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Exploring the origin of life and how humans evolved

Mitochondrial Eve Inspiration

September 02 2011 by Lynn Fellman | Filed Under: Evolution

This is Mitochondrial Eve. My 21st century fertility figure designed to celebrate the discovery of our ancient and enduring maternal lineage through our DNA.

mtDNA Eve: 21st Century Fertility Figure

The origin of our first female ancestor was found by three geneticists in the 1980s. The media named her “Mitochondrial Eve” and the story inspired my first images about the human journey. It took some serious science to find her and you can read the original paper, now a classic, published in the 1987 issue of the journal "Nature".

Mitochondrial Eve wasn’t the only woman at the time but a member of a very small group of about 500 individuals living in North East Africa 150,000 years ago. It’s the DNA in her mitochondrial genes that survive to the present day. The genetic information has been passed from mother to daughter for thousands of generations. Now there’s a fertile success story.

Like the famous “Venus of Willendorf” I made her round and close to the ground, nurturing the helix in her garden. The “Venus” is from the more recent Neolithic era (20,000 years ago) but a round shape in any time means a body full of life — an iconic symbol for fertility.

To imagine what Mitochondrial Eve may have looked like, I researched people in Africa today. The San (also known as Bushmen) have a distinctive Asian eye with African features. They also have the most complex DNA (deepest ancestry) of anyone alive anywhere. Scientists speculate our ancestors may have looked like much like the Bushmen do today.

The graphics shown above
On the left is an archaic phallic-like petroglyph with the world’s most famous fertility figure from the paleolithic, the Venus of Willendorf. In the middle, is my Mitochondrial Eve, a 21st century fertility figure to celebrate the discovery of our ancient and enduring maternal lineage. On the right is Mitochondrial Eve's close up of her stylized eye.

The art was inspired by a classic paper from science.
Mitochondria stem from one woman who is postulated to have lived about 200,000 years ago, probably in Africa. Molecular biology provides new insights into the way humans are related to one another genetically.” Written by Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking and Allan C. Wilson and published in the journal Nature, 325 (1987).
Shape Changing DNA

August 18 2011 by Lynn Fellman | Filed Under: Evolution

I’m intrigued by shape and movement and how that plays out in our DNA. The curious story of the shrinking Y, begins with two strands of DNA splitting apart and recombining into a shape known as a hairpin.

The new structure is a palindrome and this shape changing behavior is common at the molecular level. But as this story relates, mistakes can happen.

This story was also posted on the Science Friday Art + Science Blog.

Palindromes in art and science

Artists, poets and musicians play with palindromes all the time. They mirror images, reverse words, invert musical phrases — yet cleverly manage to retain the original meaning. “A man, a plan, a canal, Panama” is a favorite palindrome that reads the same backward as it does forward. We have palindromes in our bodies, too — in the way DNA will sometimes encode information. The results are a little bit different, and in fact, have recently been found to cause disease.

The case of the disappearing genes
The X and Y chromosomes started out with about the same number of genes — around 1,000. Yet, today, the Y chromosome has less than 80 genes. Why is that? Part of the answer is that it doesn’t have a partner to swap genes with, a mechanism to keep the good genes and repair bad ones. Will the Y chromosome keep getting smaller and eventually disappear? Six years ago, David Page, Director of the Whitehead Institute, asked that question.

The palindrome solution
Dr. Page found that while it continues to lose genes, it has been secretly making backup copies of the most important ones. The copies are in 8 large areas of mirror-image ATCG sequences on the chromosome. The Y folds itself in the middle of these palindrome regions, allowing the genes to pair and fix areas damaged by random mutations. More on this in a minute.

Curious folding hairpin shapes
As an artist, I’m intrigued by shape and movement and how that plays out in our DNA. I brought my sketch pad and questions to an expert — Professor Perry Hackett, geneticist at the University of Minnesota. As we talked about the curious story of the shrinking Y, Perry sketched two strands of DNA splitting apart and recombining into a shape known as a hairpin. The new structure is a palindrome and he explained that folding and shape changing behavior is common at the molecular level. Our genome is dynamic.

