NATURE|Vol 450|29 November 2007 BOOKS & ARTS

EXHIBITION

The art of arthropods ALCORN J.

Nick Thomas sensation,” he says. “These works A Californian entomologist uses of art render the insect tracks and insects as living paintbrushes to routes visible, producing a visually create abstract art. After loading pleasing piece.” water-based, non-toxic paints on to An insect-lover from childhood, the tarsi and abdomens of insects, Kutcher has a master’s degree Steven Kutcher directs his bugs to in entomology and has taught create their ‘masterpieces’. biological sciences at various US Kutcher controls the direction colleges. Since the 1970s, he has and movement of his arthropods worked as a ‘bug wrangler’ on — such as hissing cockroaches some 500 movies, TV shows and (pictured), darkling beetles and advertisements, where he also grasshoppers — by their response used hair dryers, electric tape, and to external lighting. The result is chemical repellents and attractants This unique artist–arthropod science,” he says. “Each insect is controlled and random movements, to control insect movement. He partnership has so far yielded writing a page in its life, and every created in a co-authorship between manipulated the tiny Steatoda over a hundred works, typically painting is a new discovery.” ■ the artist — with predetermined grossa spider (painted blue and characterized by vibrant, eye- Nick Thomas is associate professor ideas about colour, form, shape red) that nipped actor Tobey catching colours and designs, of chemistry at Auburn University, and creative flexibility — and his Maguire in Spiderman. splattered with trailing dots and Montgomery, Alabama 36124, USA. living brushes. The idea for Kutcher’s bug art dashes (see www.BugArtbySteven. Kutcher’s art is more than just originated in 1985, when he was com). Kutcher is now gathering Kutcher’s bug art is on display a novelty, because it reveals the hired to create fly footprints by pieces to form a travelling exhibit at the Entomological Society of hidden world of insect footprints. making a fly walk through ink for art and natural history museums America meeting in San Diego (9– “When an insect walks on your for an advertisement for Steven throughout the United States. 12 December) and at the Lancaster hand, you may feel the legs move Spielberg’s television series “I hope people will look at these Museum (15 December–13 January but nothing visible remains, only a Amazing Stories. works and see the duality of art and 2008), in California.

Blackburn has been an inspiration to those On a molecular mission of us who started out in the field of telomeres. The book conveys a vivid impression of her that matches a personal encounter. Her equable Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of

temperament does not prevent her from having E. FALL Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA strong views, and she emerges as a valuable role by Catherine Brady model in the sometimes unsettling treatment MIT Press: 2007. 424 pp. $29.95/£19.95 of women in the world of science. Born the second daughter of seven children Maria A. Blasco in Tasmania, Australia, to a family of profes- “I want to understand how living things work,” sional scientists (her parents were medical declared a young Liz Blackburn to Frank Hird, practitioners and her grandfather and great- her supervisor at the University of Melbourne, grandfather were geologists in China). An when asked why she wished to pursue a scien- early interest in chemistry and biochemistry tific career. Back in the 1960s, Blackburn could propelled her to Hird’s lab for her doctorate, not have imagined that she would later be the which matured her forceful scientific mind and main player in two fundamental discoveries in reaffirmed her interest in science as a modus biology: the molecular nature of the ends of vivendi. Then Blackburn went on to what at the chromosomes, or telomeres, and the identifica- time was the Olympus of molecular biology, tion of the enzyme telomerase. the Medical Research Council (MRC) labora- Catherine Brady’s biography is a page- tory in Cambridge, a place packed with past turner from the first chapter, weaving together and future Nobel laureates that would become the heroine’s personality with her success as the gold standard for today’s top scientific a scientist. We learn about Blackburn’s fam- institutions. ily and her first tentative steps in the science Arm arrangement: Liz Blackburn, discoverer of The MRC laboratory was hosting a revolu- world that eventually led to the discovery of telomeres and telomerase, in her laboratory. tion in molecular biology, powered by discov- telomerase in the mid-1980s, and about her eries about cellular mechanisms fundamental determination, her curiosity, her way of deal- ogy (ASCB) and as the chair of the Department to life. Fred Sanger’s DNA-sequencing work ing with situations and her opinions on the of Microbiology and Immunology at the Uni- particularly attracted Blackburn, and from him peer-reviewing process. versity of California in San Francisco (UCSF), she learned her pragmatic approach to science. In highlighting the factors that shaped and then as part of the Bioethics Advisory As Brady points out, the heady ambience of the Blackburn’s career, we follow her incursions Council to President George W. Bush — from laboratory was marred by some male chauvin- into policy-making and science ethics: first as which she was dismissed for her views on stem- ism (with Watson and Perutz receiving special president of the American Society of Cell Biol- cell policy. mention). Blackburn discovered how things

