3D Zika

Zika virus is an unexpected new threat to mankind, that appeared suddenly. seemingly out of nowhere. Data on this virus is still very limited. Nevertheless, studio experts at Biomedical Imaging Visual Science have created a 3D-model of the virus Zika at atomic resolution.
Founder of Studio Visual Science Ivan Konstantinov and scientific consultant of the project Yury Stefanov answered questions related to their work. Excerpt of the interview, in my translation, is below. The entire article, in Russian, is here.

What is needed in order to create a model of the virus with such amazing level of detail?

— The development involves several steps. We begin with an overview, analysis and systematization of the available scientific information on the structure of the virus. It is important to understand what is known about the size and morphology of the particles, the types of proteins and other molecules included therein, the number, structure and interaction. There is often necessary to consult with structural virologists who deal with this particular virus directly. Moreover, we often use data cryoelectron microscopy and 3D-reconstruction of structures on its basis. This is a very powerful tool. Still, Zika virus only fairly recently become the subject of scientific interest. The reason was an epidemic caused by Zika and its previously unheard of consequence — microcephaly in infants born to infected mothers. Do you have enough data for a detailed Zika model? 

— At this time, Zika virus is still poorly researched from the structural point of view. However, many of Zika  “relatives” such as Dengue virus, for instance, is rather well researched.on the basis of which data can be modeled with good reliability Zika virus proteins. In such situations, particularly in demand possibilities of Biomedical Imaging and Modeling.Is it possible to somehow verify that your model does, indeed, reflect the actual structure of the virus?

— Our models are scientific surveys carried out in graphical form. The more information is accumulated by scientists — the more accurate and more complete is our model. As soon as new data become available, our models will be updated, thus creating new versions.  Are you planning to publish the results of you work in scientific magazines? After all, by the look of them, your results are quite impressive.

— Thus far, what we have is a scientific overview rather than an independent study. The ultimate goal of a solid scientific work is solid practical result. In the case of viruses, for instance, such result would be a study of the interaction of viral proteins with ligands that might become a potential drug to conquer the virus. (In biochemistry and pharmacology, a ligand is a substance that forms a complex with a biomolecule to serve a biological purpose. VG)

How long, time-wise, it takes you to develop a single model of virus?

— Time depends on many factors. There are small and simple viruses that can be visualized and modeled in two or three weeks. But then there are huge and very sophisticated ones, of which very little is known from the structural point of view. It is difficult to predict the length of time it takes to model them.

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Visual Science is an award-winning scientific design studio that creates scientifically accurate and eye-catching 3D models, illustrations and animations for pharmaceutical, medical device, biotech, and nanotechnology companies, as well as scientific institutions, laboratories, educational organizations, museums, publishing and advertising agencies around the world. Interesting site, in English, for those who likes visuals.

 

 

Justice For Jesus

Jesus was condemned by the Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court of Israel (an assembly of twenty-three to seventy-one men appointed in every city in the Land of Israel) for proclaiming himself the Son of God, the Messiah. Since, according to Sanhedrin and the Romans,  Jesus was not the Son of God, the ruling and the sentence was fair — perfectly in keeping with the times. However, the verdict handed down by the Sanhedrin and executed by the Romans wasn’t without a number of procedural errors.

• The hearing took place at night, although the law explicitly forbade the convocation of the Sanhedrin after dark.
• Jesus was condemned during the Easter holidays, while during the Passover every official activities were strictly forbidden. 

Interesting that in 1948, an appeal to overturn Jesus Christ’s conviction was filed with the newly created Supreme Court of the State of Israel. The Court, however, declared itself incompetent to rule on appeal.More recently, in August of 2013, the Kenyan lawyer Dola Indidis attempted to get justice for Jesus yet again. He urged the International Court of Justice at Hague to hear the 2000 year old case of the founder of Christianity and  completely exonerate Jesus Christ.

Is the “justice for Jesus” quest has merit?

“In this case, it is not clear what international law might have been violated and, even if there was such a violation, it is not clear that the relevant states have consented to the ICJ (the International Court of Justice) having jurisdiction over the dispute.” (Columbia law professor Anthea Roberts.)

A Million Dollar Breakfast

Breakfast, anyone? Something simple and exotically Russian — egg, fish, vodka. This unsophisticated and not overly appetizing spread on a brick, in spite of its appalling  appearance, will cost you a pretty penny.

