Culture
Bryan David Griffith
Bryan David Griffith tackles big questions with simple materials. His art examines the tension between nature and culture, chaos and control, and life and loss. His engineering background brings a problem-solver’s mindset to his creative process, often inventing new techniques to serve each concept.
Griffith didn’t take a typical path into the art world. While studying at the University of Michigan, he found a beat-up photo manual, built a darkroom, and started experimenting. Later, disillusioned with a consulting job and its environmental impact, he quit, bought a van, and hit the road to become an artist.
Dr. Mark Finney: Changing How We Fight (and live with) Fire
Dr. Mark Finney is a Senior Scientist and Research Forester with the U.S. Forest Service at the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory. With a Ph.D. in wildland fire science from UC Berkeley, Finney has spent decades exploring fire as both an ecological force and a physical process. His work has laid the foundation for many of the wildfire behavior models used today across the country.
Finney is a strong advocate for rethinking traditional fire suppression strategies. He emphasizes the need to let “good fire” play its role in the landscape, using tools like prescribed burns and targeted fuel treatments to prevent more extreme fires down the line. His research has revealed that long-held beliefs about how fires spread, such as the role of radiant heat, are often incorrect.
Reuben Wu: Shedding New Light on the World
Reuben Wu, a multidisciplinary artist who utilizes aerial lighting with drones and long-exposure photography, to tell compelling stories about the world we inhabit.
Wu has helped redefine contemporary landscape photography, and his work is featured in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the MoMA.
Mamy Ingabire: Transforming Vector Control in Africa
Mamy Ingabire is an entrepreneur dedicated to using cutting-edge technology to address critical challenges across various industries.
As the Managing Director of Charis UAS, Rwanda’s first licensed drone company, she has played a fundamental role in advancing the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to improve efficiency in vector control, agriculture, construction, mapping, healthcare, and more. Under her leadership, Charis UAS has leveraged drone technology to revolutionize data collection and digital solutions.
Drones vs. Mosquitoes: Fighting malaria in Malawi
In the middle of a muddy field next to a reservoir in north-western Malawi, a team of scientists are hard at work. Boxes of equipment lie scattered around a patch of dry ground, where a scientist programmes an automated drone flight into a laptop perched on a metal box. The craggy peak of Linga Mountain (‘watch from afar’ in the local language) looms over the lake, casting its reflection in the water.
With a high-pitched whirr of rotor blades, the drone takes off and starts following the shoreline, taking photos as it goes. Once the drone is airborne, the team switch from high-tech to low-tech mode. They collect ladles, rulers and plastic containers and squelch through mud until they reach the water’s edge.
The Drone Edge in Vector Control
Achieving global vector control’s potential requires “realigning programs to optimize the delivery of interventions that are tailored to the local context [and]…strengthened monitoring systems and novel interventions with proven effectiveness.” This includes “integration of non-chemical and chemical vector control methods [and] evidence-based decision making guided by operational research and entomological and epidemiological surveillance and evaluation.”
Drones or “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs) can save time and money compared to conventional ground-based surveys. Sophisticated models and monitoring equipment can be purchased for a few thousand dollars. They don’t require a pilot’s license, they are becoming easier to fly, and their paths can be fully automated through AI, machine learning, global positioning systems, and computer vision.
Mosquito Control Drone Application
Check out this video from Calcasieu Parish Mosquito and Rodent Control on how they are using drone technology to spray in hard to reach areas and increase the efficiency of eliminating disease-carrying populations of mosquitos.
Michele Banks: The Pulse of Life in Ink and Color
Michele Banks, known as Artologica, is a Washington, D.C.-based artist using watercolor and ink to explore themes such as cell division, neuroscience, the microbiome, and climate change. Her pieces capture a slightly abstracted scientific imagery, creating beautiful interpretations of biological and environmental processes.
Banks has exhibited her work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and major scientific conferences, including the Society for Neuroscience and the American Society for Microbiology. Her art has appeared on journal covers, in textbooks, and in publications such as Scientific American, The Scientist, and Wired.
Dame Sarah Gilbert: The Scientist Who Helped Save Millions of Lives
Dame Sarah Gilbert, Born in April 1962, is a vaccinologist whose groundbreaking work on the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has saved millions of lives worldwide.
In 1983, Gilbert graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from the University of East Anglia. She then pursued a PhD at the University of Hull, focusing her studies on the genetics and biochemistry of the yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides, and earned her doctorate in 1986.
Supercomputer Using AI to Develop Vaccines
A £225m supercomputer is using artificial intelligence (AI) to develop new drugs and vaccines.
When it is fully operational this summer, the Isambard-AI computer in Bristol will be the most powerful supercomputer in the UK.
Last week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer unveiled plans to “unleash AI” across the UK in an effort to boost growth.
Simon McIntosh-Smith, a professor in high-performance computing at Bristol University, said the Isambard-AI meant the UK “genuinely can be competitive with the world”.