Beware the reflect tool
All the reversing and folding and flipping got me thinking about how often artists use this kind of symmetry in their work. MC Escher comes to mind with his repetitive, reflected shapes that brilliantly create new forms in negative space. Escher would have loved a digital tool I use in Adobe Illustrator called the “reflecting tool”. (The icon for it is shown below). Beware ill considered use, though! Inverting a photo, especially of someone you know, makes them look not quite right. Duplicating a human hand in that way leaves out the nuanced differences — making the image less rich.

Shortcuts in art and in nature — not always a good plan
In the September issue of Cell, Dr. Page has follow up research to his discovery of the Y chromosome palindrome sequences. The Y’s process of recombination sometimes turns the entire chromosome into a palindrome. With two centromeres the Y gets its signals crossed and can lead to…. well, crossing over. The abnormal structure is connected to a range of sex disorders: low sperm count, Turner Syndrome and in some cases, sex reversal. The good news is that scientists now understand the genetic mechanism, so courses for treatment can be developed.

About the graphics
the colorful graphic at the top was designed for my show at the Bell Museum. The white circle shows a man’s X and Y chromosomes under the microscope. The graphic with the yellow stripes is a stylized image of the Y chromosome and the blue band is the sex determining SRY gene. Below the graphic are sketches by Professor Perry Hackett. The hand drawings are mine with the small symbol for the reflect tool between them. The MC Escher example is also an illustrated version of a tessellation, a mathematical term. Directly below is a precise example of a DNA palindrome by the artist Toska, courtesy of Wikimedia commons.
Empathy Evolved

August 18 2011 by Lynn Fellman | Filed Under: Evolution

Varied line weight describes the shape of a figure and a feeling of despair. Using thick and thin lines to capture body language is called gestural drawing — a way to capture emotional energy with marks on a page.

This story was also posted on Science Friday Art + Science Blog.

Evolution, Empathy, and Frans deWaal

Empathy is our evolutionary heritage
If you’ve been following Frans de Waal’s work you know that he is a respected primatologist and best selling author with a new book, “The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society”.

Evidence shows that empathy engages brain areas that are more than a hundred million years old. It’s part of a heritage as ancient as the mammalian line. He reminds us that through a common ancestor, we share traits with the chimpanzee and the bonobo — a complex mix of both aggression and cooperation.

First we feel it, then we think it
One example that links humans to other primates is de Waal’s “emotion first theory”. Although we often focus on the face, our entire bodies convey emotion. In fact, we trust postures more than facial expressions. Our bodies show how we feel in a language that is immediate and honest.

Art can create an emotional response
The emotional power of line and shape is appreciated by artists. I had an illustration assignment to depict moods with figure drawings with this challenge: show fear, sadness, despair — without showing faces. Two of the many illustrations for the project are shown below.

My approach was to use brush and ink on paper to get the right shapes. See how the varied line weight describes the shape of the figure, curved and hunched in despair? Using thick and thin lines to convey mood is gestural drawing — a way to capture emotional energy with marks on a page.

Watch out! Like a yawn, it’s catchy
Another aspect of “emotion first theory” is “emotional contagion”. You smile, I smile, and we both get happy. Yes, you guessed it — the drawing assignment was a depressing affair. As I drew, I started to feel sad. My drawings became more expressive, though — a surprising bonus for the project.

De Waal speculates that empathy started with maternal care. Perhaps there is a strong pressure to select for females that respond to their baby quickly. For example, his research shows that women are more in touch with facial expression. Gender doesn’t always trump, though. Shown next to the cover of the book is a compelling image of suffering and loss from the artist that also painted “The Scream”. An example of art by a man (like Frans de Waal) who had a double dose of genetic empathy.

At the top of the page is the cover of Frans de Waal’s book and Edvard Munch’s painting titled “The Sick Child” is on the right.