Art 9. A story by a galaxy of cells

Artwork by Hao-Kuen Lin, photography by Vivian Lee 

Materials and Methods

A172, a brain cancer cell line, was cultured with RPMI. Bright field image was photographed by Zeiss imaging, and subsequently segmented to get the cell boundaries using MATLAB. To study the inter-distance between cells, minimum spanning tree algorithm was applied to connect each cell in the graph. Several edges were then removed for the final presentation.

Pictures of constellation were taken from following source with removal of background and transparency adjustment. All images are authorized for reuse and modification.
[1] Orion and Taurus. Ioannis Elerti Bode uranographia sive astrorum descriptio ... Berlin : Bode, 1801. ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Rar 10278, https://doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-11148 / Public Domain Mark
[2] Cygnus, Hydra, Leo Major and Leo Minor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urania%27s_Mirror#
[3] Rabbit. https://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/YR0627257/Rabbit?t=2&q=Henri+Verstijnen
[4] Capybara. https://flickr.com/photos/126377022@N07/20582010590

Description

Right before falling asleep after a day of hard work, a galaxy of cells emerges under the microscope, telling a story that takes place a long time ago…

(The charging Taurus, deadly Hydra, and King Leo along with baby Leo have surrounded the Orion. In this desperate time, he tries his best to survive and looks at Capybara and Rabbit for visual comforts…)

Submitted by Hao-Kuen Lin