensed by a multitude of other organisms for their survival.

So - here's the question I pose to you this week. Look at the zebrafish embryo again. Can this 24hr cluster of cells truly be considered to be "alive"? If so, when did life begin for this embryo? Or has it not yet crossed some threshold over which you would consider it alive? (Boy - talk about provocative questions!) There's obviously no single answer, let alone a "correct" one. We've been talking about the characteristics of life this week, and while its very early in the semester, it's as good a time as any to consider the question of life itself - when do you think life begins?

I'm really interested to read your thoughts on this. Personally, I'm still trying to figure it out myself - so give it a shot!

A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT OUR HOME PLANET

Every once in awhile something appears on the magical world wide web that inspires awe. One would think that in this age of information overload such epiphanies would be easy to come by. Yet I find that my routine of surfing the web for political, scientific, literary, and musical news oftens results in a dulling, rather than heightening, of wonder.

Case in point: the other day the great political blogger Andrew Sullivan had this in his blog, The Daily Dish, at TheAtlantic.com".

Now, I admit that was pretty cool! Slow motion photography revealed the beauty of shooting a pomegranate and having its seeds showering over a classic still life arrangement of fruit. The resultant "slowing down of time" gives the viewer a new frame of reference for observing the process, and the literal framing of the still life encourages the observer to view this event in an artistic context, rather than a destructive one. Ah yes. Within a minute, I was onto the next blog entry, the next link, the next wonder. That's the nature of the internet.

But this morning I came across something that truly gave me pause. (I know one is not suppose to begin a sentence with "but". But this is my blog.) Boston.com has a post on their blog called The Big Picture that exhibits 25 images of Earth taken from satellites.

The image that heads this entry was taken from that series. While each image is fascinating, and awe inspiring, there was something about the scale of this image (number 5 in the series if I remember correctly) that made my jaw drop. (Figuratively, if not literally. It was about 6:30AM sunday morning, and I did have a mouth full of coffee).

The image resembles frost on a pane of glass. But it's not. (There's that but again.) You're looking at an image of the snow covered Himalayan mountains in Tibet. In 9th grade science we discuss the importance of having a frame of reference when we discuss motion. This image, provides us with a frame of reference for our place on this planet.

Compare this image with the images of development in Las Vegas or Khartoum - or any of the other images on the page - and share your thoughts and impressions. (I suggest the image of Las Vegas, because when I was growing up Las Vegas was a very small city in the middle of an arid desert. It's changed a bit since then. And no, that was not a hundred years ago.)