Bacteria are Beautiful!
• Fractal art made with cultures of the ordinary soil bacterium, Bacillus subtilis , expressing differently colored fluorescent proteins. Each image in the series zooms out to ever complex and beautiful patterns.
• Researcher Fernan Frederici at Cambridge University works on Synthetic Aesthetics, and paired up with computer scientist Tom Rudge to design these complex cultures. Their eventual goal is to understand the simple rules that give rise to complex emergent behavior seen in nature whether in the patterning of an embryo or termite tunnels (http://scienceblogs.com/oscillator/2010/01/designing_emergent_behavior.php).
• Different shapes emerge based on the conditions of the petri dish, the presence of nutrients and the humidity. These influence the rules of how the cells grow and respond and interact with each other, to form these amazing patterns.
More beautiful patterns : http://www.flickr.com/photos/anhedonias/sets/72157627567623951/
H/T to Huffington Post’s Science section: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/17/bacteria-pictures-by-fernan-federici_n_1211302.html?ref=science
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
Lovely! Makes me want to grow some. 🙂
That’s creepy and cool. It looks like colored sand. Weird.
Well, bacteria are even smaller than a grain of sand..these images are from a microscope 🙂
A microscopic world on LSD. 😉
Timothy Leary – I am your father!
Looks like Tibetan Budhist Mandalas made with bacteria.
Love it!
Terry Hallett , those Tibetan monks use sand to make those incredible Mandalas, right? The article said that the patterns look like Missoni fabric; I’m not familiar with the designer (?), but a google image did show remarkable similarity. Sort of like Ikat print as well.
so when are we gonna have LED-Bacteria TV?
Beautiful works of art. I’d definitely buy some prints.
That’s great! (and you know I mean it!;-) )
Víktor Bautista i Roca , so I have redeemed myself ? 🙂 😉
Rajini Rao You need no redemption. 🙂
Bacterial Art… Who would have thought about this? 🙂
Thanks for bringing light and respectability to the mighty bacteria, Rajini Rao !! While they would survive very nicely without us, we wouldn’t last a day without bacteria.
Very true, Gregory Esau . After looking at the lovely art work, one wonders if they are also more cultured than we are! 😉
Very nice. Looks like some of my painting experiments aimed to see when Random becomes Art: https://plus.google.com/photos/100532098003679342125/albums/5699139096725723265?authkey=COLKo-ec1aKKZQ
Lucas Frib Even without being sick: http://www.ted.com/talks/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteria_communicate.html
(One of my favourite TED talks. This lady deserves a Nobel Prize.)
Bacteria can be artful, they should be kept in a collection instead of trying to kill them. Thinking about Neosporin and Bacitracin.
Beautiful indeed, thanks for sharing!
Great!!! Gonna share it with my microbiologist friends right away!
These are so beautiful, natural works of art.
I think they look like a combination of aborigine art and sand art.
These are amazing images…life is beautiful!
Glad you liked it Sherri Vance . I can’t figure out how they were coaxed to grow that way, but I sure can appreciate the results!
u r more beautiful rajni…. i cant understand modern art….
vivek jadli , thanks for the smile 🙂
i was just kidding actually u can use very before that… haha
all of so cute as u madam rajini g