Real Life Osmosis Jones

Ever wonder what’s going on in the seemingly infinite amount of cells that are all around us? No? well me neither. There are however many people that are interested in questions like this, they are called scientists. In a recent NY times article I read about some very interesting scientists. These scientists are not only connoisseurs when it comes to ribosomes, cytoplasm, and mitochondria, but they are also experts in animation. Many scientists in the past have used pictures to help explain whatever complex subject it is that they are talking about. However, even scientists sometimes have a problem visualizing and understanding what is really going on. Scientists like Dr. Robert A. Lue, Dr. Janet Iwasa, Dr. Tomas Kirchhausen use molecular animation to think and see microscopic science through a whole new lens. When speaking of her interesting approach Dr. Iwasa said “For me, the animations are a way to glue all this information together in some logical way. By doing animation I can see what makes sense, what doesn’t make sense. They force us to confront whether what we are doing is realistic or not.” Science animations have recently gained notoriety because of Drew Berry AKA the “Steven Spielberg of molecular animation.” Berry is a cell biologist who has had some of his work shown in the MOMA, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The videos from a scientific visualization program at Harvard called BioVisions have also helped spread the word about molecular animation. Their videos “The Inner Life of the Cell”(about white blood cells attacking infections) and Powering the Cell:Mitochondria(about the molecules in our cells that convert food into energy) are spectacular. They remind me of documentaries I have seen about the happenings of life underwater. Maybe it’s the music used for the background and the way the molecules move, but I began to forget that I was watching animations of the workings of cells. The videos have vibrant colors which are obviously added at the science-animators discretion in order to highlight certain functions or parts of the cell. In reality there is no color as the cell parts are too small to that they fall below the wavelength of light. I’m amazed and astounded by these scientists because not only do they possess immense scientific information, they are able to creatively put their wealth of knowledge together to produce an intelligent and aesthetically pleasing product. I’ve been trying to decide what direction I should take in terms of my future career and amongst other things science and media studies have both come up in discussion. I don’t know if I would be able to do what these incredible people are doing but it makes me appreciate their work even more. This article also kind of reminded me of a movie I saw that depicted life inside of a human’s body(Bill Murray), “Osmosis Jones”. While the movie was not Oscar winner it was very amusing to see the molecular aspects of our bodies in anthropomorphic forms.

NY Times article
“The Inner Life of the Cell”
“Powering the Cell:Mitochondria”
Osmosis Jones Trailer