“The Proletarian Breakfast” was created in the workshop of the  House of Faberge in 1905. A tumbler of vodka and vodka in it are made from crystal, brick is carved from jasper, yolk  — from amber, fish — from silver, cyggy butt — from silver and quartz, the flies and the newspaper also made from silver. An approximate cost of this masterpiece is estimated at about USD 1, 100, 000. Bon Appétit!

Meet The Artist: Aimo Katajainen

Aimo Katajainen is a self-taught Finnish artist. He was born in 1948 in Valkeala, Finland. In 1964 he moved to Kouvala, Finland. He studied Economics and worked as a professional social worker at clinic for treating alcoholic dependency. He began his artistic career in 1965. Aimo Katayaynen participates in many exhibitions around the world.

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Here is what he says about his work:
I grew up in the countryside – on a farm near the river. In this area, everyone from the very young age is involved in agricultural work.
I remember participating in the feeding of animals, plowing and  working as a hired laborer.
Snowy winters and rural landscape can be seen in the recurring themes of my paintings.
As a teenager, I worked mainly with oil paints in the style of surrealism, but this fascination  passed with time. I developed interest in the naïve genre and found myself in this genre Since then my art became enjoys high demand.

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Happy Birthday, Black Death

The Triumph of Death is an oil panel painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1562). Image courtesy Museo del Prado, Madrid

 Black Death is created, allegedly, on March 20th, 1345.

According to scholars at the University of Paris, the Black Death is created on March 20, 1345, from what they call “a triple conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in the 40th degree of Aquarius, occurring on the 20th of March 1345″.

Plague is a bacterial infection found mainly in rodents and their fleas. But via those fleas it can sometimes leap to humans. When it does, the outcome can be horrific, making plague outbreaks the most notorious disease episodes in history.

All the citizens did little else except to carry dead bodies to be buried […] At every church they dug deep pits down to the water-table; and thus those who were poor who died during the night were bundled up quickly and thrown into the pit. In the morning when a large number of bodies were found in the pit, they took some earth and shovelled it down on top of them; and later others were placed on top of them and then another layer of earth, just as one makes lasagne with layers of pasta and cheese. (As related by a Florentine chronicler.)

Most infamous of all was the medieval pandemic that swept through Asia and Europe. It reached Europe in the late 1340s, killing an estimated 25 million people. And, mind you, there wasn’t quite as many Europeans in those times as there are now — merely 70 million.

Inspired by the Black Death, The Dance of Death or Danse Macabre, an allegory

The chronicler Agnolo di Tura ‘the Fat’ relates from his Tuscan home town that

… in many places in Siena great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead […] And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city.

7″ version of The Black Death released by Dark Descent Records.

The Black Death lingered on for centuries, particularly in cities. Outbreaks included the Great Plague of London (1665-66), in which one in five residents died.

The cause of plague wasn’t discovered until the most recent global outbreak, which started in China in 1855 and didn’t officially end until 1959. The first breakthrough came in Hong Kong in 1894 when researchers isolated the rod-shaped bacillus responsible—Yersinia pestis. A few years later, in China, doctors noticed that rats showed very similar plague symptoms to people, and that human victims often had fleabites.

A historical turning point, as well as a vast human tragedy, the Black Death of 1346-53 is unparalleled in human history.

Louis Gallait And Edwin Olaf

Abdication of Emperor Charles V. The painting shows his sister, Queen Mary of Hungary, wearing white even though she never wore anything but black after her husband’s death

Louis Gallait (9 or 10 May 1810 – 20 November 1887) was a Belgian painter whose major accomplishment was a revival of history painting in Belgium. He earned his reputation especially with the large painting of the abdication of King Charles V.

Gallait’s works were esteemed because of their realism, faithfulness of the costumes and color composition. He was also a distinguished portrait painter.

Gallait’s painting The Last Honors paid to Counts Egmont and Horn by the Corporations of the Town of Brussels (1851) was dedicated to the revolution of the Netherlands 1568 – 1648. In 1568, when the Netherlands were still a Spanish province, and the war between Catholics and Protestants raged across Europe, Counts Egmont and Horn, along with William of Orange and Philip Montmorency, organized a protest movement against rampant Inquisition.

Louis Gallait. Last Honors to the Remains of the Counts Egmont and Horn. (1851)

In 2012, at the request of the Directorate of the Gaasbeek Castle (Dutch: Kasteel Gaasbeek), today a national museum, located in the municipality of Lennik in the province of Flemish Brabant, Belgium, photographer Erwin Olaf Springveld, professionally known as Erwin Olaf, created a homage to Louis Gallait — his own interpretation of the legendary painting.

