We all know about the birds and the bees…and how they pollinate flowers! But what about flies? What about the tricks they all play? There’s a ton of research flying to the surface about various pollinators and their relationships with plants, and Loy Xingwen is spreading the word through comics. “Science seeks to provide us with the information we need to make good decisions. But you can’t ‘inform’ people into action,” says Loy. “To make…

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Name: Thomas Feuerstein Which came first in your life, the science or the art? Art and science ultimately ask the same questions: What is life? What determines our life socially, biologically, technically, and economically? However, the methods of art and science differ significantly in their implementation. Art is allowed to bring threads of different disciplines together in a transdisciplinary way and to explore stories speculatively, beyond the present, into a possible future. I am interested…

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Can’t Picture the Future? Sofie Shen Can Help. Here’s something you might not think to do with your spare time: give NASA a hand by teaching a computer how to find Swiss cheese on Mars. For Sofie Shen, a visual development artist from Pasadena, California, this and other space-related pursuits come naturally. Shen is on a mission to bridge the gap between science and art. Her illustrations and designs transform space exploration from something abstract…

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The world is a very different place than it was in 2016 when we last caught up with Anna Dumitriu, an internationally renowned bioartist whose expansive portfolio touches on issues surrounding infectious disease, synthetic biology, and robotics. Dumitriu’s exploration of these topics is especially poignant today as the world continues to grapple with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the unexpected knock-on effects on other diseases like tuberculosis and cholera, and an increasingly uncertain future. In this…

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Marney McDiarmid is a ceramic artist based in Kingston, Ontario who takes inspiration from the natural environment. Last year, she traveled to Hawaii to learn about the different islands’ threatened endemic plant species. On the island of Oahu, she met a group of environmentalists who, on a six-acre plot of land in the Manoa Valley, work tirelessly to preserve some of Hawaii’s native plants. In the six years that they have cultivated these plants and…

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WARNING: This post contains distressing details about racism, colonization, and death. Dear ATS Community, We are deeply saddened by the confirmation of unmarked burial sites on the grounds of former residential schools in Canada.  215 bodies have been found near the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, on the lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, in British Columbia, Canada. As many as 751 bodies have been found near the site of the…

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Now you can try “the world’s best worst algorithm.” Whatever salacious content you’ve encountered on the internet today, I doubt anything will make you sweat like Fairly Intelligent™. Artist and game maker A.M. Darke has created a speculative Artificial Intelligence to confront the biases innate in the algorithms that orchestrate our everyday lives. With a cheery smile emoji dominating the top of the page, the experience seems innocent enough: there’s a friendly, human-sounding narrator and…

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Now you can try “the world’s best worst algorithm.” Whatever salacious content you’ve encountered on the internet today, I doubt anything will make you sweat like Fairly Intelligent™. Artist and game maker A.M. Darke has created a speculative Artificial Intelligence to confront the biases innate in the algorithms that orchestrate our everyday lives. With a cheery smile emoji dominating the top of the page, the experience seems innocent enough: there’s a friendly, human-sounding narrator and…

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Name: Yen Tzu Chang Which came first in your life, the science or the art? I would say art because it is difficult for a six-year-old kid to understand what science is. At that time, I focused on painting to represent how I view the world. My parents sent me to an art studio for children after school to improve my painting. Then, I gradually discovered my interest in science by observing, testing, recording, and…

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INTER/her breaks the silence on female reproductive disease and pain. It is an average Sunday in May, and a woman is crawling into a vagina. She wears a headset over her eyes and a corset around her abdomen. Once inside, she sits comfortably on a squashy beanbag chair and toggles a hand-held controller, peering around the space. “Being inside the vagina was very interesting,” she says, upon emerging. “It was really soothing, really calming.” This…

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