From an evolutionary point of view, sponges are ideal targets to study marine symbioses as they are the most ancient living metazoans and harbour highly diverse microbial communities. A recently discovered association between the sponge Hemimycale columella and an intracellular bacterium that generates large amounts of calcite spherules has prompted speculation on the possible role of intracell...

The geometric skeleton is derived from a static object using an implicit ‘directions’ method; an IK skeleton is derived from and used to manipulate the geometric skeleton. The model may be reconstructed from the modified skeleton using implicit distance and convolution methods. Introduction We examine the use of the skeleton to manipulate erstwhile static 3D models. These models may be generate...

Looking down a microscope at dead fish for eight months can change an artist’s perspective on nature— and even influence her art. Textile artist Annet Couwenberg discovered such anatomical insights first hand when, in the summer of 2014, she embarked on a stint in the laboratory as part of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, a program that lets artists access the museum’s vast collectio...