What do you get when you aim a high resolution microscope at crystalized chemical patterns of beer?
Answer: Art.
From left to right: Steinlager (shaped like the NZ coastline), La Fin Du Monde (a bit dark on the left, like Canada), Fischer LaBelle Strasbourgeoise (French beer, I had to put it in but it's not good, even the picture looks like vomit), Anchor Steam (the more I look at the picture, the more I taste the beer), Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout (it's the oats, they draw you in), Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout (two stouts, yet so different, like sisters), Rogue American Amber Ale (if ever there was a reason to call Rogue's beer art, here it is in the brush strokes of nature), OB Dry (Korea's like tie dye), Hackerbräu Edelhell Malt Liquor (that's right, the german one looks like boobs) AH-MAZE-ING! What more convincing do you need that this is the coolest thing you've ever seen?
Well, the beer list goes on and on! Yet still they are in dire need of more beer. Here is a list of the countries that they don't have beer from, one of them being Belgium. Embarrassing, but in 2003 (the last update of the website) the science geeks weren't able to find many foreign beers in Tallahassee, Florida. Can someone please help these guys out? ... There aren't any IPAs on the list. The IPA one will look like Jesus, I'm sure.
"We usually look for cells that are photogenic."
Where does microscopic beer art come from?
This guy:
http://youtu.be/qy2Yow23I9o
hint: beer stuff doesn't come in until 4:48 but the whole thing is worth a watch
Michael Davidson, research scientist at Florida State University is one of those science geeks turned starving artist, turned... science geek.
Dividson starts out stating that his department at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory isn't so much driven my science but commercial applications. So what ARE the commerical applications of microscopic photographs of chemical crystalizations.
Neck ties. Starting with vitamin neck ties and then on to moon rocks from Apollo 11 landing.
"unfortunately the general public does not have an aesthetic appreciation of a photograph of a moon rock through a microscope."
So they didn't connect with the moon rock neck tie collection. What did 'sell like hot cakes' and make Mike his 2 million? The cocktail neck tie collection. Aw yes. Makes sense. The 2 million earned from the cocktail neck tie collection is what funded the institution he works in now.
[caption id="attachment_1360" align="aligncenter" width="489"]
You are looking at a Zima (it was listed under beers!)[/caption]Back to the beer
It takes 500-1000 samples of same beer to get one good sample. Assuming that a sample is one drop, I'm fairly sure this guy drinks the back up testers.
You can purchase your very own high resolution 18" x 22" poster of one of the listed beers (unless someone wants to see if they take requests, hint, hint) for about $30 plus shipping and handling.
I'd love to see some updated versions of these- I'm a nerd of many things, science being one of them. Just in posting these pictures, I've memorized which ones are which and that makes me geek-a-liciously happy.
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