Jon Schindehette writes about standing out

Art director Jon Schindehette wrote this about the current concept and fantasy art scene:

So often when I attend a convention and wade through hundreds of portfolios in a weekend, I am struck by the “sameness” of them all. So many folks have the same look, the same style, the same mark making techniques. It’s almost as if there is this fantasy/sci-fi Photoshop filter running around the internet. < . . . > At the end of a long and tiring con, do you think I remember the one guy that excelled at the predominate style? Maybe. But I can guarantee that I remember the folks that stood out from the crowd – the amazing gouache artist, the stellar water-color artist, the person that was doing something in Photoshop that I had never seen before. Nope, I didn’t really remember anyone that had applied the SFS Filter to their work. They just didn’t stand out.

It's true for any art scene from any age.  Many people copy, but few people dare to invent. For every Rembrandt or Vermeer, there are a thousand Dutch painters who were producing the same run-of-the mill stuff. It's just that we get to see everything that is in vogue today, but to see those Dutch run-of-the-mill products you have to go to third-tier museums that cannot afford Rembrandt. The same will eventually happen to the artists of our times.

The full article link:  http://theartorder.com/2011/08/26/differentiate-or-die/

Giving retired cells the boot

It turns out that a big part of the condition associated with old age is due to accumulation of the "ballast" cells at the end of their useful life. The immune system does remove them, but not quickly enough, so the longer you live, the more of those you keep. They secrete various chemicals and impede the function of your organs.

Now someone has shown a relatively simple way to get rid of them (in mice), and the results are interesting. Treated mice don't live longer, but their tissues stay younger.

The blogs are buzzing about this piece of research today. The claims, understandably, have gone a bit wild. Here is an article that provides some perspective:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/11/02/extending-healthy-life-by-getting-rid-of-retired-cells

In short, a treatment like this won't make you live longer as many seem to claim, but it will make you stay in better shape longer and let you get more out of your years. Which is a big deal, so all the people who dismiss it as "irrelevant" are missing the point.

I hope this gets out of lab and into human tests soon.