据hosted.ap.org网站2006年10月14日报道。美国佛罗里达州首府塔拉哈西的生物化学家米歇尔.戴维森已经使用他的显微镜对猴子的DNA进行了20多年的观察，通过显微镜，他不仅仅看到了科学的形态和功能，还看到了“艺术”。
通过显微镜，戴维森开始拍摄从维生素到啤酒的结晶体照片。他的照片已经被用于设计日历、海报、贺卡、女性休闲运动装和领带，其中最赚钱的是领带设计。戴维森是美国佛罗里达州立大学国家高能磁场试验室光学显微镜分部的领导人，他利用“分子表达法”设计的领带在90年代取得了极大成功。戴维森、领带公司、慈善团体和国家高能磁场试验室因此挣到了数百万美元。国家高能磁场试验室为显微镜研究提供了150万美元的资金作为种子基金，从而使得该研究能够继续促进科学与艺术的结合。戴维森是显微镜艺术家团队中最成功的人士之一，该团队目前规模还较小，但正在不断壮大之中。
生产这种领带的巨石公司前任副主席欧文.斯顿伯格说：“我至今仍能记得当年我说过的话，我说过没有一名艺术家或一名能工巧匠能够创造出比这更美丽设计。”夏威夷卡鲁瓦的微生物学家丹尼.康克尔称：“无论是作为商业产品还是广告设计，这些艺术图像都将在世界上广为传播。”四年前，丹尼.康克尔离开夏威夷大学，集中精力从事显微镜照片的生产和销售。从T恤衫设计到教科书设计，他的照片都得到了广泛地运用。
显微镜观测者把从显微镜里观察到的事物称为“微观世界”。上世纪80年代，当戴维森还是亚特兰大州约克斯灵长动物中心的一名研究人员时，他就对“微型世界”里隐藏的艺术潜力着了迷。但在刚开始的时候，由于技术问题，他不能把显微镜里观察到的景象拍摄下来。戴维森说：“当时没有色彩鲜明的照片，只有我们看到那奇特艺术效果时发出的惊叹”为了拍摄到彩色照片，戴维森建造了自己的暗房，并于80年代中期为《自然》杂志拍摄到一张液体结晶体彩色DNA照片。他说：“最大的挑战是制作好标本，这也是大多数显微镜观测者最为头痛的一件事情。”
戴维森的早期工作是在佛罗里达州立大学化学系从事聚合结晶体的物理研究，从那里他得到了一个切片。戴维森说：“我知道怎样把不能结晶的东西晶体化。为了在偏振的光线中拍摄到这些彩色照片，我们不得不在标本中得到某种秩序，最好的办法是把标本结晶化。”他开始在试验室周围寻找能够使标本结晶的化学药品，比如维生素、氨基酸、蛋白质和盐。与此同时，他也在出售他的照片，这些照片出现在日历、贺卡和女性休闲运动装上。在他与欧文.斯顿伯格的巨石公司合作之前，这些照片并未引起足够的重视。巨石公司是纽约的一家领带公司。第一条“分子表达法”设计的领带于1993年问世，这是以维生素显微镜照片为基础设计的领带。他们取得了比较成功的业绩。巨石公司要求得到啤酒和其它酒精饮料的显微镜照片。戴维森回忆道：“我认为这真是异想天开。”但他还是进行了尝试并开始盈利。
斯顿伯格还说服母亲们反对酒后驾车并认可收集鸡尾酒的活动，其条件是与她们共享收益。这些在市场上销售的鸡尾酒是造成酒后驾车的罪魁祸首。但在啤酒和其它饮料方面有了新的问题。“基本上，你在显微镜下看不到什么东西。”戴维森称，“一个月的前三周都是失败，我几乎准备放弃了。”啤酒的确含有糖分。戴维森将啤酒进行蒸发，直到糖分开始结晶。然后，他将一些样本进行冷冻，一些样本喷上硅，从而显示出各种式样，每一个式样都有上百个品种。戴维森称，“我会取出不到一升的啤酒。”他个人比较喜欢轻淡啤酒，“我只需要一两杯，它们闻起来很糟糕，我把大部分都倒进了下水道。”他们把本&吉里牌（Ben & Jerry's ）冰激凌和从芝加哥收集到食品运给戴维森和他的助手们，后者包括美味的深碟比萨。比萨被干冰冷冻后运到塔拉哈西，在那里，戴维森和他的助手们一起烤着吃。他称，“显微镜有一个优点，就是它只需要很小的数量进行观察。所以，像干酥这样的东西，只需要一个很小的切片就够了。”他们把剩下的全吃了。
除了从自然界发现艺术图象外，戴维森还通过肉眼从微小的电脑芯片的布线发现了人为艺术。他开始拍摄一些集成电路，因为他觉得它们在显微镜下模式下非常具有艺术美感。戴维森称，“一天，我碰巧扫这片涂鸦之地。当我将显微镜调整到更高倍数进行观察时，我发现它看起来像儿童书籍‘沃尔多’角色”。“就在第二天，我在同一个芯片里又发现了‘达菲鸭’”，他称，“我当时非常惊讶。”他又搜集了一些芯片，并于1998年在网上发表了十二篇“涂鸦”之作。只有在那时，他才从芯片设计师那里发现这些涂鸦正是他们花费长达几年时间开发既有趣又拟人化的循环电路。他们给他发来了约300多个样本，包括其它一些动漫图片、地图、标记甚至还有牌照。这些芯片图像却组成了戴维森分子世界网站（http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu,）的一个名为“半导体硅晶动物园”的图展区域。
戴维森及其助手们最近开发的这项领先技术，将推动一种新型显微镜的诞生，该显微镜将具备观察蛋白质分子的能力。它将帮助生物学家解开活细胞深层的秘密。戴维森称，“我不仅是从科学的角度来观察事物，但也会试着从我所做的每件事里发现艺术”。
英文原文：
Scientist Sees Art Through a Microscope
As biochemist Michael Davidson peered at monkey DNA through his microscope more than two decades ago he saw more than scientific form and function. He saw art.
