Joe Kloc

World Science Festival Playing Cards Illustrations

Tue, 29 May 2012 19:48:00 -0400

ILLUSTRATIONS FOR A DECK OF CARDS DESIGNED AND PRINTED BY THE WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL TO EDUCATE CHILDREN ABOUT BIODIVERSITY.

Spiny Head Blenny - gouache, pen and ink

Spiny Lobster - gouache, pen and ink

Bigfin Reed Squid - gouache, pen and ink

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Illustration for Rate My Study Abroad website

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Rate My Study Abroad

The Case of the Missing Moon Rocks

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:28:00 -0500

The Atavist

JOSEPH GUTHEINZ IS ON A MISSION TO SAVE THE MOON. DECADES AGO, ASTRONAUTS BROUGHT BACK 850 POUNDS OF ROCKS FROM THEIR LUNAR JOURNEYS; THE U.S. GAVE SOME AWAY AS “GOODWILL” GIFTS TO THE WORLD’S NATIONS. OVER TIME, MANY OF THEM DISAPPEARED, STOLEN OR LOST ON THE BLACK MARKET. GUTHEINZ, FIRST AS A NASA INVESTIGATOR AND THEN THE LEADER OF A RAGTAG GROUP OF STUDENTS, HAS DEDICATED HIS LIFE TO GETTING THEM BACK. AUTHOR JOE KLOC TELLS A WILD STORY OF GEOPOLITICS, CRIME, SCIENCE, AND ONE MAN’S OBSESSION TO KEEP THE MOON OUT OF THE WRONG HANDS.

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California's Inshore Fishes

Fri, 28 Oct 2011 18:26:00 -0400

I ILLUSTRATED SOME OF CALIFORNIA’S INSHORE FISHES. IF I’VE COLORED ANY OF THEM ACCURATELY, IT WAS A COMPLETE ACCIDENT. THE QUOTED TEXT IN THE CAPTIONS COMES FROM INSHORE FISHES OF CALIFORNIA, A BOOKLET VERY APPARENTLY PUBLISHED FIVE DECADES AGO.

Grass Rockfish (Sebastodes rastrelliger). “The grass rockfish is the most important of the rockfishes to rocky shore and jetty fishermen. When caught from the shore this cagey scrapper will use every trick in the book. He will sulk in cracks, crevices and caves or will tangle himself in seaweed, making his conquest difficult but rewarding if successful. Stripbaits, mussels, clams or shrimp will all entice this fellow to bite.”

Barred Surfperch (Amphistichus argenteus). “Almost nothing is known about the red tail and calico surfperch. There is especial need for information about large-sized ones… Surfperch fishing is good the year around; however old timers will tell you that December and January are consistently the best.”

Opaleye (Girella nigricans). “One of the most important fish in the rocky shore fisherman’s bag, in recent years opaleye have more or less come into the limelight… Opaleye are considered a good fish by many. Too many anglers discard them without giving them a good try.”

California Corbina (Menticirrhus undulates). “They are very particular feeders, apparently spitting out bits of clamshells and other foreign matter. About 90% of the food they eat is sand crabs. Clams and other crustaceans are of lesser importance.”

Post-it Notes from the Underground

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:36:00 -0400

The Rumpus

JOE KLOC VISITED BOTH OCCUPY OAKLAND AND OCCUPY SAN FRANCISCO. THE FOLLOWING IS A “POST-IT NOTE RECORD” (MADE UP OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND OVERHEARD QUOTES) THAT KLOC CREATED BASED ON SCENES HE WITNESSED.

#1: Published 10/26/11

Oakland, California - 10/16/11

San Francisco, California - 10/16/11

#2: Published 10/31/11

Oakland, California - 10/26/11

#3: Published 10/31/11

San Francisco, California - 10/26/11

Illustrations for "Reading Between the Genes"

Fri, 13 May 2011 20:03:00 -0400

Berkeley Science Review

ILLUSTRATIONS FOR AZEEN GHORAYSHI’S BERKELEY SCIENCE REVIEW COVER STORY ON SCIENTISTS’ EFFORTS TO MAP THE DARK GENOME. (CAPTIONS BY AZEEN GHORAYSHI)

To fit inside each individual cell, DNA must be condensed and packaged into fibers called chromatin. The double-stranded helical DNA first wraps around clusters of proteins called histones. The histones are arranged along the DNA like beads on a string, allowing the histone-DNA spool to coil, fold, and loop around themselves. The final product is the tightly packed fiber of chromatin, organized into distinct sets of chromosomes.

Histone modifications are one of many cellular mechanisms that work to control gene expression. Processing long amino acid tails (yellow), histones can be “tagged” with chemical modifications (red). These tags are then recognized by other cellular machinery that can work to silence or activate the DNA in that region. Histone modifications are a type of epigenetic mechanism, meaning they are heritable but not encoded directly in the genome.

