Science Art | The Guild of Scientific Troubadours

Scientific illustration of Victorian plumbing, a check valve from a 19th century guide to hydraulic fixtures by J.T. Fanning.

Science Art: Check Valve, 1882.

12 February 2024 grant 0

A valve to prevent backflow… so the river doesn’t wind up in the reservoir, or the effluent in the shower pipes. From A practical treatise […]

Scientific illustration by Jan Pavelka showing a blue laser creating a fluorescent glow inside a cube of calcite.

Science Art: Fluorescence and birefringence of 445 nm blue laser in calcite crystal, Jan Pavelka, 2011.

4 February 2024 grant 0

Calcite refracts light in a linear way – it’s why (as previous songs have discussed) it may have been used as a navigational tool by […]

Against a prehistoric sunset over a primordial ocean, a leather-winged flying reptile feeds two or more young in their nest, made in a cranny of a seaside cliff.

Science Art: Nyctodactlyus, by F. John, c. 1915

28 January 2024 grant 0

This glimpse into a prehistoric world (which we now know should probably have at least a few more feathers in it) is part of the […]

Scientific illustration of the Southern Crab Nebula, or the nebula inside the nebula.

Science Art: He2-104: The Southern Crab Nebula, 1999.

21 January 2024 grant 0

This is a nebula inside a nebula, caused by two stars pulling each other apart, as photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. From the description […]

Scientific illustration of a solar collector, a device used to capture energy (light or heat) from the Sun. Arrows show the direction of rays that bounce off angled reflectors toward a bulb that collects them, apparently heating a coil probably filled with fluid. There are no labels on this diagram.

Science Art: Mouchot’s solar thermal collector from 1860, from Nordisk Familjebok, 1917.

15 January 2024 grant 0

This is a solar-powered generator. A funnel with sides angled at 90 degrees is pointed at the sun to catch its radiation, and those rays […]

Scientific illustration for public health - a skull looks over a whiskey bottle and a gasoline pump under the block type "DON'T MIX 'EM"

Science Art: Don’t Mix ‘Em!, by Robert Lachenman for the Work Projects Administration, 1936.

7 January 2024 grant 0

There’s a killer on the road indeed. The WPA released this poster to discourage drunk driving, or at least running your hotrod on moonshine. Public […]

Scientific illustration of Punica granatum, the "Punic apple" or pomegranate.

Science Art: Punica Granatum, 1829

31 December 2023 grant 0

This tasty-looking fruit is from a medical text – Medical Botany: or, Illustrations and Descriptions of the Medicinal Plants of the London, Edinburgh, and Dublin […]

Scientific illustration of lynxes in the snow. Two big cats with tufts on their ears growling at each other over what might be a recent kill. Or a log. It's hard to tell. The cats, though, are very vivid.

Science Art: Lynxes, by Louis Sargent, 1909

24 December 2023 grant 0

Two cats at dusk, growling in the snow. The nights have been long, but they’re growing shorter. May you survive your own lonely wilderness and […]

Scientific illustration of a "disk of Heaven" or bi.

Science Art: Ancient Ritual White Jade Disk of Heaven…, 1937

17 December 2023 grant 0

This is an illustration from a 1937 edition of Natural History magazine, an article called “Chinese Design.” This is a “Disk of Heaven,” or bi, […]

Scientific illustration of the Ryan 262 Manta Ray aircraft, a remote-controlled military drone from the 1970s

Science Art: Ryan 262 Manta Ray: Program Status Report cover, 1975

10 December 2023 grant 0

This is the cover of a report on the Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical “Navy Mini-Drone (STARS),” otherwise known as the Manta Ray. It was a fiberglass […]

Scientific illustration as an infographic depicting three basic types of planets discovered orbiting stars elsewhere in the galaxy.

Science Art: Exoplanets Poster, Institute of Physics, 2023

3 December 2023 grant 0

This is a… well, it’s pretty self-explanatory, really. Unlike most of the images collected here, it’s got its own description printed right on it. These […]

Scientific illustration of an Avrocar, a silver, disc-shaped aerial vehicle, gleaming steel and black vents, parked outside a shaded hangar.

Science Art: Avro Canada VZ-9AV Avrocar.

26 November 2023 grant 0

This is not a movie prop, but a working prototype of the Avrocar, a disc-shaped flying machine that graced the skies between 1959 and 1961. […]

Scientific illustration of a CB microphone. Well, an ad of one, anyway. Very mid-century lines on this this microphone. It could practically be a Chrysler tailfin.

Science Art: Turner +2: The Best CB Microphone in the World, 1966.

19 November 2023 grant 0

This is an ad from the April 1966 “Tools and Test Measurement Issue” of Popular Electronics, which I found on archive.org. Lovely design on this […]

Scientific Illustration depicting how eye-spots draw attention even in a confusing visual field.

Science Art: Diagram illustrating the inherent conspicuousness of an eye-spot…, Cott, 1942.

13 November 2023 grant 0

An illustration showing how noticeable an eye actually is, from the text The Vertebrate Eye and Its Adaptive Radiation, which looks at eyes, eyes everywhere, […]

Scientific illustration of a machine to track the height of a thing.

Science Art: Altitude and azimuth instrument, 1876.

5 November 2023 grant 0

How high? This device will tell you. It’s from The great Centennial exhibition critically described and illustrated, by Phillip T. Sandhurst, which you can read […]