
An example of Livvy Fink's artwork / Photograph courtesy of Nic Walton, used with permission
This entry is part 10 of 30 in the series Science Snaps
These ghostly blobs have been carefully created in glass by artist Livvy Fink, as part of a collaboration with researchers at our Cambridge Institute and the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge.
On the left, the glass is lit by white light, but the picture on the right was taken under the glow of an ultraviolet lamp.

Inspiration: dividing cells, photographed by Dr Stefanie Reichelt from our Cambridge Institute
Her work is inspired by the exciting project we wrote about here, bringing together astronomers with cancer researchers to adapt star-gazing software to analyse images of breast tumour cells seen down the microscope.
Through this work our scientists are aiming to identify new ways to identify and understand cancer cells (you can read more about it on the Cambridge University website too).
Livvy’s artworks aim to capture the wonder of the universe – from distant galaxies far, far away, to the microscopic cells within our own bodies. Are these delicate orbs cells or stars? It’s all a matter of perception.
This image is just one of thirteen pieces that Livvy has made for the LENS exhibition at the University’s Institute of Astronomy as part of the Cambridge Science Festival, supported by the Wellcome Trust. The show is running until this Saturday (21st March), so make sure you head down if you’re in the area.
Full details can be found at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/public/cambridge.science.festival.activities/fink.glass.exhibition.
All are welcome, and entry is free.
– Kat
- Introducing our Science Snaps series
- Science Snaps: capturing the immune system and cancer
- Science Snaps: a sea of cells
- Science Snaps: why aren’t flies as big as hippos?
- Science Snaps: designer drugs
- Science Snaps: how skin cancer spreads – the round or flat of it
- Science Snaps: what can fluorescent fish teach us about skin cancer?
- Science Snaps: peering inside an expanding lymph node
- Science Snaps: Sir Henry Morris and the ‘anonymous Gentleman’
- Science Snaps: the art and science of cancer, the universe and everything
- Science Snaps: exposing melanoma’s ‘safe haven’ to help tackle drug resistance
- Science Snaps: divide by two
- Science Snaps: bridging the gap between nerve repair and cancer spread
- Science Snaps: prioritising the gene faults behind bowel cancer
- Science Snaps: switching T cells on – size matters
- Science Snaps: how knowing the shape of cancer cells could improve treatments
- Science Snaps: leukaemia cells are born to run
- Science Snaps: understanding where breast cancer stems from
- Science Snaps: fixing a cellular ‘antenna’
- Science Snaps: mapping cellular ‘stars’, one molecule at a time
- Science Snaps: a fly on the wall of cancer research
- Science Snaps: how nappy technology is helping us see cancer more clearly
- Science Snaps: digging for clues on how bowel cancer starts
- Science Snaps: spotting lung cancers’ ‘crime hotspots’
- Science Snaps: revealing a potential new marker for aggressive prostate cancer
- Science Snaps: seeing the effects of proteins we know nothing about
- Science Snaps: solving the mystery of an oddly-shaped tumour
- Science Snaps: targeting cancers’ surroundings
- Science Snaps: stopping cancer in its tracks
- Science Snaps: rearranging our understanding of the cancer genome
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