Let's Get Crafty With Agar Art!

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2022

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

Pull out your art supplies because it's time to get crafty--with agar! At the intersection of biology and art lies a creative medium that's actually alive. Scientists and artists practice etching designs on petri dishes with bacterial paint that can grow and multiply.

Aaron Scott talks with science correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce about her foray into the agar art world.

Have another craft suggestion? Email the show at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.0	Hello Shortwaveers, Erin Scott here with Nell Greenfield Boys.
0:09.8	Hello, Nell.
0:10.6	Hey, Erin.
0:11.6	You're taking me somewhere delightful and surprising and creative,
0:15.1	and I don't know where it is.
0:16.6	What are we doing?
0:17.5	Well, I wonder first, do you do any art yourself or are you an artist?
0:21.8	I am a lapstartist, I would say.
0:25.1	I definitely have painted and drawn,
0:27.9	but currently I mostly look at art and salivate a little bit.
0:32.4	Yeah, I'm not a big artist either.
0:34.0	I mean, I like to dabble in things,
0:35.7	and the other day I got this opportunity to work with something
0:40.0	that most people don't ever use.
0:42.6	So I recently went to the library,
0:44.6	one of the local public libraries here in Washington, DC,
0:47.8	and down in the basement,
0:48.8	they had set up all these art supplies.
0:51.4	So it was like arts and crafts.
0:53.0	Are we talking like construction paper and scissors?
0:56.5	No, no, no, no, no.
	...

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