Microcosm In Glass

Having written a book about E. coli has made me a keen aficionado of E. coli ties and E. coli plush toys. But a glass sculpture of E. coli? Now that’s classy.

This beautiful piece of sculpture is the work of the artist Luke Jerram. Check out his web site for his entire Glass Microbiology project. Swine flu never looked so good.

(Hat tip to Stan Carey)

September 3rd, 2009 4:32 PM by Carl Zimmer in Microcosm: The Book | 12 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

12 Responses to “Microcosm In Glass”

1. Kitty'sBitch Says:
September 3rd, 2009 at 5:10 pm

Holy cow!
Those are too awesome for the word awesome to adequately describe.
2. Erik Vance Says:
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:40 pm

That…looks…REALLY…painful.
No wonder it gets everybody sick.
3. David B. Benson Says:
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:34 pm

Fabulous!
4. Captain Skellett Says:
September 3rd, 2009 at 11:12 pm

Stunning. Thanks for the hat tip
I’m hoping to get a set of molecular jewelry for my birthday. (Hope that html worked!)
5. caritz Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 3:14 am

Thanks for this – utterly amazing and beautiful as well. Great stuff.
6. Stan Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 8:24 am

Glad you liked them, Carl! It took me ages to draw my eyes away. Painstaking work, but what wonderful results.
7. Diversos virus representados en vidrio « [Px] Says:
September 4th, 2009 at 5:33 pm

[...] Glass Microbiology [...]
8. AdamK Says:
September 5th, 2009 at 11:29 am

Fragile much?
9. PaoloV Says:
September 6th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

They’re fabulous, but not a patch on the delicacy and detail of the microbiology glass models produced by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka in the 19th Century. I assume that Luke Jerram was inspired by the radiolarians produced by the Dresden-based lampworkers over a hundred years ago.
10. Beenish Siddiqi Says:
September 6th, 2009 at 9:59 pm

being a microbiologist and a molecular scientist, i already praise the Almighty for His creations.n no doubt the “E.coli craze” in science is now expanding… almost ever lab uses it as their horses…n see, it has left us to make a sculpture of it… simply wow..
11. Torbjörn Larsson, OM Says:
September 7th, 2009 at 5:56 am

Wow! I love glass and biology both.

Well, mostly clear glass to be exact, so I’ll take Jerram’s elegance over the Blaschka’s delicacy any day. So sorry PaoloV, but thanks for the info and photo anyway.
12. Glass Microbes, Science Goes Stylish | A Schooner of Science Says:
September 13th, 2009 at 11:42 pm

[...] tip to Carl Zimmer at the Loom. Cheers [...]

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