[1]

For over forty years, Laurie Anderson has appropriated electronics, video, and (1) sound, to create art that defies categorization. In 1972, (2) Anderson ignited her career; by conducting a symphony using only car horns. [A] Five years later, she invented a violin that (3) clones as an audiotape player. Anderson went on to stage technology-enhanced per)formance art, direct music videos, and (4) invent tools to manipulate sound. [B] In 2002, Anderson’s fascination with technology contributed to her being named the first artist in residence at NASA, where she was given free rein to explore the facilities in search of inspiration. [C]

[2]

She found her inspiration in how technology has developed over time. When Anderson was growing up in the 1950s, space travel and artificial intelligence existed only in science fiction stories.

(5) A half century later, at NASA, Anderson witnessed the realization of both. During a visit to a virtual airport control center, Anderson (6) viewed panoramic images of the red planet, courtesy (7) from a video feed provided of the Mars Global Surveyor satellite. At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, she was introduced to robots that function autonomously through control- and-sensor-processing software. [D]

[3]

Drawing on her NASA experiences, Anderson wrote and produced a ninety-minute performance art piece titled The End of the Moon. The performance features Anderson on a candlelit (8) stage, standing in front of an image of the moon’s surface. (9)

Anderson begins the show by referencing the technology (10) to which she was privy at NASA.

Anderson then complements these references by subtly demonstrating (11) its impact on music. While (12) sweeping the bow over the strings of a viola, Anderson manipulates the music via a laptop computer. The string (13) music that transforms into electronic sounds, which then reverberate into futuristic, otherworldly music. The result is surreal and (14) stimulating exactly what you might expect from NASA’s inaugural artist in residence.

 [1]

Even though every zebra has a unique pattern of bold stripes on its coat, the animals look remarkably alike. (16) Zebras are willful animals. When in a herd, they become a mass of blended stripes and similar features that confuses a lion on the hunt. One zebra resembling another is not beneficial to researchers, though. Biologists trying to monitor individual zebras sometimes joke that finding one in the wild typically is (17) easy it’s finding the same one twice that’s hard.

[2]

(18) Working together, scientists at the University of Illinois and Princeton University developed a software program called StripeSpotter, which catalogs and identifies zebras. StripeSpotter translates the pattern of stripes on a zebra’s (19) side, into an identifier, similar to a bar code, that can be compared to other zebra stripe-pattern identifiers that have been stored in a database. (20)

[3]

The process begins when a researcher uploads a still photograph of a zebra to StripeSpotter. [A] The researcher then crops a rectangular section of the photograph, making sure to (21) take the stripes on the zebra’s side.[B] StripeSpotter converts that section into (22) a stark black- and-white image composed of parallel, vertical lines. The widths of the lines (23) correspond perfectly to the widths of the zebra’s stripes. (24) Providing the zebra’s “StripeCode,” unique to each animal in much the same way a fingerprint is unique to each person. The StripeCode is logged in the database, where a researcher uploading a new photograph of a zebra can scan the stored codes to find a potential match.

[4]

[C] StripeSpotter has proved so useful that (25) it’s developers plan to design similar programs for identifying other (26) animals. Any pattern (27) present over an animal’s life could be translated into an identification code—spots on a leopard’s hide, (28) the wrinkled trunk of an elephant, rings on a tortoise’s shell. So far, StripeSpotter has helped researchers (29) thoroughly monitor the social interactions and migration patterns of endangered zebra species in Kenya. [D]

[1]At the Broadway (31) Station of the Long Island Rail Road in Flushing, Queens, commuters ponder a mural spanning over three hundred square feet on the station’s south wall. [2] But as they come closer, commuters notice the silhouettes are also mosaics, constructed entirely of ceramic shards. [3] From afar, the mural appears as a series of aquamarine, vase-shaped silhouettes against a white tile background. (32)

The mural, titled Celadon Remnants, is artist Jean Shin’s homage (33) on the Korean American community in Flushing. When she was commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York City to (34) spawn a site-specific artwork, (35) visually representing her dual identity was a means sought by Shin as an American and a Korean. She chose to use traditional celadon pottery, albeit in a new way.