Drosophilia melanogaster.

Caenorhabditis elegans.

In alternative splicing, a single gene can be read in multiple ways to produce different proteins. After transcription occurs (step 1), distinct segments of the RNA called introns (gray) are removed by cuts made on both sides at locations called splice junctions. The remaining RNA (colored) can then be reconnected to form different strands of mRNA (step 2). The different mRNAs will then serve as templates for the synthesis of different proteins (step 3).

Fascinated by Fear

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:15:00 -0400

Scientific American Mind

RESEARCHERS GET A RARE GLIMPSE AT LIFE WITHOUT FRIGHT.

One of the few exceptions to the old saying “everybody is afraid of something” is a 44-year-old woman known to psychologists as patient SM. She suffers from a rare case of brain damage to an almond-shaped region of her brain called the amygdala that, according to a paper published online December 16 in Current Biology, makes her incapable of experiencing fear.

The Mystery of Stack-O-Lee

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 04:17:00 -0400

Mother Jones

MORE THAN 400 ARTISTS HAVE RECORDED VERSIONS OF THE NOTORIOUS MURDER BALLAD—IF INDEED IT IS ONE.

On Christmas Day, 1895, a local pimp named “Stack” Lee Shelton walked into a St. Louis bar wearing pointed shoes, a box-back coat, and his soon-to-be infamous milk-white John B. Stetson hat. Stack joined his friend Billy Lyons for a drink. Their conversation settled on politics, and soon it grew hostile: Lyons was a levee hand and, like his brother-in-law—one of the richest black men in St. Louis at the time—a supporter of the Republican party. Stack had aligned himself with the local black Democrats. The details of their argument aren’t known, but at some point Lyons snatched the Stetson off Stack’s head. Stack demanded it back, and when Lyons refused, shot him dead.

The story of Stack-O-Lee—or Stack O’Lee or Stagger Lee or Stack A Lee depending on who’s singing—became the popular subject of murder ballads and blues songs in the early 20th century. In the liner notes of a new collection, People Take Warning: Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs, 1913-1938, Tom Waits argues that most murder ballads are “just a cut above graffiti…the oral tabloids of the day.” They were written by street singers to capitalize on the pulp appeal of violent local crimes. Certainly the ballad of Stack-O-Lee seems to have begun this way. But unlike most ballads of its time, Stack-O-Lee’s has survived and flourished through the years. What accounts for the story’s longevity?

Japanese Nuclear Reactor Systems Drawn Like a NYC Subway Map

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 15:55:00 -0400

Mother Jones

YOUR ONE-STOP DIAGRAM FOR UNDERSTANDING HOW THE FUKUSHIMA REACTORS WORK—AND WHY THEY BROKE DOWN.

Workers in Japan are still pouring seawater on overheating nuclear reactor rods at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in an effort to decrease the risk of further meltdowns. (Read Mother Jones’ detailed and regularly updated explainer on the current situation.) Here’s what they’re up against, as Kate Sheppard and Josh Harkinson explained shortly after the emergency began:

There are six boiling-water reactors on the site, though only three were in operation at the time of the earthquake. These systems, designed by General Electric, rely on an influx of water to cool the reactor core. But the water systems require electricity that was cut off by the earthquake. It also appears that something—the initial quake, the tsunami, or aftershocks—knocked the site’s back-up generators offline. Without the cooling system bringing in water, the core of a reactor will start to overheat—which in turn heats up the water already in the system and causes more of it to turn to steam. Emergency responders have been forced to vent some of the steam, releasing radiation, in order to prevent the containment domes from exploding. They are in a race against the clock to bring in new water supplies before the reacting nuclear fuel heats up beyond control.

When I couldn’t find a schematic that showed the Fukushima reactors’ failed cooling systems in relation to their various other workings, I set out to remedy the problem in a visually accessible way. Think of the schematic diagram below like a New York City subway map. It shows the various components, connections, and relationships between the emergency water systems inside the Fukushima’s five GE Mark I reactors. (A sixth reactor is a similar, though slightly newer, design.) It is based on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Boiling Water Reactor Systems Manual, which contains drawings of the various Mark I emergency systems. In places where the manual was unclear, I consulted Japanese news broadcasts. The drawings are not to scale and the layout of the pipes entirely my own (their location in relation to the various containment walls is based on the NRC manual).

