The Eyes Have It

Along with the flickr photos, I’ve also added an events listing to the right sidebar. So if you have any events, deadlines or other dates that have any relation to the subjects TEHI deals with, send them on in.

I took a handful of snapshots at InfoComm in June and forgot about them until today. The timing was good because I’ve been experimenting with integrating my flickr account into TEHI. My five photos are a tiny part of the collection of 155 InfoComm06 photos posted to flickr that doesn’t quite convey how huge the expo floor really was.

WebMD videocast. “There’s a place I want to drop my bombs, and a place where I don’t want to drop my bombs.”

While browsing the gallery of award winners, you can listen to commentary from the creator of each image describing how it came to be.

The winners of the Awards challenge the public perspective that scientists don’t have an artistic side. Working every day with microscopes and imaging technology, these biologists have been able to capture stunning images through a blend of original and innovative techniques.

Despite the obvious visual appeal of the pictures, their primary purpose is investigation. The images are from research projects with the ultimate goal of helping to improve healthcare through new forms of prevention, treatment and vaccination.

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  strategy/technology/visual/graphic development, or do you do it in-house? How often does your organization contract with outside production firms for presentation development?
• What types of challenges do Presentation Professionals experience today, and how concerned are they about these challenges?

Find out by participating in InfoComm International’s Presentations Professional Survey. This online survey should only take you about 10 minutes to complete.

To thank you for your participation, you will receive the results of this survey by e-mail, once compiled. You will also get three Microsoft PowerPoint templates, one Corel Presentations master, and one Apple Keynote theme, all free of charge. In addition, you will have a chance to win one of five $50 Amazon gift certificates.

‘I use my iPod to store medical images’
“Osman Ratib, professor and chief of nuclear medicine… co-created a computer software program called Osirix. It enables medical professionals to view medical images on their iPods, saving them and the hospitals they work for thousands of dollars…”
(tags: Technology iPod imaging)

UVa-HSL: Very Ill! – 19th Century Medical Caricature
“While some caricatures were straightforward in their message, others contained yet another layer of meaning. Medical conditions could symbolize failed interpersonal relationships, national political affairs, and everything in between.”
(tags: art illustration medical)

Nikon Small World – Photomicrography Competition
“Small World is regarded as the leading forum for showcasing the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope. For over 30 years, Nikon has rewarded the world’s best photomicrographers…” (Deadline for Entries: April 28, 2006)
(tags: art images microscope photography photomicrography photos science)

BMJ: “Sex symbols ancient and modern: their origins and iconography on the pedigree”
(tags: art design medical medicine reference)

The National Center for Biotechnology Bookshelf
Online versions of over 50 biomedical textbooks.
(tags: medical medicine reference science)

The Body Worlds exhibition may or may not have educational value, artistic merit or a completely sound ethical foundation. As a subject of discussion, however, it definitely does have a way bringing out impassioned points of view (the Thanksgiving dinner table might not have been the best time to have introduced it as a topic of discussion). The College of Physicians of Philadelphia will be joining as well as contributing to the conversation with a town hall discussion. Their Bodies: Ourselves takes place Thursday, December 1, 2005 starting at 6:00 p.m.

Scientists engineer bacteria to create living photographs | Brain Blog
(tags: art science)

MCDONALD’S PACKAGING TO CARRY NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
“McDonald’s Corp. today unveiled a global packaging format listing nutritional information with easy-to-read icons and bar charts that one of the fast-food giant’s biggest critics is calling a ‘useful step forward.’”
(tags: design health medical news typography)

Senate urges using tech for medical records
(tags: medicine news technology)

Design Observer: The Great Non-Amber-Colored Hope
“A student design for a prescription pill bottle takes a metoric rise to mass production and becomes an instant icon in the world of graphic design.”
(tags: design health medicine)

U.S. Awards Contracts to Help Automate Health Records – The New York Times
The federal government awarded $18.6 million in contracts meant to accelerate the use of modern computer technology in health care.
(tags: medicine news technology)

