Biomedicine in museums

Some bioart leaves me quite indifferent, especially that which is perhaps better called ‘biocraftwork’. Take the exhibition ‘Crystal Structures: Viruses in Glass’ which opened last Thursday at the University of Idaho Commons Reflections Gallery. It contains a number of beaded ‘models’ of viruses — including this ‘Purple Haze’ that is said to represent the Microviridae family

— skilfully made by Holly Wichman, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Idaho who is a specialist in transposable virus elements, and Bentley Fane, a professor in the Bio5 Institute at the University of Arizona, who works on viral assembly.

‘Purple Haze’ has already been published on the cover of an issue of the Journal of Bacteriology, in the NIH Newsletter, and in the Washington Post, so it’s a good example of the usual ‘beautiful bio-pictures’-aesthetics. A few of the Wichman and Fane’s minisculptures “are meant to depict specific viruses” (representations?), somewhat like the delicate glass flowers which Raine Daston wrote about in Things that Talk (2007).

Most of the sculptures, however, just “explore a variety of viral structures with themes that range from the serious to the whimsical”. Thus some of the tailed bacteriophages are depicted as doll-like sculptures (for the fun of it?), reminiscent of art objects like Oron Catt’s tissue-engineered worry dolls, or some of the objects in the Museum of Jurassic Technology, or (especially) current knit- and quiltwork made to ‘represent’, somehow, macroanatomical structures.

Wichman and Fane also suggest that beading can sometimes help make their virological work better: “When Bentley Fane made his models of structures from T = 1 through T = 16, he discovered that some beaded structures were very stable, while others (T = 9, 12, 16) were quite unstable”. So in a sense they play around with physical models, like Watson and Crick did with their DNA-model, to see where the structural constraints are.

All this is fine, I guess — but it nevertheless leaves me pretty indifferent. Maybe I would be more engaged if I saw the actual physical work, because I very much admire craftwork (even beading). Their sculptures would be nice to have around in an exhibition on, say, invisible viruses. But would they contribute more than nicety?

(thanks to Cicada/Bioephemera for the tip!)

The Department of the History of Science at Harvard University is looking for a historian of 20th-century (and especially post-WWII) molecular biology, biotechnology, and/or the biomedical sciences. They are especially interested in candidates at earlier stages of their careers. Application deadline is December 1, 2007. More details here.

Had lunch yesterday with Lund historian of science Gustav Holmberg, author of the fine blog Det Perfekta Tomrummet (in Swedish). Gustav prefers to publish pics of things and other people (on another blog) but rarely of himself — so here at last are two portraits of Gustav, from Alfred’s pasta restaurant in Lund:

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The abstracts of the two contemporary biomedicine-oriented talks at the conference ‘Re:place 2007: the Histories of Media, Art, Science and Technology’ in Berlin next month (see earlier post here) have now been put on the net, namely

• Michelle Barker‘s (School of Media Arts, University of New South Wales) paper “From Life to Cognition: Investigating the Role of Biology and Neurology” (see abstract here)
• Boo Chapple‘s paper “Sound, Matter, Flesh: A history of crosstalk from medicine to contemporary art and biology” (see abstract here).

Interesting papers which I believe are potentially very relevant for future contemporary biomedical history exhibition practices.

(thanks to Ingeborg for the links) 

Mark Jackson, Director of the Centre for Medical History, University of Exeter, is giving a lecture in London on Wednesday 21 November on “The Stress of Life: Hans Selye and the Search for Stability”.

This is an exciting project because Selye (there is an unfinished short Wikipedia article about him) is one of the most interesting medical researchers in the 20th century, so Mark’s initiative to scrutinise his work (and life? Is there a biography in the pipeline?) is laudable. Here is the abstract of Mark’s talk:

Since the mid-20th century the notion of stress as a determinant of chronic disease has found acceptance both within psychology and clinical allergy, and within popular culture. The vocabulary of stress has thus achieved a powerful presence in everyday speech as a means of explaining the impact of work, personal history and emotional experience on health. The syndrome which came to be known as ‘stress’ was first described in 1936, by the Hungarian scientist Hans Selye (1907-82). This lecture explores the development and reception of Selye’s theories within the context of post-second world war concerns about international political stability and Selye’s own struggles for personal stability. It then evaluates the legacy of Selye’s formulation of the aetiology of chronic disease.

