This talk focuses on the ways in which chemists represent the elusive and transient, and the aesthetics of these representations. Chemistry by its very nature is a science of transformation; reactions begin with knowable starting materials and end with tangible products; yet, for chemists it is often the non-isolable molecular species that exist en route from these stable endpoints that are particularly fascinating. These immaterial unstable states can only be imagined through drawn or computationally rendered molecular depictions. How chemists map chemical instability into the legible domain of molecular representations and the associative aesthetics of such representations are my focus.

Wall.
An introducion to the biodesign experience.

Wyss-Coray.
The Wyss-Coray lab at Stanford is interested in the role of immune responses and inflammation in brain aging and neurodegenerative diseases. As humans get older many beneficial immune responses decline, while low-level chronic inflammation increases throughout the body. This process, which has been dubbed "inflammaging", is likely to contribute to brain dysfunction associated with aging. Indeed, recent studies from our laboratory have shown that in artificially induced "Siamese" mice, which share a common circulatory system through a process of parabiosis, the blood of old mice is sufficient to induce degenerative changes in the brains of young mice and reduce their memory function. We have isolated blood factors with known functions in the immune system, which are responsible for some of these detrimental effects. By targeting and neutralizing such factors during normal aging or in models of neurodegeneration we are exploring new therapeutic strategies. On the other hand, in the same model of parabiosis, old mice benefit from exposure to a young circulatory system: old brains show signs of rejuvenation which include increased levels of neurogenesis in a brain region involved in memory formation, reduced neuroinflammation, and activation of genes involved in memory function and cellular remodeling. Moreover, blood plasma harvested from young mice or young humans is capable of improving memory function in old mice or in mice that model Alzheimer's disease. The lab is now searching for factors in young blood that mediate these beneficial effects.

3D data visualization provides several advantages over 2D. It permits much greater information density; perspective and fluid changing of perspective; scale and keeping track of it; location and the relationship among many. The metaphor in 2D information display is that of zooming (map) and transporting (web). The metaphor in 3D is that of visiting and navigation, it resembles our experience of the physical world. In this presentation, we will demonstrate a project that visualizes and compares communication structures among different industries in 3D graphs. Those graphs are constructed from meta-data collected from actual usage on Box collaboration platform. A gestural interface for "flying" through data will also be demonstrated. This work was carried out as a client project for Box and was displayed at Boxworks conference 2015 at Moscone center, SF.