Science Art | The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

An aerial photo of flowing streams of lava, steam and smoke rising above the black stone and glowing orange lava. Photo from the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, taken by the Civil Air Patrol.

Science Art: Mauna Loa Northeast Rift Zone Eruption – November 28, 2022, Civil Air Patrol

11 December 2022 grant 0

Rivers of lava glow a burning orange, sending white plumes up from a black stone landscape. This is a photograph of Hawaii – a place […]

Scientific illustrations of spiny seashells, ghost white against a saturated black background.

Science Art: Scabrotrophon Species, Roland Houart, 2003.

4 December 2022 grant 0

These are seashells – murexes from the deep waters off Vanuatu called Scabrotrophon inspiratum. Belgian researcher Roland Houart wrote about them (and as far as […]

Scientific illustration of a telescope array capturing a gamma-ray burst: dark skies and glowing energy fields. Superbossa.com and C. Righi.

Science Art: MAGIC telescopes detected the highest-energy gamma rays from a Gamma Ray Burst…, 2019.

27 November 2022 grant 0

This is an illustration of MAGIC telescopes capturing images of very intense gamma rays. “MAGIC” refers to the twin Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) […]

Scientific illustration of elephant seals in Baja California, Mexico, seen as a photo of a diorama in the American Museum's "Hall of Ocean Life."

Science Art: Elephant Seals of Guadaloupe Island

20 November 2022 grant 0

This is a likeness of the elephant seals of Baja California, Mexico, as displayed in 1933 in the newly opened Hall of Ocean Life in […]

Scientific illustration by Rick Guidice of a space colony, complete with cylindrical walls and people hanging out in the greenery growing inside.

Science Art: Space Colony Interior by Rick Guidice, c. 1975.

13 November 2022 grant 0

This is part of a presentation created by physicist Gerard K. O’Neill – one of three “summer studies” he carried out in the 1970s on […]

Scientific illustration by Olof Sörling of a object that might be a ritual drum, or a throne, or might be something else. It looks a little like an inverted breadbasket, with many circular cutouts and circled-crosses as ornamentation.

Science Art: Balkåkra Ritual Object, Olof Sörling, 1917.

6 November 2022 grant 0

This is a drum. Or a gong. Or maybe a throne. Or a model of the universe with little solar disks around the edge. It […]

Scientific Illustration of the Lunar Lander Surveyor from the National Air and Space Museum

Science Art: Lunar Lander, Surveyor

30 October 2022 grant 0

This is one of the first American spacecraft to land on the moon. We sent machines there before we sent people. From the Smithsonian Open […]

Scientific illustration of smut growing on seeds and tiny flowers, seen very close up

Science Art: Flower of Polygonum persicarium distorted by Utricle smut and following figures, by J.E. Sowerby, 1872.

24 October 2022 grant 0

This is a bunch of smut. Mostly, it’s smut in the genus Ustilago growing on plants in the same genus as knotweed and buckwheat. The […]

Scientific illustration in the form of street art advertising "Squid Facts: Text 'Squid' to 1-833-SCi-TEXT"

Science Art: “Get Squid Facts” street art, Philadelphia, 2022.

16 October 2022 grant 0

A friend of mine clued me into this project. It really works and I encourage you to try it. Did you know cephalopods have been […]

Scientific illustration in the form of a 1900s comic strip parodying early electrical experiments. Cartoon shows a man on a treadmill being encouraged to lose weight while unknowingly powering up the inventor's bank of batteries.

Science Art: Reducing Apparatus, in “Phoney Patent Offizz,” The Electrical Experimenter, April 1917.

9 October 2022 grant 0

This is nerd humor from the dawn of the electric age. The “Phoney Patent Offizz” was apparently a regular column in Hugo Gernsback’s The Electrical […]

Scientific illustration of a baboon with a tail "exactly like a pig's."

Science Art: Pigtailed Baboon, 1811.

2 October 2022 grant 0

According to the accompanying text, this illustration depicts a baboon species “easily distinguished by its tail, which is four inches long, slender, and exactly like […]

Scientific illustration of different kinds of flames produced by a Bunsen burner

Science Art: Bunsen burner flame types, by Arthur Jan Fijałkowski (WarX).

26 September 2022 grant 0

The flame from a Bunsen burner (a standard piece of chemistry equipment; you might have used one in high school) can change color and height […]

Scientific illustration of the Earth in the form of a photograph of New Zealand by the International Space Station's Samantha Cristoforetti.

Science Art: New Zealand’s South Island, by Samantha Cristoforetti, 2022.

18 September 2022 grant 0

Here’s a picture of a distinctive bit of geography. There are hobbits down there, and members of Split Enz and The Chills, and some of […]

Scientific illustration in the form of a vintage ad for PVP, a chemical put into cosmetics.

Science Art: Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP): GAF’s Gift to Women, 1967.

11 September 2022 grant 0

This is an ad for a chemical that seemed like a miracle in the 60s (at least to this marketing department), but is one of […]

Scientific illustration of fossilized crocodile skulls (Steneosaurus species) from England's Great Oolite deposit.

Science Art: Anglosuchus, by James Erxleben, c. 1877.

4 September 2022 grant 0

These are the skulls of two English crocodiles. They were English before the first Anglo-Saxons arrived on that island’s shores. Of course, they also went […]