Mark I Reactor Components: (A) Uranium fuel rods; (B) Steam separator and dryer assemblies (C) Graphite control rods; (D) Vent and head spray; (E) Reactor vessel; (F) Feedwater inlet; (G) Low pressure coolant injection inlet; (H) Steam outlet; (I) Core spray inlet; (J) Jet pump; (K) Recirculation pump; (L) Concrete shell “drywell”; (M) Venting system; (N) Suppression pool; (O) Boron tank; (P) Condensate storage tank; (Q) High pressure coolant injection system; (R) HCIS turbine; (S) Automatic depressurization system; (T) Main turbine; (U) Connection to generator; (V) Condenser; (W) Circulating water; (X) Connection to outside service water; (Y) Concrete shield plug; (Z) Control rod drives. Illustrations by Joe Kloc.

The Illustrated Guide to Epigenetics

Tue, 08 Feb 2011 13:01:00 -0500

Mother Jones

HOW DO HUNDREDS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF CELLS ALL DEVELOP FROM THE SAME GENOME? THIS IS THE QUESTION DRIVING THE EMERGING SCIENCE OF EPIGENETICS. HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW.

What is epigenetics? Human life begins as a single cell equipped with all of the genetic information—known as the genome—it will need to develop into a full-grown adult. Through a process of repeated cell division, this cell eventually multiplies into tens of trillions of cells, each containing a complete copy of the genome. Despite having identical genetic information, these trillions of cells somehow develop into hundreds of different cell types—from brain to liver cells—that make up the human body (FIGURE 1). Figuring out how one genome can produce so many different types of cells is, in a nutshell, the project of a subfield of genetics known as epigentics.

Nucleosome: DNA coils around proteins called histones, forming a nucleosome. (Note: This is a simplified drawing. In reality DNA wraps twice around a core group of eight histones.)Illustrations by Joe Kloc.

Yellow, Black, and Blues

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:49:00 -0500

Seed magazine

A LOOK AT OUR AGRICULTURAL PAST MAY EXPLAIN WHY HONEY BEES AROUND THE WORLD BEGAN DISAPPEARING THREE YEARS AGO.

Consider the story of the 1951 Muddy Waters song “Honey Bee”: When Waters arrived in Chicago in 1943 he found no audience for what he called the “sad old-time blues” that he’d learned growing up in Mississippi, listening to delta greats like Son House and Robert Johnson. So he spent the next couple years working full-time factory jobs as he tried to find a place for his woeful southern songs in the hot Chicago music scene alive with dancing pianos and swing jazz.

Then in 1945 Waters’ uncle gave him an electric guitar. It was this event that music historian Ted Gioia later called “a major step forward in the history of Chicago Blues, a harbinger of the electrified sound of that music.” Waters crafted his songs to fit the new instrument’s piercing volume and confidence. At the age of 33 he had his first hit, and soon after found himself in a recording studio for Chess records, solidifying his increasingly singular sound as he laid down three soon-to-be top-10 hits on the Billboard R&B Chart.

“Sail on, sail on my little honey bee, sail on…” he cried, with all the joy of a man who had struggled for more than a decade, unappreciated, before finally succeeding in creating something truly original. “Honey Bee” was an electrified version of a song he had written years back on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. In some ways, it was just another blues song: the bee, with its long stinger and its sweet honey, had long been a staple of sexual imagery in the blues (“I got a bumble bee… he got all the stinger I need,” sang Memphis Minnie in 1929). But Waters had recast the honey bee from a sexual symbol to an ideal of dependable love, made bitter by worry: In lyrics strung out by the blue notes of the guitar, he wonders if despite his lovers constancy, she may never return. “…I don’t mind you sailing,” he howled, “but please don’t sail so long.”

Winds of Change

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Seed magazine

THE STORIES WE TELL PROVIDE US WITH A RECORD OF OUR CONTINUING STRUGGLE TO UNDERSTAND THE PECULIAR EFFECTS WEATHER HAS ON OUR LIVES.

The Hopi people of the southwestern US have a story: During a long drought when corn wouldn’t grow, the tribe began running out of food. Two children made a toy hummingbird that, as they tossed it into the air, came to life. It flew to the center of the Earth and begged the god of fertility for help. And he made it rain.

For as long as we have been telling stories, we have been telling them about weather, trying, in the absence of scientific certainty, to understand its influence on our lives. In the small body of research there has been on the topic, we’ve found that wind and heat can make us cranky, violent, sick, and suicidal. We honk more horns, have more headaches, kill more people and, according to a recent study, even fight more wars.

“Warming increases the risk of civil war in Africa,” reads the title of a paper published in PNAS in November that looked at the relationship between temperature and armed conflict in the sub-Sahara. Researchers found that violence was more likely to erupt in years with hotter weather. “If the temperature goes up by just one degree, crop yields can decline by 20 percent or more,” explains Marshall Burke, one of the study’s authors. “Since 75 percent of poor Africans are engaged in agriculture for their livelihoods, these small changes can have big influence on their incentives to join rebellions.” It’s a frighteningly simple logic that suggests a frighteningly simpler one: The hotter Africa gets, the more violent a place it will become.

