Buy, sell, research fine art, decorative art, and design online. Monsters as (Uncanny) Metaphors: Freud, Lakoff, and the Representation of Monstrosity in Cinematic Horror Steven Schneider. Other Voices, v.1, n.3 (January 1999).

DeviantArt is the world's largest online social community for artists and art enthusiasts, allowing people to connect through the creation and sharing of art. Casting director Priscilla John had to rustle up a bilingual preteen girl with excellent martial-arts skills to play Laura, a.k.a. Simple, right? It’s said that history repeats itself, and these images on Imgur show that. Called “Accidental Renaissance”, the pictures show what a crazy year 2016 was from. Reflect on this: what if you could see your surroundings - completely crisp and clear - mirrored in the surface before you, but your own image would not come.

How Logan Found Its Extraordinary Child Star, the Uncanny Dafne Keen. Can’t a morose mutant warrior simply sail off into the sunset with his surrogate father? As Logan, the latest X- Men movie opens, all world- weary Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) wants to do is buy a boat so he and an ailing Professor X (Patrick Stewart) can spend the rest of their days at sea. But boats don’t come cheap, so Logan reluctantly agrees to escort a young girl named Laura—a pissed- off tween with powers not unlike his—to North Dakota for $5.

Thus begins the final Hugh Jackman–Patrick Stewart X- Men installment (both actors have said this is their last superhero movie)— and the impressive film debut of newcomer Dafne Keen, who plays Laura. Keen’s wild- eyed, charismatic Laura is memorable not only for her slice- and- dice adamantium- claw action scenes—shredding burly cyborgs with ease—but also for her ability to convey the young heroine’s feral yet innocent nature. Initially, director James Mangold tasked U. K. But after scouring England and Ireland and seeing more than 5. John was coming up short.

When she expanded her search to younger girls and those living in Spain, her associate, Francesca Bradley, remembered Keen, who lives in Madrid with her British actor father, Will Keen (The Crown, Wolf Hall), and her Spanish actress mother, Maria Fernandez Ache. John asked Will, whom she knew, to put Keen, then a 1. Spanish TV show The Refugees, on tape. John was knocked out by what she saw: the four- foot- two- inch girl clambered up and down a huge bookcase in the Keen’s Madrid sitting room while picking up and assessing objets d’art. Once back on the ground, she did a tumbling run across the floor. In another sequence, she wordlessly gobbled down crackers without looking at them. Though some other American girls were also in the running, John, who previously discovered future X- Man Nicholas Hoult when casting About a Boy in the early aughts, was pretty confident Keen would snag the role: “I had a good idea that this child was extremely special, and I would have been surprised if she hadn’t gotten it,” she says.

Still, since anything can happen in Hollywood, when the test was done, John told Keen to go back to school and get on with her life. Of course, now that Logan has opened, Keen’s life will be drastically changed. Look for plenty more to come from this newly minted child star, whom John suggests is already signed to Fox (the studio releasing Logan) for future projects.

Though the veteran casting director believes Keen’s parents will continue to focus on her education and keeping life as normal as possible, she has no doubt the now 1. Natalie Portman and Jodie Foster. She’s either going to be heading a huge international company, or she’s going to be a big star when she grows up.” Whatever she ends up doing, it will likely involve a lot less glowering and a lot more talking. And if nothing else, she’ll have the best 2. Then again, maybe Keen should keep her summers free. While promoting Logan, Mangold has said he’d love to see another film that centered on her character: . A girl heroine taking over for Wolverine?

That’s a story we can get behind. Do you have what it takes? Test your knowledge of the Seven Kingdoms with Vanity Fair’s Game of Unknowns. Make your predictions. Full Screen. Photos: 1/1. The Top 1. 0 Best- Dressed Superheroes.

Captain America. A true testament to the transformative powers of style, Captain America is the patriotic alter ego of a World War II–era Brooklynite transformed by a team of army scientists into a Nazi- fighting Samaritan. He turns to inventor Howard Stark to outfit him in a scientifically advanced suit in a star- spangled palette (is that performance- tech heritage denim we see?) with G. I. Joe–inspired accessories, like a leather harness belt and M1 helmet mask. Photo: By Zade Rosenthal/. His royal- blue body- con suit hugs his admirable physique, while his cape and boots provide bold red accents.

The iconic “S” emblazoned across his chest arguably started the graphic T- shirt trend. Photo: . For the Black Widow, form follows function: microscopic suction cups on her extremities let her scale walls with the prowess of her namesake. Photo: . While the science- fiction suit makes Spider- Man singularly agile, it’s his Spidey Sense that really helps him save the day, proving you’ve got to have brains to complement the braun.

Photo: By Jaimie Trueblood/. In a striking, deep blue body suit with exotic- leather accents whose fit leaves nothing to the imagination, the Invisible Woman has presence. Photo: ! Iron Man’s gold and red suit of armor, with its glowing orb of an arc reactor, is not simply his support system, but his weapon. The hero has designed a slew of suits for activities from space travel to deep- sea diving, solidifying him as science- fiction’s answer to Savile Row. Photo: . With her strawberry- blond hair, big red bow, and mod bubblegum dress, she may not look mean, but a karate- chopping strategist lingers just behind those pink saucer eyes.

Uncanny Examples of the Golden Ratio in Nature The famous Fibonacci sequence has captivated mathematicians, artists, designers, and scientists for centuries. Also known as the Golden Ratio, its ubiquity and astounding functionality in nature suggests its importance as a fundamental characteristic of the Universe. We've talked about the Fibonacci series and the Golden ratio before, but it's worth a quick review. The Fibonacci sequence starts like this: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 1.