Flash of Anatomy
Documenting, via Flash, the process of drawing a person starting with the skeleton (skips the internal organs). Slightly NSFW for a few moments.
(tags: animation art drawing flash)

Is Your Design Career Stuck?
“I could be wrong, but I think there are quite a few designers going through this same type of thing. What are you going to do (or what have you done) to get past a career that seems “stuck?’”
(tags: career design)

PLoS Medicine: Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature
(tags: brain depression health medicine neuroscience news science)

NYT: A Special Drug Just for You, at the End of a Long Pipeline
What next: “The age of personalized medicine is on the way. Increasingly, experts say, therapies will be tailored for patients based on their genetic makeup or other medical measurements. That will allow people to obtain drugs that would work best…”
(tags: medical science technology)

CNN.com article:

“Osman Ratib, professor and chief of nuclear medicine at the University Hospital of Geneva, has co-created a computer software program called Osirix. It enables medical professionals to view medical images on their iPods, saving them and the hospitals they work for thousands of dollars in expensive equipment.

“Medical imaging these days is much more than just looking at slices through the body — it’s about looking at the body in motion, in function. We’re dealing with images that are more than just 2D, black and white images.

“It’s not rocket science but it’s taking something that’s been designed for the consumer market and using it for something that’s medically driven.”

Nature Erratum
The life and opinions of young molecular biology scientist.
(tags: science)

Docs, hospitals continue drive to go totally digital
“It’s really not about technology. Tech­nology is the enabler.”
(tags: medical technology)

FDA orders digital drug labels
Drug makers must begin submitting electronic versions of their drug labels to build a database that doctors and patients can search for recent warnings or other changes, the Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday.
(tags: system:unfiled)

Particletree · Typography Crash Course Roundup
You can spend your whole life obsessing over type.
(tags: design fonts reference tutorial typography)

World’s first wide-format pen tablet from Wacom

Photoshop tip: Change a filter’s default settings
(tags: photoshop tips)

Perfect medical presentations: creating effective PowerPoint presentations for the healthcare professional
(tags: books medical presentations science)

I’d like to welcome readers of American Scientist to The Eyes Have It. This excellent magazine was kind enough to honor TEHI by naming it their site of the week. Thank you!

Published since 1913, American Scientist (the magazine of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society) “is an illustrated bimonthly magazine about science and technology. Each issue is filled with feature articles written by prominent scientists and engineers, reviewing important work in fields that range from molecular biology to computer engineering. The articles are carefully edited and accompanied by illustrations that are developed to enhance the reader’s understanding and enjoyment.”

“A website about films + filmakers, science + scientists, Science Cinémathèque is a forum for short films, interviews, and articles that enhance the public understanding of Science and technology.”

This is an online exhibition located on the Museum of the Moving Image’s site.

[via Boing Boing]

Great collection of vintage drug ads published from 1935 to 1970. Obviously, these were created long before direct-to-consumer advertising and are aimed at the medical community. It’s interesting to notice how the graphics in some of these ads seem to be intended to evoke a consumer-like emotional response in physicians who would be more likely to base decisions on the results of large, prospective, randomized, double-blind clinical trials.

[via Boing Boing]

“The Power of the Blog”, an article by David Secko in the August 1, 2005 issue of The Scientist, examines why weblogging hasn’t penetrated the scientific community as completely as it has the business community. It documents what progress has been made so far and provides a great list of science blogs which, by the way, includes TEHI (welcome to everyone who followed the link here). I strongly agree with Secko’s major theme:

Blogging is a form of communication that is sweeping through business, and although it’s yet to significantly break into the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, few believe it’s going to stop at their gates. So, if you’re not reading one, or better yet, writing one, you’re missing the opportunities others are taking advantage of.

It sounds like a whole lot of people better get cracking.