Celadon is a ceramic ware named for (36) its’ aquamarine glaze. Originally from China, celadon was further developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries in Korea, (37) in which inlaid designs and decorative elements were added. (38) Over the centuries, celadon became a cultural treasure in Korea. Today, South Korean ceramicists will accept nothing less than perfection in creating their art. In fact, if the ceramicist deems a piece imperfect, he or she will often scrap it entirely.

Shin decided that these scraps, or shards, would be an ideal medium for her mural. In 2008, she contacted ceramicists in the South Korean city of Icheon (39) for celadon shards and arranged to be shipped to Queens. The ceramicists sent Shin over six thousand shards.

Using the shards—many of (40) whose are adorned with (41) alphabetic symbols and assorted patterns—Shin constructed her mural. For Shin, the shards themselves took on (42) significance: they represented her feeling of being broken off or “fractured” from (43) their birthplace of Seoul, South Korea. In Queens, (44) Shin’s use of the fragments to construct an artwork that celebrated a Korean tradition. The result is sublime. 

The silhouettes merge Shin’s past and (45) present, creating an exquisite meditation on Korean American identity.

Able to grow as tall as a twenty-six-story building and as wide as a city street, (46) Earth has the largest living things, which are giant sequoia trees. Sequoia National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range (47) contains 275 known caves. Yet until 1903, few visitors could gain access to the trees in the park’s Giant (48) Forest: there was no completed road.

The US (49) Army—which from 1891 to 1913 was responsible for improving national parks during the summer months—had managed to complete only about six miles (50) to the road of the Giant Forest. Army Captain Charles Young, however, was not deterred. The first black superintendent of a national park and a revered leader of the army’s all-black 9th and 10th (51) Cavalries, Young had the experience needed to direct the completion of the project.

In June 1903, under Young’s command, the soldiers began work on the road. Soon the eleven-mile route was complete. By the middle of August, vehicles could enter the park. Young and his troops had succeeded where no one else had; they enabled visitors to get to the giant sequoias more easily.

(52) Because he had his troops (53) send most of their efforts into the road,Young was just as concerned with maintaining the park’s natural features. His troops guarded the grounds against illegal grazing, poaching, and logging.(54) Nevertheless, since tourist foot traffic tended to damage some of the giant sequoias, Young had his soldiers place fences around the most damaged trees to protect them from (55) future bad stuff.

Over one hundred years later, the contributions Young made possible (56) has been counted among the most significant in the park’s history. (57)  In 2003, the National Park Service decided to formally recognize the efforts of Captain Young (who (58) being promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1916).

Today, those who visit the park use Young’s road to reach the Giant Forest, (59) which is home to General Sherman, the world’s largest tree.

For decades, the diminutive jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii—mere millimeters wide as an adult—did not (61) unveil much notice from scientists. But in 1988, (62) marine biology student Christian Sommer observed T. dohrnii doing something (63) astonishing. Reverting from mature jellyfish to hydroid colonies, an earlier life stage. (64) In a sense, they grew younger.

T. dohrnii has (65) no brain or heart. After fertilization, a T. dohrnii egg develops into a free-swimming, ovoid larva. In time, the larva settles on the ocean floor and transforms into a mound of cells—a hydroid colony. Buds grow on the colony and develop into young jellyfish with the familiar bell-like shape and tentacles. These jellyfish then detach from the (66) colony, and drift away reaching maturity in a few weeks.

After Sommer’s discovery, studies confirmed that T. dohrnii’s life cycle is not a one-way street. An adult (67) T. dohrnii, if stressed—by injury, disease, or even just old age, has the ability to revert to a hydroid colony. That colony can then create new jellyfish, which in turn can also revert to hydroid colonies. There’s no apparent limit to these (68) perpetual cycles of metamorphic transformation.

In the 1990s, (69) journalists nicknamed T. dohrnii the “immortal jellyfish.” It is true that (70) scientists have replicated all stages of T. dohrnii’s life cycle, but each individual T. dohrnii isn’t immortal. Although the cells of the adult are essentially recycled during its transformation, all the new jellyfish grow into separate organisms—albeit genetically equivalent ones.

In a way, the new jellyfish are clones (71) amidst the originating adult. Scientists are still studying how T. dohrnii achieves (72) its transformations. At the cellular level, what the jellyfish (73) does, which is called transdifferentiation, wherein one type of cell becomes another type. (74) Understanding the mechanisms of T. dohrnii’s particular kind of transdifferentiation (75) may yield insights into aging and disease in all animals, including humans.