613 BOOKS & ARTS NATURE|Vol 450|29 November 2007 were in top scientific institutions: extreme mena chromosomes end in a series of repeated a fundamentally important process, but telom- dedication and long working hours, with no runs of cytosine bases that varied in length. erase continued to receive scant attention until supporting hierarchies — what Brady calls a Although this was the first molecular insight 1994–95, when it was shown to be aberrantly “rat lab”. Fellow scientists became her family into the structure of chromosome ends, it was activated in most human cancers. substitutes and friends, and there she met her not seen as important by the community, The biography succeeds in capturing Black- future husband, John Sedat. which is surprising in view of its implications burn’s vision, which has encouraged her to Blackburn’s DNA-sequencing skills were for for chromosome replication and transmission pursue unbeaten tracks to make discoveries her the key to discovery, and she took them to of genetic information. Blackburn blames the that today hold therapeutic promise for both Joe Gall’s lab in Yale after a short break to climb perception of Tetrahymena as a “freak organ- cancer and ageing. ■ to Mount Everest’s base camp with Sedat. In ism”. But it also fell outside what was then Maria A. Blasco is head of the Telomeres and Gall’s lab were some of the future principals of mainstream molecular biology. The story Telomerase Group in the Molecular Oncology the telomere field — Ginger Zakian, Mary-Lou repeated itself when she, together with Carol Program at the Spanish National Cancer Centre Pardue and, later, Tom Cech. It was there that Greider, discovered telomerase in 1985. By (CNIO), Melchor Fernández Almagro 3, 28029 Blackburn discovered in 1976 that Tetrahy- then it was clear that telomere replication was Madrid, Spain.

a greater state of perfection, as Roger Bacon believed of alchemical gold. Is technology unnatural? The emphasis in The Artificial and the Natu- ral is historical, ranging from Hippocrates to The Artificial and the Natural: An Evolving the metals generated in the alchemist’s labora- nylon. These motley essays are full of wonders Polarity tory. The equivalent word in ancient Greece and insights, but are ultimately frustrating in edited by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent was technē, the root of ‘technology’ of course, their microcosmic way. There is no real syn- and William R. Newman but in itself a term that embraced subtle shades thesis on offer, no vision of how attitudes have MIT Press: 2007. 331pp. $40 of meaning, examined here in ancient medi- evolved and fragmented. There are too many cine by Heinrich von Staden and in mechanics conspicuous absences (Leonardo da Vinci for Philip Ball by Francis Wolff. one) for the book to represent an overview. The topic of this book — how boundaries are The critical issue was how this ‘art’ was It would have been nice to see some analy- drawn between the natural and the synthetic — related to ‘nature’, roughly identified with what sis of changing ideas about experimentation, has received too little serious attention, both in Aristotle called physis. Can art produce things the adoption of which was surely hindered by science and in society. Chemists are justifiably Aristotle’s doubts that ‘art’ (and thus labora- touchy about descriptions of commercial prod- tory manipulation) was capable of illuminat- ucts as ‘chemical-free’, but the usual response, ing nature. Prejudices about experiments often which is to lament media or public ignorance, went further: even in the Renaissance, one was fails to recognize the complex history and soci- free to disregard their results if they conflicted ology that lies behind preconceptions about with a priori ‘truths’ gleaned from nature, rather chemical artefacts. The issue is much broader, as Pythagoras advocated studying music by however, touching on areas ranging from stem- “setting aside the judgement of the ears”. And it cell therapy and assisted conception to biomi- would have been fascinating to see how these metic engineering, synthetic biology, machine issues were discussed in other cultures, particu- intelligence and ecosystem management. larly in technologically precocious China. And it is not an issue for the sciences alone. But most important, the discussion sorely Arguably, the distinction between nature and lacks a contemporary perspective, except for artifice is equally fraught in what we now call Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent’s chapter on the fine arts — where again it tends to be side- plastics and biomimetics. This debate is no stepped. Some modern artists address the mat- historical curiosity, but urgently needs airing ter head on with their interventions in nature today. Legislation on trans-species embryology, — for example, the artificial rainbows of Andy reproductive technology, genome engineering Goldsworthy — but much popular art criti- and environmental protection is being drawn

cism now imposes a contemporary view, even up, based on what sometimes seems to be lit- LIBRARY BRIDGEMAN ART MONTPELLIER, FRANCE/GIRAUDON/THE MUSEE FABRE, on the old masters. Through this lens, Renais- tle more than a handful of received wisdoms sance writer Giorgio Vasari’s astonishment that Oil painting by Jan van Huysum (1682–1749): (some of them scriptural) moderated by con- Leonardo’s painted dewdrops “looked more does art imitate nature, or improve on it? ventional risk analysis. There is, with the pos- convincing than the real thing” seems a little sible exception of discussions on biodiversity, childish, as though he has missed the point of identical to those in nature, or only superficial almost no conceptual framework to act as a art. No one today believes that the artist’s job imitations of them? (The latter belief left Plato support and guide. is to mimic nature as accurately as possible. rather dismissive of the visual arts.) Does art All too often, what is considered ‘natural’ Perhaps with good reason, but it is left to art operate using the same principles as nature, or assumes an absurdly idealized view of nature historians to point out that there is nothing does it violate them? Alchemy was commonly that owes more to the delusions of Rousseau’s absolute about this view. deemed to work simply by speeding up natu- romanticism than to any historically informed At the heart of the matter is the fact that ‘art’ ral processes: metals ripened into gold sooner perspective. By revealing how sophisticated, has not always meant what it does today. Until in the crucible than they did in the ground, and yet how transitory, the distinctions have the late Enlightenment, it simply referred to and (al)chemical medicines accelerated natu- been in the past, this book is an appealingly anything human-made, whether a sculpture or ral healing. And although some considered erudite invitation to begin the conversation. ■ an engine. The panoply of mutated creatures ‘artificial’ things to be inferior to their ‘natu- Philip Ball is a consultant editor for Nature. described in Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis ral’ equivalents, it was also widely held that His most recent book is The Devil’s Doctor (1627) were the products of ‘art’, and so were art could exceed nature, bringing objects to (Heinemann/FSG, 2006).

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