Emily when you were a kid what did you like to draw? I drew very pedestrian scenes. I like drawing

buildings sidewalks crosswalks and cranes like for construction projects. This sounds like one of

those like things to identify you're a real person and not a robot when you're about to click on

and you could just put in Emily quongs drawings. I can recognize a motorcycle. Urban landscapes.

That's right. Well that's you. I pretty much drew the opposite. Well you were focused on that

every day in front of you. I was focused on magical monsters and dragons and superheroes and

the things that defy physics and biology and I ask because today we're going to focus not on the

huge things not on the fantastical things but we're going to focus on drawing with the microscopic

critters that cover us. There everywhere on our eyes our tongues our fingertips. Yeah today we're

talking about bacteria. So put on your smocks and put away that hand sanitizer reporter Nell

Greenfield boys is about to take us inside microbial arts 101. We're kicking off art week a collection

of some of our favorite episodes that sit at the intersection of art science and inspiration. Enjoy.

You're listening to shortwave from NPR. Hello shortwaveers. Aaron Scott here with Nell

Greenfield boys. Hello, Nell. Hey Aaron. You're taking me somewhere delightful and surprising and

creative and I don't know where it is. What are we doing? Well I wonder first do you do any art

yourself or you an artist? I am a lapster artist I would say. I definitely have painted and drawn

it but currently I mostly look at art and and salivate a little bit. Yeah I'm not a big artist either.

I mean I like to dabble in things and the other day I got this opportunity to work with something

that most people don't ever use. So I recently went to the library one of the local public

libraries here in Washington DC and down in the basement they had set up all these art supplies.

So it was like arts and crafts. Are we talking like construction paper and scissors and

no no no no no no no no no as you know this is a science show and so what they had set up was

...