Erwin Olaf. Last Honors to the Remains of the Counts Egmont and Horn. 2012. Digital print. © Erwin Olaf. © Commissioned by Gaasbeek Castle. © Courtesy Galerie Rabouan Moussion, Paris, France

All photos become fantasy series based on the story of the Gallait’s paintings. Other works of the series:Erwin Olaf .“Captain of Brussels Royal Guild of crossbow shooters, Order of St. George”  (2012)Erwin Olaf. “Sabine, Countess of Egmont, the widow of Count Egmont. Interpretation” (2012)

Sabine Egmont was the daughter of Count Palatine Johann II von Zimmern and Beatrice of Baden. At 16, she  married  Count Egmont Lamoralya. Their wedding was attended by the King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. The marriage was very happy. On her knees, Sabine  begged the Duke of Alba to spare her husband’s life, but to no avail. After Egmont’s death, all his property was confiscated and until the end of her days Sabine lived in poverty. Erwin Olaf. “Spy of Duke of Alba” (2012)Erwin Olaf. “Johanna, daughter of Count Egmont. Interpretation” (2012)

Very little is known about Johanna Egmont, other than the fact that she became abbess of a Catholic monastery in Brussels. At the moment of her father’s death Johanna was five years old.Erwin Olaf. “Spanish soldiers” (2012)Erwin Olaf. “Still life with the heart of Count Egmont. A variation on the theme of Vanitas” (2012)

The real historical figures — Egmont, his wife Sabine, and the hearts of their two sons, who faithfully served the Spanish crown, buried in the Belgian city of Zottegeme. Egmont’s heart was placed in a special shell and placed on Sabine’s grave.

It’s a boy! No, wait…

Babies born apparently female in Salinas, Dominican Republic, are turning into men at puberty due to a genetic deformity. Above, Catherine and his cousin Carla, who is currently undergoing the transition

This condition of gender transition is so common that the children of Salinas afflicted with it are referred to as Guevedoces, or ‘penis at 12 years’.

Around two per cent – or one in 90 – babies from Salinas, marked above on the map, are thought to be born with the condition, which occurs due to a missing enzyme during pregnancy

This unusual condition was first discovered and described in the 1970s when a scientist from Cornell visited the island.

Babies usually form male sex organs after around eight weeks in the womb, with the change triggered by hormone dihydro-testosterone. A handful of babies, however, do not have the enzyme that triggers the hormone surge and consequently they will not form male genitalia until they reach puberty, when there is another surge of testosterone.

BBC Two’s Countdown to Life – The Extraordinary Making of You explores this remarkable example of human diversity and admits that sometimes even the most complex, crucial to our species processes can occasionally go wrong.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Conversion of St Paul

Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted Conversion of Paul  (oil on panel, 108 x 156 cm) in 1567. It is currently held and exhibited at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Saul, persecutor of Christians, the future St Paul, was journeying to Damascus to gather these religious heretics and convey them to Jerusalem for punishment at the hands of the high priest. According to the Gospels, a light shone on him, and he heard the voice of Jesus as he fell to the ground.

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”

“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.

“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.  — Acts 9:3–9, NIV

Let us take a closer look at the painting.The painting presents a military force on foot and horseback within a steep alpine pass, but here the subject remains obscure at first glance. The main impression consists of spatial contrasts: the mountain pass on the left reveals a vertiginous view down to a distant, verdant seacoast, from which antlike figures ascend.

1. Sea and ships far away

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3. The wagons and soldiers

 Bruegel also included an army of foot soldiers, many still slogging up the steep hillside.

4. Endless procession of soldiers. Like ant they are, following one after another

This combination of military units was characteristic of sixteenth-century armies (along with the added force of modern cannon inappropriate to a biblical depiction).

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At the pivot of this procession, between light and dark, several large equestrian figures occupy the lower right corner of the picture. Their bright costumes and the prominent horse rumps identify them as cavalry officers bearing the squadron banner. Behind them sits a fuller cavalry force in contemporary armor.

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9. The Black Rider

At the pivot of this procession, between light and dark, several large equestrian figures occupy the lower right corner of the picture. Their bright costumes and the prominent horse rumps identify them as cavalry officers bearing the squadron banner. Behind them sits a fuller cavalry force in contemporary armor.

