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Lab Technician & Learning Coordinator (part-time)

3 February 2021

We Began as Part of the Body

10 November 2020

COVID-19 Update

18 March 2020

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Beyond the Naked Eye: Microscopy Beginners Course 2020

*Update: We regret to announce that due to the current public health crisis, Beyond the …

ASCUS @ 11 Years

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ascusartandscience

At ASCUS we are winding down for the year and ASCU

At ASCUS we are winding down for the year and ASCUS Lab will be closed 22nd Dec-4 Jan. It’s been a challenging year but we’d like to thank you all; our lab members, audiences, funders and communities for your support. Things have been quieter as we busy ourselves behind the scenes to change the ways we bring you our work, so thank you for your patience and we look forward to sharing new ideas and experiments with you next year. In the meantime wishing you all a relaxing and restful festive break and see you in 2021 🎄🔔🎁☃️❄️

At ASCUS we are winding down for the year and ASCU

At ASCUS we are winding down for the year and ASCUS Lab will be closed 22nd Dec-4 Jan. It’s been a challenging year but we’d like to thank you all; our lab members, audiences, funders and communities for your support. Things have been quieter as we busy ourselves behind the scenes to change the ways we bring you our work, so thank you for your patience and we look forward to sharing new ideas and experiments with you next year. In the meantime wishing you all a relaxing and restful festive break and see you in 2021 🎄🔔🎁☃️❄️

Great to see the culmination of @beverley.hood.stu

Great to see the culmination of @beverley.hood.studio' project #Webeganaspartofthebody which began with a residency at #Brownlab in partnership with ourselves.

We can't wait to experience @beverley.hood.studio's mixed reality world. View #ASCUSLab as you've never seen it before.
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#Repost @beverley.hood.studio
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#Webeganaspartofthebody mixed reality #MR artwork for @magicleap headset finally final and finished. 3.5 years in the making, starting with an @ascusartandscience residency at the #Brownlab eczema generic research laboratory #universityofdundee in 2017. Made with the help of many great collaborators - thank you all!!! Unity development by #hemalbodasing sound design by @soundslikezoe LIDAR scans by @___asad.k supported by @creativescots @edinburghcollegeofart & @edinburghuniversity @educreatestudio. Time to lie down...

#ASCUSLabTools. You'd be forgiven for feeling 'all

#ASCUSLabTools. You'd be forgiven for feeling 'all shook up' sometimes in #ASCUSLab

There's a whole lot of wobbling, spinning, shaking and vibrating going on. It's all down to the lab 'vortex' and 'belly dancer' stirring and mixing machines known as agitators.

They provide a variety of motions for small and bigger experiments to dissolve solutes, mix reactions and much much more. We can't wait for you to join the experimentation again.
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Loving the home experimentation crystal imagery @

Loving the home experimentation crystal imagery @_primordialsoup is creating with an #ASCUSLab microscope on loan. #ASCUSLabToolsAtHome
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#Repost @_primordialsoup
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Creating different ascorbic acid crystal textures/patterns through temperature variation..thanks a lot to @ascusartandscience for lending me some equipment to do some home experimentation during lockdown!

#meetourmicrobes. What's white, fluffy and stronge

#meetourmicrobes. What's white, fluffy and stronger than concrete?

We’d love to introduce you to #Mycelium, another microorganism from our #ASCUSLab collection. A shape shifting mass of branching thread-like strands, it's fond of networking and forms the vegetative part of a fungus.

When combined with plant material like rye or wheat the mycelium fibers act as a glue and can form a super-strong fireproof material useable in design and construction. Mycelium can construct and also deconstruct, capable of breaking down organic matter using powerful enzymes. It has been called upon to clean up oil spills in the Amazon, boat fuel pollution in Denmark and contaminated soil in New Zealand.

The microorganism is taking over the design world with many designers becoming wise to its amazing properties. @blast.studio, a group of designers in London are a zero-waste company creating beautiful furniture and other products by combining mycelium and discarded coffee cups.
Another genius of the microbial world, what can you design or solve with this cunning fungus?

First image courtesy of https://funguys.co.za

#meetourmicrobes A polymath of the microbial worl

#meetourmicrobes
A polymath of the microbial world, this microbe has many talents.

We’d love to introduce you to Streptomyces coelicolor, another microbe from our #ASCUSLab collection available for creative play when we reopen. They are quite complicated wee creatures made up of many cells and like to branch out in a mass of wiggly fungi like threads. The needs of this bacteria are simple, happiest in the soil, their diet consists of sugar and malt. Like that romantic 'after the rain' smell in the forest known as geosmin? They are responsible. They can survive even in highly polluted areas and frozen Siberian soil and they are responsible for over two-thirds of all natural antibiotics. In ASCUS Lab you can co-design with them, they produce a beautiful bright blue pigment. They've also been used to create a natural chemical free dye for textiles, take a look at designer, @natsaiaudrey's beautiful designs, #projectcoelicolor.

