Lab 1.1 - Icon: Ramón y Cajal

My Old New Media Icon is Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852, 1934).

Ramón y Cajal was a Spanish neuroscientist who studied the anatomy and the workings of neurons and the brain in general, laying the foundations of modern neuroscience. Trained as a medical scientist, but also being a skilled painter, he made countless of drawings of neuronal structures and brain regions from microscopic viewings of tissue. These extremely detailed drawings provided new scientific insights in neuroanatomy, but they are also in my opinion beautiful drawings in themselves. Moreover they provide a good example of where the arts and sciences come together. For some more information and some of Cajal's drawings, see here.