10. One of the soldiers point the nobility the place where something is happening

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Clad in blue and surrounded by a tight circle of observers, foreshortened on the ground as Saul struggles before the horse from which he has just fallen.

12. The scene with the future Apostle Paul

In Bruegel’s painting that light, though faint, can be found above and to the left of the evergreens, subtly angled to intercept the prone figure of Saul. While Saul’s soldiers respond to his bodily accident, they fail to grasp the ultimate spiritual significance of this event. In the denouement, a temporarily blinded Saul is led on to Damascus by his men.

13. Depiction of God

An army like the one on the painting would have resembled the Spanish forces brought to the Netherlands by the Duke of Alba in 1567, the same year this painting was created. Ten thousand strong, they left Spain in April of 1567, and Alba led his army northward in June on what became known as “the Spanish road,” marching across the Italian Alps through Piedmont and Savoy and into Brussels on August 22.

The sea (#1) that is seen in the distance: It was from there, from the Italian coast, that the Spanish troops set off to cross the Alps, their task to drive out the heretics and crush Netherlands efforts to obtain more freedom.

No viewer of Bruegel’s painting could have failed to associate Alba’s force with both the alpine imagery and the contemporary depiction of soldiers.

 

Dead In The Sea Of Trees

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Live and learn… how people die, where and why…

Aokigahara, the forest at the base of Mt. Fuji in Japan. This is no place for a leisurely stroll. The forest’s trees organically twist and turn, their roots winding across the forest floor in treacherous threads. Because of its location at the base of a mountain, the ground is uneven, rocky, and perforated with hundreds of caves. But more jarring than its tricky terrain is the feeling of isolation created from the stillness; the trees are too tightly packed for winds to whip through and the wildlife is sparse. One visitor described the silence as “chasms of emptiness.” She added, “I cannot emphasize enough the absence of sound. My breath sounded like a roar.”

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Suicide is the leading cause of death for Japanese men between the ages of 20 and 44. It is beginning to look like an epidemic among teens as well. For the elderly, it’s a problem, too, as Japanese life insurance (for the most part) still pays out in suicide cases. There doesn’t appear to be any sector of Japanese society that is not dealing with suicide, and one of the most popular places to do it is in Aokigahara Forest. (From the article by David Mattews)
Since the 1950s, Japanese businessmen have wandered in, and at least 500 of them haven’t wandered out, at an increasing rate of between 10 and 30 per year. Recently these numbers have increased even more, with a record 78 suicides in 2002.

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The forest workers have it even worse than the police. The workers must carry the bodies down from the forest to the local station, where the bodies are put in a special room used specifically to house suicide corpses. The forest workers then play jan-ken-pon—rock, paper, scissors—to see who has to sleep in the room with the corpse.

It is believed that if the corpse is left alone, it is very bad luck for the yurei (ghost) of the suicide victims. Their spirits are said to scream through the night, and their bodies will move on their own. (From the article Aokigahara Suicide Forest.)

Visit the Place: Kamchatka

This is Kamchatka. 

The Kamchatka Peninsula is a 1,250-kilometre-long (780 mi) peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about 270,000 km² (100,000 sq mi). It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west. (Wikipedia.)

There are few places in the world that can simultaneously enthrall and disappoint quite like Kamchatka. A fickle temptress, it tends to hide its primal beauty behind a veil of thick clouds and fog.But when the skies finally clear and the powdered snouts of several dozen volcanoes appear through the clouds, all else melts away and you understand that you’re in a special place. No matter what you went through to get here, no matter how long you’ve spent grounded, it was all worth it.

Indeed, Kamchatka is stunning: vast ice covered areas, rearing fire-spitting volcanoes, lush plant life neighboring with desert cinder fields, crystal-clear waters of rivers and lakes.

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The source of the majority of images in this post is ПЕРВОЗДАННАЯ КАМЧАТКА: ТИХИЙ ОКЕАН. The article is in Russian, the narrative is sparse, but the photography is truly sunning. See more:

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Kamchatka Peninsula has the highest concentration of active volcanoes on Earth. Separated by only 180 kilometers (110 miles), Shiveluch, Bezymianny, Tolbachik, and Kizimen were all erupting simultaneously on January 11, 2013. (NASA report.)

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The activity of these four volcanoes was captured during a single orbit by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite. The four false-color (near infrared, red, and green) images above show Shiveluch, Bezymianny, Plotsky-Tolbachik, and Kizimen in detail. Read more here.