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One of my students wrote to me last week and said she was going to London and that she would take the opportunity to attend the event tomorrow evening arranged at the occasion of the publication of Jim Watson’s new book Avoid Boring People: Lessons From a Life in Science at the Dana Centre, and also buy a signed copy in the Wellcome Collection Blackwells bookstore earlier in the day. Having just read the Nature Network Boston blog editor’s report from a similar event with Watson at Harvard Square two weeks ago, and expecting yet another good read from his acerbic pen, I asked her to buy a copy for me too.

We may get our desired signed copies (see below) — but the evening event will come to nothing, because the Science Museum has just decided to cancel it with reference to Watson’s stupid remarks in the interview with The Sunday Times about the alleged inferior intelligence of Africans (see report in The Independent here). Here’s Science Museum’s press release:

We know that eminent scientists can sometimes say things that cause controversy and the Science Museum does not shy away from debating controversial topics. However, the Science Museum feels that Nobel Prize winner James Watson¹s recent comments have gone beyond the point of acceptable debate and we are as a result cancelling his talk at the museum this Friday. If people want to know about the science behind genetics and race, they can book onto other events looking at this at the Museum’s Dana Centre over the next year.

I believe Science Museum have made the right decision for wrong reasons. I certainly don’t subscribe to Watson’s opinions in the interview (he has a long track record for saying prejudiced and provoking things), but it would have been better to contradict him head-on at the event instead of cancelling it.

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Anthropologist Mark Auslander and philosopher Andreas Teuber at Brandeis University are convening a symposium called “Visualizing Science: Image-Making in the Constitution of Scientific Knowledge” (part of their fall 2007 meeting series, Mirrors of Science) on Wednesday, October 24, 2007, 3.40-7pm at the Rose Art Museum:

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The third annual ‘Science & the Public’ conference will be held at the University of Manchester, Saturday 21 – Sunday 22 June, 2008. As the organisers point out, science communication is a much more complex thing than scientific journals and scientific meetings:

Today the´sciences are linked to society through many different channels of communication. The public interfaces with science during controversies that involve scientists as well as journalists, politicians and the citizenry as a whole. This intersection of science and the public raises many questions about the motivations of, and constraints on, actors involved in producing information about science for non-professional audiences. It also raises some fascinating questions about the nature, contexts and goals of the public communication of science from both a contemporary and historic perspective. This conference aims to bring together the wide ranging strands of academia that consider science as it intersects with non-scientific cultures.

And the list of possible topics runs as follows:

Needless to say, the organisers encourage critical approaches to studying the public communication of technology and/or medicine, and they would also like to  see full panel submissions and roundtable sessions on all topics related to the social, cultural, political, and ethical issues surrounding science & the public.

Panel proposals shall include both a panel abstract and individual (up to 300 words) abstracts + contact information (name, affiliation, email).

Further inquiries and submissions to scienceandpublic@googlemail.com, not later than 14 March 2008.

(based on a mail from David A. Kirby, CHSTM, University of Manchester earlier today)

Medical Museion’s first large temporary exhibition — “Oldetopia: On Age and Ageing” — 

opened last Thursday (11 October) and the following night (which was the Copenhagen Culture Night) we had about 2500 visitors in six hours between 6pm and 12pm. Here are some photos from Friday night (click for more here): 

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Until recently blogs and blog posts have not been accepted as legitimate references in scientific writings. This state of affairs is seemingly about to change, however. The 2nd edition of the authoritative Citing Medicine: The National Library of Medicine Style Guide for Authors, Editors and Publishers (2007) includes a new section (26C) with detailed instructions for how blogs and blog posts are best cited in scientific publications.

Okay, we are still a step away from peer-review of blog posts, but the mere fact that the NLM Style Guide now includes rules for blogs and blog posts is a step in the right direction. We may see big changes in scientific publishing practices in the years to come.

(thanks to medgadget for the tip)