But this is a post for everyone, not just the ones who get giddy over DNA sequence and electromicroscopy. I think there is a real art and beauty to the science we perform. Many of the patterns in the natural world could lend themselves to some striking and modern quilt designs. I've chose a few common scientific images from molecular biology to illustrate my point.
This is a group of related DNA sequences. As you may remember from biology class our DNA is an alphabet with only four letters, A, T, C, G. The number and order of these letters is the basis of what makes us who we are. When you line up related sequence the result is an interesting pattern - not quite random - not completely ordered. Wouldn't this make a striking quilt design?
In fact, Beverly St. Clair makes these gorgeous genome quilts. Each letter of the DNA code corresponds to an HST in a different orientation. You can literally read her quilt and decipher the DNA code. I made a genome quilt last year as a graduation gift for my PhD thesis mentor. I even used a DNA print from spoonflower as one of the letters.
The CrPV IGR IRES RNA sequence.
This is an image of the DNA separated by size on a gel. You have probably seen images like this on some of the forensic science shows. Because each person has a unique DNA sequence, the pattern of the DNA when separated on a gel will be unique. This is one way we can determine paternity.
I haven't seen anyone use a virus structure as the inspiration for a quilt yet but I would love to see it happen.
Congrats for making it to the end of the post. I hope you enjoyed this foray into where science and art merge. Maybe you even have a few ideas stewing. Or maybe you are bored to tears. So feedback anyone? Do you want to see more posts like this?
Either way, Happy Friday!