Mark Stock Studio

"There Is No Cheese" depicts an imaginary terrain, the elevations of which represent measurements of mRNA expression from seven different regions of brain tissue from ten strains of lab mouse. The measurements, a matrix of rows of genes and columns of tissue samples, were passed through a hierarchical clustering function in MultiExperiment Viewer (www.tm4.org). The maze walls, representing natural selection's near-sightedness, rise out of this fitness landscape to block the view of the surrounding peaks and valleys. The maze has no entries, no exits, and no cheese. Data from Genetics. 2006 Nov;174(3):1229-36.