Each number is the sum of the two numbers that precede it. It's a simple pattern, but it appears to be a kind of built- in numbering system to the cosmos. Here are 1. 5 astounding examples of phi in nature. The Fibonacci Series, a set of numbers that increases rapidly, began as a medieval math joke about. Today, its emergent patterns and ratios (phi = 1. While the Golden Ratio doesn't account for every structure or pattern in the universe, it's certainly a major player.

Here are some examples. Flower petals The number of petals in a flower consistently follows the Fibonacci sequence. Famous examples include the lily, which has three petals, buttercups, which have five (pictured at left), the chicory's 2. Phi appears in petals on account of the ideal packing arrangement as selected by Darwinian processes; each petal is placed at 0. Nvidia Quadro Fx 1500 Update Google there. Seed heads. The head of a flower is also subject to Fibonaccian processes. Typically, seeds are produced at the center, and then migrate towards the outside to fill all the space.

Sunflowers provide a great example of these spiraling patterns. In some cases, the seed heads are so tightly packed that total number can get quite high — as many as 1. And when counting these spirals, the total tends to match a Fibonacci number. Interestingly, a highly irrational number is required to optimize filling (namely one that will not be well represented by a fraction). Phi fits the bill rather nicely. Pinecones Similarly, the seed pods on a pinecone are arranged in a spiral pattern. Each cone consists of a pair of spirals, each one spiraling upwards in opposing directions.

The number of steps will almost always match a pair of consecutive Fibonacci numbers. For example, a 3- 5 cone is a cone which meets at the back after three steps along the left spiral, and five steps along the right. Fruits and Vegetables.

Likewise, similar spiraling patterns can be found on pineapples and cauliflower. Tree branches The Fibonacci sequence can also be seen in the way tree branches form or split. A main trunk will grow until it produces a branch, which creates two growth points. Then, one of the new stems branches into two, while the other one lies dormant. This pattern of branching is repeated for each of the new stems. A good example is the sneezewort. Root systems and even algae exhibit this pattern.

Shells. The unique properties of the Golden Rectangle provides another example. This shape, a rectangle in which the ratio of the sides a/b is equal to the golden mean (phi), can result in a nesting process that can be repeated into infinity — and which takes on the form of a spiral. It's call the logarithmic spiral, and it abounds in nature. Snail shells and nautilus shells follow the logarithmic spiral, as does the cochlea of the inner ear. It can also be seen in the horns of certain goats, and the shape of certain spider's webs. Spiral Galaxies Not surprisingly, spiral galaxies also follow the familiar Fibonacci pattern.

The Milky Way has several spiral arms, each of them a logarithmic spiral of about 1. As an interesting aside, spiral galaxies appear to defy Newtonian physics. As early as 1. 92. Subsequently, after a few rotations, spiral arms should start to wind around a galaxy. But they don't — hence the so- called winding problem. The stars on the outside, it would seem, move at a velocity higher than expected — a unique trait of the cosmos that helps preserve its shape.

Hurricanes. 9. Faces Faces, both human and nonhuman, abound with examples of the Golden Ratio. The mouth and nose are each positioned at golden sections of the distance between the eyes and the bottom of the chin. Similar proportions can been seen from the side, and even the eye and ear itself (which follows along a spiral). It's worth noting that every person's body is different, but that averages across populations tend towards phi. It has also been said that the more closely our proportions adhere to phi, the more . As an example, the most .

It's quite possible that, from an evo- psych perspective, that we are primed to like physical forms that adhere to the golden ratio — a potential indicator of reproductive fitness and health. Fingers. Looking at the length of our fingers, each section — from the tip of the base to the wrist — is larger than the preceding one by roughly the ratio of phi. Animal bodies Even our bodies exhibit proportions that are consistent with Fibonacci numbers.

For example, the measurement from the navel to the floor and the top of the head to the navel is the golden ratio. Animal bodies exhibit similar tendencies, including dolphins (the eye, fins and tail all fall at Golden Sections), starfish, sand dollars, sea urchins, ants, and honey bees. Reproductive dynamics Speaking of honey bees, they follow Fibonacci in other interesting ways. The most profound example is by dividing the number of females in a colony by the number of males (females always outnumber males).

The answer is typically something very close to 1. In addition, the family tree of honey bees also follows the familiar pattern.

Males have one parent (a female), whereas females have two (a female and male). Thus, when it comes to the family tree, males have 2, 3, 5, and 8 grandparents, great- grandparents, gr- gr- grandparents, and gr- gr- gr- grandparents respectively. Following the same pattern, females have 2, 3, 5, 8, 1.

And as noted, bee physiology also follows along the Golden Curve rather nicely. Animal fight patterns. When a hawk approaches its prey, its sharpest view is at an angle to their direction of flight — an angle that's the same as the spiral's pitch. The uterus. According to Jasper Veguts, a gynaecologist at the University Hospital Leuven in Belgium, doctors can tell whether a uterus looks normal and healthy based on its relative dimensions — dimensions that approximate the golden ratio.

From the Guardian: Over the last few months he has measured the uteruses of 5,0. The data shows that this ratio is about 2 at birth and then it steadily decreases through a woman's life to 1. Dr Verguts was thrilled to discover that when women are at their most fertile, between the ages of 1. DNA molecules. Even the microscopic realm is not immune to Fibonacci. The DNA molecule measures 3.

These numbers, 3. Fibonacci series, and their ratio 1. Phi, 1. 6. 18. 03. Thanks to Calvin Dvorsky for helping with the article! Sources and images: Top: Loskutnikov/Shutterstock; Buttercup: motorolka/shutterstock, Think. Quest, Shell, Galaxy: Fabulous. Fibonacci, American Museum of Natural History and here, honey bee, Hurricane: MNN, Faces: Goldennumber and here, DNA.