Co-designer, healer, survivor, I'm sure you'll agree these invisible friends are pretty special.
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#geosmin #livingpaint #clevermicrobes #naturalantbiotic #fungi #bacteria #streptomycescoelicolor #microbialdesign #multicellular

Thanks to @brightsidestudios for sharing imagery

Thanks to @brightsidestudios for sharing imagery from their augmented reality film, Invisible Landscapes of Music shown last year at Aberdeen Music Hall. Through their research in #ASCUSLab they uncovered the fascinating microcosmos of the music world by taking samples from musical instruments and examining them under our microscopes. We love supporting our community to discover new hidden worlds with our tools.
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#Repost @brightsidestudios
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Summerhall

This is what a string of a violin bow looks like under the microscope at different magnifications🔬 We filmed these discoveries in the @ascusartandscience lab @summerhallery and found them truly fascinating! This is a small extract from our AR film Invisible Landscapes of Music 🎶 .
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#augementedreality #film #brightside #tech #love #art #science #music #miscroscope #discovery #artandscience #invisibletothenakedeye #microscopyart #cell #scienceart #sciencefun #hiddengems

We are working on when and how we can welcome peop

We are working on when and how we can welcome people back to #ASCUSLab, keeping our community safe. In the mean time we thought we'd share some of the tools waiting to be used again.
One of the many exciting art-science #ASCUSLabTools is our drawing microscope. We are delighted to house a Zeiss camera lucida.
A 'drawing arm' containing a mirror attaches to the microscope and allows the observer to simultaneously view what's on the slide and the paper where he/she is creating a trace, continuously looking down the lens, creating a more accurate drawing.
Do you like our drawing of a caterpilar's head?
How are you keeping creative at home?
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We are more than a little disappointed to not be a

We are more than a little disappointed to not be at Summerhall this evening launching our @edscifest exhibition, #Syncrasy with @summerhallcurated. Thanks to one of the planned featured artists, @victoriaevansartist for sharing a 'micro detail' of Oscillations.

Using a process of data sonification as a starting point, Evans makes audible the rhythmic, cyclical patterns of the tides and their interplay with lunar and solar orbits throughout the course of a year.
We re looking forward to showing hers, @beverley.hood.studio
and Sneha Solanki's work when we can.
#Repost @victoriaevansartist
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Tonight would have been the opening of #Oscillations with @jaregger1 @ascusartandscience @summerhallery part of #Syncrasy with @beverley.hood.studio and #snehasolanki for @edscifest. I would love to be sharing the work, drinks and chats with everyone tonight but hope you enjoy this micro detail in its place!
#tidepools #suspensions ##meditation #slowtime #lookinginward #orbs #nocrystalball #postponednotcancelled #datasonification #movingimageinstallation

#meetourmicrobes They are simple single celled cr

#meetourmicrobes
They are simple single celled creatures, oval shaped and they like to get cosy and clump together preferring to grow on salty malt extract.

We’d love to introduce you to another microbe from our #ASCUSLab collection available for creative play, Baker’s Yeast! 👩🏼‍🍳 Love it or hate it, yeast is a root ingredient of marmite. As you know it also gives bread it’s bulk and we should all be thankful for its place in beer production.
Some artists have used bakers yeast in their practise. Artist, Sneha Solanki has recultured and nurtured it to act like a carrot, produce beta carotene and glow orange in ASCUS Lab. She is investigating and highlighting unsung microbes in food systems.

Image courtesy of artist, Sneha Solanki.

#meetourmicrobes Let us introduce you to pigmente

#meetourmicrobes
Let us introduce you to pigmented bacteria, available for play in #ASCUSLab.

It has the power to create vibrant colours red, purple, yellow, blue, pink, orange and violet, its effectively living paint. Fun fact, the pigment produced can even be used to dye fabrics such as blue for denim jeans.
The bacteria has the ability to make antibiotics, this type prefers to keep a distance from other bacteria. Whereas other forms have flagella which need a liquid so that the bacteria can swim and move freely to make a interaction between each other. Use this knowledge to co design with the microbe.
Join us in ASCUS Lab to create your own design during one of our open sessions! Link in bio #livingpaint #ascuslab #art #science #artscience #artsci #pigmentedbacteria #pigment #red #purple #yellow #blue #pink #orange #violet #design #create

“It’s dark and it matters”⁣ One artist's i

“It’s dark and it matters”⁣ One artist's interpretation of dark matter.⁣
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Swipe for more art-sci exchange. ⁣
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Only two more days until our #ArtSciPostcard2020 workshop with @intersci_ed Thurs 20th Feb 18:30-21:00 in #ASCUSLab. ⁣
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We have one more space for a artist to pair with one of our our scientists. What could you create? ⁣
We’d love to see you there! ⁣
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Link in bio⁣
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#creativeprocess #creativityfound #designisinthedetails #creativecommunity #colorventures #artdiscover #artinprogress

5 artists, 5 scientists, one open science lab, lot

5 artists, 5 scientists, one open science lab, lots of inspiration, exchange and creativity. ⁣
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We're delighted to announce Art & Science on a Postcard 2020 with @intersci_ed begins next Thurs 13th Feb with our mixer event at Forest Cafe, then the main event in ASCUS Lab on Thurs 20th Feb. ⁣
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We have spaces for artists and scientists. Meet your partner and start the artsci conversation. ⁣
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We can't wait to see you there.⁣
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See link in bio.

