HEY // YOU

From 2009 to 2013, the research schooner Tara traversed the globe, carrying a multinational team of scientists. They surveyed the critical foundation of the marine food chain (a foundation we know dangerously little about): plankton, bacteria, protists, viruses and small animals. All in all, they found more 35,000 different kinds of organisms — many of them previously unknown to science. Read all about it!

Top photo: Tara in the Arctic Ocean (A.Deniaud/Tara Expéditions)

Photo 2: Plankton collected in the Pacific Ocean. (Christian Sardet/CNRS/Tara Expéditions)

Photo 3: A male Sapphirina copepod collected in the Mediterranean sea. (Christian Sardet/CNRS/Sharif Mirshak/Parafilms/Tara Expéditions)

Photo 4: A tiny crustacean copepod, a spider crab larva, an amphipod, a baby squid, a Phronima amphipod, and an Atlantic pteropod mollusc. (Christian Sardet/CNRS/Tara Expéditions)

Photo 5: A small medusa (a relative of the jellyfish) collected in the Mediterranean sea. (bepoles/Tara Expéditions)

It may still be a little early to head for the beach, but that won’t prevent us from thinking beachy thoughts.

PomPom Mirror

Interactive installation by Daniel Rozin is the latest in a collection of mechanical mirrors - this one is made with an array of contracting pompoms in a half-tone arrangement:

Rozin’s anthropomorphic PomPom Mirror features a synchronized array of 928 spherical faux fur puffs. Organized into a three-dimensional grid of beige and black, the sculpture is controlled by hundreds of motors that build silhouettes of viewers using computer-vision. Along its surface, figures appear as fluffy animal-like representations within the picture plane, which is made permeable by a ‘push-pull’ forward and backward motion of meshed ‘pixels’. Ghostly traces fade and emerge, as the motorized composition hums in unified movement, seemingly alive and breathing as a body of its own.

Can’t get a lock of Exploratorium Loose Cannon and scientific raconteur Ron Hipschman’s hair? Let these hot collectors’ items satiate your scholarly collecting compulsion! Our Everything Matters trading cards are “fundamental” scientific memorabilia (see what we did there…). Next up Boron or B on May 21.

Hydrogen: Lisa Berman  Helium: Nina Fujikawa Lithium: Susan Pomon Beryllium: Ray Larsen

@ Exploratorium, www.exploratorium.edu  

LOS ANGELES — Yesterday was Graduation Day at the University of Southern California, however there was a conspicuous absence at the commencement ceremony for the Roski School of Art and Design. All but one of the graduating MFA students boycotted the ceremony in solidarity with their first-year classmates who announced they would be dropping out in response to a withdrawal of funding and curricular changes, as per a statement released yesterday. The one graduating student in attendance was there to deliver a speech, which the Dean had originally cancelled, only agreeing to include student remarks this past weekend.