“Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change – it can not only move us, it makes us move,” director Ossie Davis once said—although some might raise eyebrows when considering this quote in the context of the American Society for Microbiology’s first Agar Art contest. As in: They held a contest to see who could make the best arrangement of colonies of bacteria on agar plates.
However, despite what some may think, the results were surprisingly stunning.
Like this view of the night sky, made of Streptomyces coelicolor:
Or a very different rendition of the night sky, featuring brown Proteus mirabilis, white Acinetobacter baumanii, and blues of Enterococcus faecalis and Klebsiella pneumonia:
Someone even made a portrait of Louis Pasteur, featuring Chromobacterium violaceum:
However, the grand prize—a free ASM book of choice and $85 towards the scientific artwork of Michele Banks—went to Mehmet Berkmen of New England Biolabs and artist Maria Penil, for using yellow Nesterenkonia with orange Deinococcus and Sphingomonas to create their work “Neurons”:
In second place was a collaborative effort between scientists and artists at Genspace: New York City’s Community Biolab, the “NYC Biome MAP”, made of E. coli engineered with fluorescent proteins:
And in third, “Harvest Season” by Maria Eugenia Inda, a postdoctoral researcher from Argentina working at Cold Spring Harbor Labs, made of Saccharomyces cerevisiae:
In short, just another fun reminder that science, art, and beauty aren’t mutually exclusive.
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