3-D Composition, Spring 2010

Bdelloid Rotifer's innards are taking shape, as in 3-D, during this home class time. Taking some license with colors in keeping with using recycled. So far bag colors come from Great Harvest, Fanatis pita bread, Alvarado St. Bakery flax bread, and Plaskolite plexiglass sheet protector. The "eyes" and stomach are Xmas tissue. Her seltzer water bottle "foot" is in place.

3-D Composition, Spring 2010

Bdelloid Rotifer innards have a design flaw: in attempts to use recycled materials as much as possible, the lateral intellarium canals cut and pasted from a bread bag, fell out of place when weights were removed. Elmer's School Paste—a bottle on hand for years—would not hold the rolled plastic pieces in place.

In the photo, the "spine" of the rotifer has gut organs layout painted in acrylic, from small containers of colors purchased from Wal-Mart, originally used to paint drawer pulls during my apartment renovation.

The roitfer is looking....spare, at this point. It has to have rolls and folds like the Pillsbury doughboy, only clear, not fleshy.

3-D Composition, Spring 2010

Bdelloid Rotifer construction. How to do? It's a segmented, clear skinned, water-dweller. Some bdelloids have yellowish-orange organs, 2 red eyes and dark spots in their upper chest and foot regions. How to make their skin? How to support? How to make colored organs? A rotifer stand?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100128142130.htm

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/09/bdelloid_rotifers_-_80_million_years_without_sex.php

Draw a likeness on paper. Assembled used newspaper box window plexi, used for inner core support. Clear saran wrap for innards; 2L seltzer bottle for outer segments. Drag out acrylics and some brushes. Will paint adhere to clear wrap? Does it come in colors?

3-D Composition, Spring 2010

Dbdelloid Rotifers - tiny, leach-like creatures found in mud and water pools, have survived for ~80 million years without sex. Now, here's a creature worth exploring! Watching a NPR, Science Friday video of their asexual evolution—made for non-scientific consumption—got me hooked on making a mock-up of same.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/videos/watch/10266

Compiled a small sheaf of printable information on rotifers that leaves one admiring these females who have existed fine-thank-you-very-much for a very long time without a man around. Various posts by readers, including musing whether or not these asexuals tend propagate in water features around Catholic churches, makes learning even more enjoyable by adding to the scientific data, asking pertinent questions or just being silly.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/the-weird-sisters/

3-D Composition, Spring 2010

Assignment 2 - "creature". Class sample: a newspaper constructed, ~2 1/2 ft. "bug." My first foray into creaturedom was an attempt at a Sinosauropteryx, that had just had a color profile done some 125 million years after life. Seems melatonin (pigment) sacks are different shapes, depending on color, and fossils of primitive feathers can shed light on original dinosaur color. Photo from NPR archives of S.....x with his/her raccoon-style tail.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123018405

I was not pleased with my wire frame bending and wadding newspaper attempts, so a new Science Friday story on developments on the evolution of bdelloid rotifers—a wonderful creature name—caught my attention.