Christmas Crystals Workshop. Get creative with li

Christmas Crystals Workshop.

Get creative with liquid crystals in ASCUS Lab this Christmas. ⁣
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📅Thurs 12th December⁣
🕙6.30 -7.30pm⁣
📍ASCUS Lab
🎫£10(9) ⁣

Book ⁣using 🔗 in bio ⁣
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Create your own collection of unique digital Christmas card designs using our guided crystallography techniques, polarised light microscopes and DSLR cameras. We'll provide Christmas tunes and treats. ⁣

Ticket also includes access to the last open session of the year so you can carry on experimenting into the evening.

See you in the lab.

A seasonally themed post thanks to a textile artis

A seasonally themed post thanks to a textile artist who joined our workshop, Snow Shift: Reimagining Snow Data in September, @dstitched
Is currently on an exciting artist residency in Norway. She's taken inspiration from what was shared and explored during the workshop. We're enjoying following her progress.
#newperspectives
#snowscience #snowdata
#snowstructure #artscience

#Repost @map_making
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Dale I Sunnfjord, Sogn Og Fjordane, Norway

Painter Liz and quantum biologist Alex were matche

Painter Liz and quantum biologist Alex were matched at our networking and knowledge exchange workshop, Art & Science on a Postcard in Dalkeith a few weeks ago. Exchanging research and creative practice, these are the postcards they created.
Alex said, "Am so happy we found a way to evoke cells, and the idea of wavelike dynamics happening inside them. A beautiful way of introducing people to Quantum Biology.

The process is called a 'dirty pour' and uses acrylic paints, floetrol and silicone. I told Liz my work involves things that are fundamentally uncertain, and she chose this method as something where you never know what the final work will look like.

I had no idea what would happen but we worked together sending videos and abstract art to each other until it clicked and she found just the right medium." A beautiful result from a brilliant art-science connection.

All work produced at the workshop is on display at Dalkeith Arts Autumn exhibition at Riccio Gallery, Dalkeith until 1st November.

We are bringing #ArtSciPostcard to Midlothian Sci

We are bringing #ArtSciPostcard to Midlothian Science Festival.
Get paired with an artist or scientist, share knowledge and creativity & create fantastic imagery together in this FREE creative exchange and networking workshop.
Mixer event this Sat 5th Oct for you to meet and mingle before the main event on Sat 12th Oct at Dalkeith Arts Centre, Dalkeith. Choose either morning or afternoon. Visit our Facebook events page or Intersci Eventbrite for more info and to book. 🔬🖌️ See you there.

Mixer Oct 5, 10:00 to 12:00, Dalkeith Arts Centre
Workshops
Oct 12, Morning 10:00 to 12:30, Dalkeith Arts Centre
Oct 12, Afternoon 13:00 to 15:30, Dalkeith Arts Centre
very few tickets left

Beautifully designed stained glass window? Anothe

Beautifully designed stained glass window?
Another mesmerising view down the lens in #ASCUSLab during the 3rd session of our microscopy skills course, 'Beyond The Naked Eye' last night.
This was designed by nature. We are privileged to be viewing a thin section of metamorphic rock half the width of a hair under polorised light. The colours are produced by different crystals reacting with the light. We love nature as designer.

#creativescience
#creativemicroscopy
#BeyondtheNakedEye
#artscience
#creativeexperimentation
#polorisedlight
#metamorphicrock
#minerals
#crystals

Some collaborative 'exquisite imagined lands' on p

Some collaborative 'exquisite imagined lands' on paper and 'changing landscape portraits' using photographs, ice and other materials from todays workshop ' Snow Shift: Reimagining Snow Data'' with 12 artist/designers our guest artist and snow scientists in #ASCUSLab.
In the 1st workshop of its kind, we had a fantastic day doing what we do best; supporting artists and scientists share knowledge, research and creativity. ❄️🌨️🏔️ #snowscience
#artscience
#creativescience
#snowdata
#arctic
#boreal
#maritime
#snowresearchtools

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ASCUS 2021 | All Rights Reserved | Cookies Policy | Privacy Policy ‎

EMERGING FROM LOCKDOWN

September 2020

At ASCUS we have resumed our membership programme and are adopting the Scottish Government guidelines as we endeavour to get our organisation and it’s programmes back on track, as and when it is safe to do so. We are in conversation with our community and partners and we are working together to explore different ways to adapt our work to the current circumstances.
Thank you for your support and patience

Read our full statement here >

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