The Hopi had a similar appreciation for the weather, though they made sense of it not through research but narrative. Stories like theirs give us a record of how humanity has coped with and tried to escape the influence of its environment. Many of these stories have been unknowingly shaped by the scientific thinking of their time, reflecting our bizarre and often specious attempts to put scientific explanation behind the still largely mysterious feeling we get that, when the weather changes, so do we.

Into the Uncanny Valley

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Seed magazine

NEW FINDINGS SHED LIGHT ON A CENTURY’S WORTH OF BIZARRE EXPLANATIONS FOR THE EERIE FEELING WE GET AROUND LIFELIKE ROBOTS.

A dead body appears in almost every way to be a normal human. But the pallid skin and empty eyes signal that the person-shaped form we are looking at is, in a way we can’t even fully grasp, strange and disturbing.

We feel a similar eeriness when interacting with robots and models that look almost human but fall short of convincing us because of subtle peculiarities in their features. Poor box office returns on computer-animated films like “The Polar Express” and “Beowulf” were blamed on moviegoers finding the not quite true-to-life characters unsettling.

Disturbing experiences that feel both familiar and strange are instances of the “uncanny,” an intuitive concept, yet one that has defied simple explanation for more than a century. Interest in the particular occurrences of the uncanny, in which humans are bothered by interaction with human-like models, began as a psychological curiosity. But as our ability to design artificial life has increased—along with our dependence on it—getting to the heart of why people respond negatively to realistic models of themselves has taken on a new importance. Attempts to understand the origins of this reaction, known since the 1970s as the “uncanny valley response,” have drawn on everything from repressed fears of castration to an evolutionary mechanism for mate selection, but there has been little empirical evidence to assess the validity of these ideas.

New findings published in PNAS this September are putting some long-overdue experimental rigor behind the uncanny valley. Last spring at Princeton’s Neuroscience Institute, Asif Ghazanfar developed a computer model of a macaque monkey designed to interact with real macaques. But the monkeys weren’t fooled. Further testing revealed that, much to Ghazanfar’s surprise, his model was eliciting an uncanny valley response from the monkeys. It was the first time scientists had ever observed such a response in a non-human species.

“By showing that monkeys can do it, several things become plausible,” Ghazanfar says. “One is that there is an evolutionary explanation for the uncanny valley and the other is that it is not something specific to our human, cultural experience.” These findings may for the first time allow scientists to go back through a century’s worth of peculiar ideas about the origins of the uncanny valley and begin putting them to the test.

The Wagnerian Method

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Seed magazine

PHYSICISTS INVESTIGATE THE GRAND ARTISTIC VISION OF ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF THE LAST TWO CENTURIES.

When physicist John Smith spent the night in his garden with the score to Götterdämmerung, the final opera in Richard Wagner’s four-part, 15-hour epic, Der Ring des Nibelungen, he wasn’t interested in its account of the apocalyptic struggle of Norse gods for control of the world. Smith was concerned with a struggle of a different sort—one between the opera’s words and music that might elucidate the controversial German composer’s peculiar vision for the future of art.

On Smith’s mind was an age-old difficulty all soprano singers face: They mispronounce lyrics when singing powerfully in the top half of their range. This “soprano problem” was formally recognized at least as far back as 1843, when French composer Hector Berlioz wrote in his Treatise on Instrumentation that “[sopranos] should not be required to sing many words on high phrases, since this makes the pronunciation of syllables very difficult if not impossible.” It does not appear, however, that Berlioz—or anyone else—ever understood why this problem occurred.

In 2004, Smith and his colleagues Joe Wolfe and Elodie Joliveau at the University of New South Wales published a study in theJournal of the Acoustical Society of America that revealed the physiological cause of the soprano problem for the first time. They sent an acoustic signal through the vocal tracts of nine sopranos and used a microphone to measure how the signal changed when the sopranos sang vowel sounds at various pitches. They found that when a soprano sings at high pitches, she adjusts her vocal tract to make her voice resonate. In effect, she “tunes” the resonance frequency of her vocal tract to match the frequency of the pitch at which she is singing. This vocal-tract tuning, which gives a soprano’s voice enough power to fill an opera house, is what makes certain words at high pitches difficult for the audience to understand. (It is joked by singers that Wagner’s character of Siegfried in Der Ring des Nibelungen ought to have been called Sahgfried, as his name is sometimes pronounced that way by sopranos looking to get the most volume out of their voices.) Jane Eaglen, a critically acclaimed soprano who has performed Wagner’s works in opera houses worldwide, explains that sopranos must try to find a balance between power and clarity. “It’s really about how you modify the vowels at the top of the voice so that the words are still understandable but so that you are also making the best sound that you can make,” she says.