There are probably some people out there who would say a collection of two works isn’t a museum. However, these quilts are so beautiful I don’t think it’s fair to quibble over what’s a museum and what’s not. I agree with Vaughan from Mind Hacks who described them as lush, intricate and enthralling. They are another example of deriving powerful art from the reinterpretation of medical imagery. Their creator, Dr. Marjorie Taylor, is Professor and Head of Psychology at the University of Oregon and focuses on work involving children’s imaginary companions. I hope Dr. Taylor is creating more of these and that they will be part of the museum soon.

(Housekeeping note: I’ve added a new category to TEHI for reinterpretations of medical imagery into other media and material. Please email me the details of any examples you might know of. I once did a bone density scan in paper for a osteoporosis slide set cover. I’ll see if I can track down a scan.)

[via Mind Hacks]

“An annual conference at which medical and health science educators and developers gather from around the world to explore and share the uses of multimedia and information technology in medical education. The focus is on cutting edge developments, implementation of courseware, eLearning, web enhanced curricula, wireless mobile computing, graphic design, animation and digital video. Curricular integration, sharing and evaluation are central themes.”

The 2005 conference was in June but there is a low-volume mailing list that distributes information about their activities and events that I joined. Maybe I can make next year. It looks like there were about ten sessions I would have liked to attend (“Virtual Reality and Anatomy Learning”, “Managing Your Digital Multimedia Assets: The HEALster Project”, “Story-Telling, Emotion, and Media in Technology-Based Medical Education”…). Of course, I would have had to have gone from the HeSCA meeting to InfoComm then straight to Slice of Life.

How the heck did I miss this? I stumbled across the site yesterday and it was, of course, too late for me to make plans to see it today. It would have been nice to see the old neighborhood. USP is right across the street from my first apartment. I’ll have to keep an eye on the Marvin Samson Center for the History of Pharmacy for future exhibits. It looks like it was a great show.

“University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (USP) is exhibiting a selection of original medical illustrations by Frank Netter, M.D. (1906-1991), a world-renowned anatomy artist who is regarded by many as the most accomplished and influential medical illustrator of the 20th century.

“The exhibition at USP consists of 47 unique gouache—watercolor—paintings from a corpus of more than 4,000 of Dr. Netter’s works that display various aspects of illness, trauma, anatomy, development, malformation, pathology, medical testing and diagnosis, and patient care. Many of his impressive illustrations, commissioned by Ciba-Geigy Corporation over several Woman with Dermatosisdecades, appeared in Clinical Symposia, a well-known quarterly clinical monograph used by primary care professionals as a teaching aid and reference. “

In order to promote his book, Eve, Aurelio O’Brien created a number of bizarre animations illustrating some of the more mind-blowing (and humorous) possibilities of genetic manipulation in the forth millennium. It looks like a good story but I can’t be the only one who finds that sink animation seriously disturbing.

I’ll trade you a Cryptosporidiosis and a Cyclosporiasis for two Ecoli O157:H7 Infections.

The Center for Disease Control is offering 31 disease trading cards. The cards are very nicely designed and laid out. The images are compelling. The only thing I don’t like about them is that there is no way to download all the cards at once. Each individual card is in it’s own PDF file.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I’m also very well aware that the promised HeSCA Conference Wrap Up is still in my draft queue. However, I think I have a good reason for being so neglectful (and it has nothing with spending a week down the Jersey Shore). Just three months after launching Visual Being, I found myself co-founding yet another blog.

Eels in Vinegar is “Dedicated to excellence in biocommuncation and is inspired by the work of Robert Hooke and his successors.” It was created by myself and two other HeSCA members Christopher Sarley and Keven Siegert after we dicussed the need for a HeSCA-related blog at the conference in Seattle.

To borrow the words I used for the Visual Being announcement…

We are only just beginning to get off the ground, lining up contributors, working out the kinks, etc. There are a few posts there now but were hoping to have a lot more stuff in the near future. Enjoy!

You have to visit the site to find out what the name refers to.

I was hoping to provide a wrap up of the HeSCA conference before things got started at InfoComm but I guess that was just wishful thinking. Look for it to be posted later this week or early next. In the meantime, hum a few bars of “Viva Las Vegas.”