Davidson eventually began taking pictures of crystallized substances ranging from vitamins to beer as seen through a microscope. His images have been used for calendars, posters, greeting cards and women's sportswear but most profitably on neckties.
The "Molecular Expressions" ties were such a hit in the 1990s they earned millions for Davidson, the tie company, a charity and Florida State University's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, where he heads the Optical Microscopy Division. The lab's $1.5 million share provided seed money for microscopy research that continues to advance science - and art.
"I can still remember today saying that I couldn't hire and couldn't get an artist or someone who was a designer to create more beautiful designs," recalled Irwin Sternberg, former president of Stonehenge Ltd., which made the ties.
Davidson is one of the most successful of a small but growing band of microscope artists.
"These images are going to be out there more in the world, whether they be used in commercial products or advertising," said Dennis Kunkel, a microbiologist in Kailua, Hawaii. He left the University of Hawaii's faculty four years ago to focus on making and selling electron microscope photos for everything from T-shirts to textbooks.
Davidson's fascination with the artistic potential of what microscopers call "the small world" began in the 1980s as a researcher at the Yerkes Primate Center in Atlanta. At first, he was unable to replicate on film what he saw through the microscope because of a technical problem.
"It didn't have the vibrant colors and just the 'wow' type of effect," Davidson said.
He built his own darkroom and in the mid-1980s produced a cover photo of liquid crystalline DNA for the journal Nature.
"The biggest challenge is preparing good specimens," he said. "And that's where most microscopers fall short."
Davidson gained an edge from his previous day job studying the physics of polymer crystallization in Florida State's chemistry department.
"I learned how to crystallize things that don't want to crystallize," Davidson said. "To take these colorful images in polarized light we have to get some sort of order into the specimen. The best thing to do is to crystallize it."
He started looking around the lab for chemicals he could crystallize - vitamins, amino acids, proteins, salts.
In the meantime, he was selling his pictures, which appeared on calendars and greeting cards and women's sportswear.
None of those products hit it big until he stumbled on Sternberg's Stonehenge, a necktie company in New York City.
The first Molecular Expressions ties in 1993 were based on microscopic images of vitamins. They were moderately successful. Then Sternberg asked for microscopic pictures of beer and other alcoholic beverages.
"I thought he was nuts," Davidson recalled, but he gave it a try and it paid off.
Sternberg also persuaded Mothers Against Drunk Driving to endorse the Cocktail Collection in exchange for a share of the proceeds. They were marketed as being the only way motorists should "tie one on" before driving.
But beer and other liquids presented a new problem.
"You basically can't see anything in the microscope," Davidson said. "The first three weeks to a month was just wrought with failure. I was almost ready to give up."
One thing that beer does have, though, is a lot of sugar. Davidson evaporated the beer to the point the sugar began crystallizing. Then he froze some samples and sprayed others on silicon to bring out different patterns for each of more than 100 brands.
"I would take less than a milliliter of the beer out," said Davidson, who says he prefers light beer. "I tasted a couple of them. They tasted nasty and I dumped most of it down the drain."
Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream and Chicago collections, the latter including deep-dish pizza, proved more palatable. The pizza was shipped frozen in dry ice to Tallahassee, where Davidson and his assistants baked it.
"The nice thing about the microscope, it takes only a small quantity so we only needed a little, bitty tiny snip of cheese," he said. They ate the rest.
Besides creating artistic images from nature, Davidson discovered manmade art hidden from the naked eye deep in the recesses of tiny computer chips. He had begun photographing integrated circuits because he thought their microscopic patterns were artistic.
"One day I happened across this doodle," Davidson said. "As I swung into a higher magnification I noticed it looked like Waldo," the character in children's books.
"The very next day I discovered Daffy Duck on the same chip," he said. "I said, 'This is very strange.'"
He searched other chips and found about a dozen doodles he posted on the Internet in 1998. Only then did he find out from chip designers that the graffiti was just a way to have fun and personalize circuitry they had spent months or years developing.
They sent him about 300 more examples, including other cartoon characters, maps, flags and even license plates. The chip graffiti makes up the Silicon Zoo section of Davidson's Molecular Expressions Web site, http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu . It also includes the beer images and other microscopic art and science.
A technique Davidson and his staff helped pioneer recently led to the development of a new microscope capable of looking at proteins on a molecular level. It is expected to help biologists unlock secrets hidden in living cells.
"I look at things more from a scientific perspective," Davidson said. "But I also try to see the art in just about everything I do."
