The Eyes Have It

While browsing the gallery of award winners, you can listen to commentary from the creator of each image describing how it came to be.

The winners of the Awards challenge the public perspective that scientists don’t have an artistic side. Working every day with microscopes and imaging technology, these biologists have been able to capture stunning images through a blend of original and innovative techniques.

Despite the obvious visual appeal of the pictures, their primary purpose is investigation. The images are from research projects with the ultimate goal of helping to improve healthcare through new forms of prevention, treatment and vaccination.

“NetAnatomy is designed to teach human anatomy to students of the health professions, including undergraduate medical, health sciences, and nursing students. NetAnatomy also serves as a place to review anatomy after one’s initial exposure to the subject, e.g. students beginning a clinical rotation, USMLE (National Board) preparation, etc.”

Slated for August 25-29, 2005, registration for the 3rd World Congress of Medical and Scientific Imaging should be open soon:

“In keeping with our theme, ‘Explore: Discover the Possibilities’, the 2005 World Congress aims to inform delegates of the latest trends in medical and scientific imaging so that the potential of modern technologies can be fully realised. … The program will consist of 3 days of academic papers, a professional exhibition, and a unique opportunity to take part in a Great Barrier Reef expedition.”

See you there? (Oh who am I kidding? Like it would be possible to get the powers-that-be to shake loose the necessary funds.)

Article in the NIH Record.

“Creating art with older “teammates” made first-year medical students more sensitive to older people, according to results of the Vital Visionaries (VV) collaboration, a pilot program developed by the National Institute on Aging in conjunction with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) in Baltimore. … Launched in March 2004 as a pilot project, the VV program paired 15 first-year medical students from Johns Hopkins with 15 older people from the Baltimore area. The two-person teams met and learned from older visionary artists, took a contour drawing class and worked on various art projects at AVAM in conjunction with its year-long exhibition, ‘Golden Blessings of Old Age/Out of the Mouths of Babes.’”

The AVAM is a fantastic institution with a sky-high inspiration quotient. I strongly recommend that you visit the next time you get to Baltimore.

“The preference for Coke versus Pepsi is not only a matter for the tongue to decide, Samuel McClure and his colleagues have found. Brain scans of people tasting the soft drinks reveal that knowing which drink they’re tasting affects their preference and activates memory-related brain regions that recall cultural influences. Thus, say the researchers, they have shown neurologically how a culturally based brand image influences a behavioral choice. These choices are affected by perception, wrote the researchers, because ‘there are visual images and marketing messages that have insinuated themselves into the nervous systems of humans that consume the drinks.’ Even though scientists have long believed that such cultural messages affect taste perception, there had been no direct neural probes to test the effect, wrote the researchers. Findings about the effects of such cultural information on the brain have important medical implications, they wrote.”

Full news release on EurekAlert.

[via boingboing]