Where Art and Science Meet

I find it intriguing to think how we rely on metaphors to describe chemical, physical, biological processes. Metaphors allow us to “see” and come to understand processes that are otherwise unknowable by our senses. We come to knowing through our imagination, using math, poetry, pictures, stories as metaphors. Metaphors, precisely because they come from our imagination and are fed by our subconscious selves, pack a powerful punch to both the brain and the heart.

Metaphors are sticky because they allow us to build new knowledge from what is already known and, in this way, allow us to make new neural connections or ways of knowing. Since they come to us unbidden, metaphors are necessarily subjective; the images that move us do so because they resonate with (in harmony or dissonance) our deep selves. Does the sperm penetrate the egg or does the egg receive the sperm? Is gravity bent by planets or curved from its own weight/forces? Does the protein merge with the cell or is the cell destroyed by the protein? There is no right or wrong metaphor but only a different perspectives or pathways into the cell, into space.

New animation technology makes this intersection of art and science more apparent. A recent NYT article on the subject highlights the new science animation taking hold in the field of cell biology. “The ability to animate gives biologists a chance to think about things in a whole new way,” says Janet Iwasa, a cell biologist who now works as a molecular animator at Harvard Medical School. “Just listening to scientists describe how the molecule moved in words wasn’t enough for me,” she said. “What brought it to life was really seeing it in motion.” At the “Inner Life of the Cell” (http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/media.html) you can see animation of how, for example, “cells internalize molecules on its surface; the three-legged white protein, clathrin triskelions forms a latticelike cage that causes the membrane to deform and form a vesicle.” Someone should put in music and other sound effects!

Here science is revealed through art; metaphor, images, stories and shown to be the imaginative practice that it is.