Serene Seascape Mural Made from Fishhooks

Cuban artist Yoan Capote uses all kinds of unusual materials to create beautiful art installations. For one of his latest project, Isla, he used around 500,000 fishhooks to build a photo-like seascape mural.
Throughout the years we’ve featured a lot of talented artists with the power of turning everyday objects into stunning masterpieces, and today we’re proud to add Yoan Capote to our ever-growing list. The Cuban artist is famous for the way he manages to take common household objects and create beautiful artworks, but I think his latest creation is also his most impressive one. Named Isla, the 26-foot-wide mural was assembled out of half a million intertwined fishhooks, nails and oil. Looking at it from a distance, you’d think it’s just a photo of the calm open sea, but as you draw near, the secret behind the realistic seascape is revealed. Even with the help of 30 assistants, Yoan Capote took since months to complete his fascinating fishhook mural.

Asked why he chose fishhooks as a medium for his artwork, Capote said “I decided to use fishhooks in this series because I wanted to create a tension between beauty and seduction and danger and entrapment.”

art Twists Aluminum Wire

I find it fascinating how some artists can turn rigid materials into works of art that seem almost organic. Case in point, Kevin Iris, a man who creates beautiful tree sculptures exclusively from aluminum wire.
A self-proclaimed “treenut” Kevin Iris has been making incredibly detailed tree sculptures from aluminum wire for the last 23 years. His works vary in shape and size, as he’s trying to inspire different emotions with each one, but the most remarkable thing that’s common to all of them is that they are made only out of twisted wire. That means he uses no glue, coatings or any other substances. he simply takes tens of feet of aluminum wire and twists them into a variety of shapes. As you can imagine, Kevin’s artistic process is very laborious and time-consuming. For example, talking about the aluminum tree n the photo below, the artist says “I average about 26 leaves per strand so I have about 10,062 leaves up there on the top. This [22-inch wide] tree took about 450 hours or so of hands on twisting wire time over four months.” Pretty remarkable stuff…

A Unique Mural Made with Staples

all the years I’d stapled posters on my wall, I never gave it a second thought, let alone consider it an art form. But an artist has painstakingly created a series of beautiful murals made from nothing but staples tacked onto a wall. The pictures you’re looking at are the works of French artist Baptiste Debombourg, and a part of  a collection named Aggravure. His last artwork, Aggravure III, took him 340 hours to complete and consists of over half a million staples.
The collection itself is inspired by engravers of the Renaissance period, Jan Harmensz, Cherubino Alberti and Hendrick Goltzius. It’s amazing what an artist can do with a boring, everyday, office supply like the staple. But hey, if people can make art out of packing tape, maybe staple-art is not so surprising after all.

Makes Bullet Portraits of People Killed by Bullets

Whether in hunting or warfare, bullets are usually used for killing, but artist David Palmer has found a way to use these instruments of destruction to create beautiful celebrity portraits.
John Lennon, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were all great men, with one tragic thing in common – they were all killed by a bullet. Now, artist David Palmer has chosen to create portraits of these icons using probably the most unusual medium – bullet shells. After collecting enough bullet casings, the artist puts them together to create a metal canvas, and using a small hand torch darkens the ends of the bullet casings, creating incredibly detailed portraits. Using such a seemingly inappropriate art medium like bullets to depict their victims, Palmer hopes viewers  will “see the miracles that can arise from choosing to create rather than destroy.”
If you find bullet art interesting, you might want to check out the awe-inspiring miniature holy places made by Al Farrow, entirely out of bullets.

The Amazing Shadow Paintings of Rashad Alakbarov

Using various everyday objects and back light, Azerbaijani artist Rashad Alakbarov creates mind-blowing shadow paintings.
It always amazes me what some people can achieve by using the simplest materials and their imagination. Rashad Alakbarov is definitely one of these incredible individuals; using common items like empty plastic bottles, metal pipes or simple pieces of plastic and back light, he creates amazing works of art. Either by hanging these items from the ceiling, or carefully positioning them on a table, Alakbarov manages to produce incredible shadow paintings.

Seeing as you only need some junk and a couple of lamps for the back light, it’s theoretically possible to create shadow paintings like those of Rashad Alakbarov in the comfort of your own home, but do you really have the patience to do it? I know sure don’t.

Iceman Mummy May Hold Earliest Evidence of Lyme Disease

Dr. Eduard Egarter-Vigl (left) and Dr. Albert Zink (right) taking a sample from the Iceman in November 2010.
Dr. Eduard Egarter-Vigl (left) and Dr. Albert Zink (right) taking a sample from the Iceman in November 2010.
CREDIT: Samadelli Marco/EURAC

The 5,300-year-old ice mummy dubbed Ötzi, discovered in the Eastern Alps about 20 years ago, appears to have had the oldest known case of Lyme disease, new genetic analysis has revealed.

As part of work on the Iceman's genome — his complete genetic blueprint — scientists found genetic material from the bacterium responsible for the disease, which is spread by ticks and causes a rash and flulike symptoms and can lead to joint, heart and nervous system problems.

The new analysis also indicates the Iceman was lactose intolerant, predisposed to cardiovascular disease, and most likely had brown eyes and blood type O.

To sequence the Iceman's genome, researchers took a sample from his hip bone. In it, they looked for not only human DNA — the chemical code that makes up genes — but also for that of other organisms. While they found evidence of other microbes, the Lyme disease bacterium, called Borrelia burgdorferi, was the only one known to cause disease, said Albert Zink, a study researcher and head of the European Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at the European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC) in Italy.

"Our data point to the earliest documented case of a B. burg­dorferi infection in mankind. To our knowledge, no other case report about borreliosis [Lyme disease] is available for ancient or historic specimens," Zink and colleagues write in an article published on Tuesday (Feb. 28) in the journal Nature Communications.

Discovering evidence of Borrelia is an "intriguing investigative lead," said Dr. Steven Schutzer, an immunologist at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School.

Schutzer is a lead investigator on a National Institutes of Health-funded project that has sequenced at least 17 strains of the modern bacterium, and has published 13 of those so far.

The discovery of the traces of Borrelia within the sample taken from the Iceman still needs to be confirmed, he said. "Now we know what we want to look for, now that we know there is a possibility of that being here, we can do a very targeted approach that looks for Borrelia," Schutzer said.

Lyme disease is transmitted by ticks in North America and Eurasia. It was first found in the United States in Connecticut in the mid-1970s; a similar disorder had been identified in Europe earlier in the 20th century.

Schutzer said he is discussing follow-up studies with Zink.

Previous work had examined genetic material within the Iceman's mitochondria — the energy-producing centers in cells. His mitochondrial DNA,which is inherited through the maternal line, did not reveal any living relatives.

In this new project, researchers decoded the DNA found within the nuclei of the Iceman's cells, which is inherited from both parents. They found the Iceman belonged to a lineage that is now rare,but still present in some places. [Photos of Iceman Mummy]

"This means his ancestors came from Europe originally from the East and spread over most or part of Europe," Zink said. "This original population was somehow replaced by other populations, but they remained quite stable in remote areas like Sardinia and Corsica."

The analysis also indicates the Iceman was lactose intolerant. This isn't surprising, according to Zink. At the time the Iceman lived and died, people were beginning to settle down and become farmers, and the ability for adults to digest milk became an advantage.

The team also found he had a genetic predisposition for cardiovascular disease, supporting earlier scans showing the buildup of deposits within his arteries. In spite of the health problems from which the roughly 45-year-old Iceman suffered, he appears to have died a violent death. Researchers believe a flint arrowhead, shot into his left shoulder most likely killed him.