May 29 2012
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
February 22 2012
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.
October 28 2011
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.”
link
October 27 2011
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
See More from “Post-It Notes from the Underground #1”
#2: Published 10/31/11
Oakland, California - 10/26/11
Oakland, California - 10/26/11
See More from “Post-It Notes from the Underground #2”
#3: Published 10/31/11
San Francisco, California - 10/26/11
San Francisco, California - 10/26/11
See More from “Post-It Notes from the Underground #3”
linkMay 13 2011
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.
linkMarch 22 2011
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.
linkFebruary 8 2011
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.
Top image: Illustration of Italo Calvino's "The Distance of the Moon" by Joe Kloc. Bottom image: Illustrations of California's inshore fish by Joe Kloc.
