December 4, 2015

Support Dinosaur Research and Stop a Mammoth from Moping

A children's art-and-alphabet book is giving back to the field of research that inspired its creation.

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

A children's art book is giving back to the research that inspired its creation. David and Jennie Orr, the husband + wife artist-writer duo who created the successfully crowdfunded book Mammoth is Mopey are donating a portion of the book's sales to the Jurassic Foundation this holiday season.

The book is a treat, with the added puzzle of finding the letters of the alphabet hidden in each image and learning about some less-commonly known prehistoric creatures. (Disclosure, David is a longtime friend and sent me a surprise copy after the original campaign)

If you're unfamiliar with the Jurassic Foundation: "The JF awards modest research grants (up to US $3,000) to qualified applicants from all over the world, most of whom are students, postdoctoral researchers, and/or residents of developing nations." (source: jurassicfoundation.org)

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I originally featured the Mammoth is Mopey crowdfunding campaign here on Symbiartic back in March: David and Jennie had already completed the book, and the campaign was to raise money to get an initial run printed. David Orr's professional career is working in publishing, so the success of the campaign was laid down on impressive roots.

On my personal artblog years ago, before writing here on Scientific American, I used to work through my thoughts on whether artists who depict the works of science are in some way, almost parasitic to science - conversely, how much research is inspired by art? Over the years, I've had a few examples art leading to new areas of research, but interestingly, the Orr's campaign answers this question from a different angle.

Follow David Orr on Twitter @anatotitan and Jennie Orr @thejennieorr, and the Jurassic Foundation @JurassicFDN.

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