Unfortunately, in the 21st century, a quick Google search can prove that whatever idea or thing you did is not novel. In the past, naivety at least allowed one to assume that everything was new and important until they traveled to somewhere else where it had already been done. Luckily, if one searches for a random enough task or form of expression, then the chances of creating something novel significantly increase.
While biking home after a full day of activity, I pondered what I could create while keeping a reasonable bed time. I realized that I (nor likely anybody else) had yet to create any art around one of the main research topics which I have been exploring through my work for my potential PhD. I helped perform experiments for a paper a couple years ago where I spent many twelve hour days staring into the fluorescence of the microscope to achieve images similar to the ones at the top of this post. We managed to have our paper accepted into the Biophysical Journal.
During the period of imaging, I had several nights where lines of actin connected the stars in my mind as I walked home. My dreams primarily consisted of red, blue, and green fluorescence taunting me to finish the work. I enjoyed every minute of it, and contemplated numerous projects for documenting the experience (which I , of course, never followed up on).
A quick Google search reveals that there are likely few, if any, colored pencil drawings of cells sitting atop PDMS microposts as they might look after capturing and combining fluorescent images. I decided to change that starting with today's creation of a colored pencil drawing of a cell sitting atop microposts.
