Candida tumulicola sp. nov. and Candida takamatsuzukensis sp. nov., novel yeast species assignable to the Candida membranifaciens clade, isolated from the stone chamber of the Takamatsu-zuka tumulus.
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"Sometimes the naked taste of potato reminds me of being poor".
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"I want to paint men and women with that something of the eternal which the halo used to symbolize and which we seek to convey by the actual radiance and vibration of our coloring," wrote Vincent van Gogh in one of his celebrated letters. Hundreds of these were written mostly to his brother Theo, an art dealer in Paris who provided him with financial and emotional support throughout his brief but brilliant career. The letters lay out the artist's philosophy of life and reveal ample literary inclinations as well as spiritual depth. "Saying a thing well is as interesting and as difficult as painting it," he wrote. (+info)
Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n.
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"Pieter Bruegel was the most perfect of his century," said Flemish cartographer and geographer Abraham Ortelius eulogizing his friend, who "was taken from us while still in his full manhood." Both men observed and delineated new and original angles of reality, Ortelius in his great atlas (Theater of the World), Bruegel in his paintings, which described, in astonishingly modern terms, the lives of ordinary people. "When asked which of his predecessors he followed, the painter Eupompos is said to have declared that he followed nature herself, not an artist. This agrees with our Bruegel .... Indeed, I would not call him the best of painters, but rather the very nature of painters. So I think that he is worthy of being followed by all," noted Ortelius, not alone in his praise. (+info)
Microanalysis of organic pigments and glazes in polychrome works of art by surface-enhanced resonance Raman scattering.
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Dr. Tulp's Anatomy Lesson by Rembrandt: the third day hypothesis.
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An autopsy was an important event in 17th century Holland. Autopsies were held in an 'anatomy theater' and performed according to a fixed protocol that often took up to 3 days to complete. Of the five group portraits painted by Rembrandt over the course of his career, two were anatomy lessons given by Dr. Tulp and Dr. Deyman. An examination of Rembrandt's painting Dr. Tulp's Anatomy Lesson (1632) and an X-ray image of the painting, as compared to other paintings of anatomy lessons from the same period, reveal interesting differences, such as positioning, and light and shadow. Not only was the autopsy not performed according to the usual protocol, but in this painting Rembrandt created a unique dramatic scene in his effort to tell a story. We suggest that Dr. Tulp and Rembrandt "modified" the painting of Dr. Tulp's anatomy lesson to emphasize Dr. Tulp's position as the greatest anatomist of his era--"Vesalius of Amsterdam," and as a way of demonstrating God's greatness by highlighting the hand as a symbol of the most glorious of God's creations. (+info)