TRUTH AND BEAUTY

For the past couple years, graduate students in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University have organized an annual art exhibit on campus. Not just any art exhibit. The "Research as Art" exhibition-slash-happy-hour features scientific visuals (e.g., charts, black and white photographs, videos from the field) by researchers in the department. The images get blown up and framed, as they would in any trendy downtown art gallery. And the scientific community gets a glimpse of truth and beauty in nature. Some of the images from this exhibit were showcased this week in Columbia Magazine. Choice descriptor from the article: "one person’s microscopic portrait of a single-celled organism may be another person’s Miró." Science is beautiful - isn't that the truth.