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When Ugo Rondinone’s towering
Seven Magic Mountains first opened, in 2016, the Ivanpah Valley desert outside Las Vegas hadn’t seen anything like it. The installation comprises seven 30-foot-tall locally sourced limestone cairns that reference natural rock formations and punctuate the sprawling Mojave Desert with poetic bursts of form and luminous colors that comment on Sin City’s signature bright lights. “To find the right spot for the installation, we drove down Interstate 15. About 30 minutes outside Las Vegas, it’s just a state of desert,” Rondinone told
Surface at the time. “It’s silent. There’s just the presence of the sun. At some point, I saw, as we were going back to Las Vegas, a long stretch of land. I thought, Oh, that’s it! I could produce the sculptures there.”
Scott s research explores why certain tortoises had a stronger chance of survival
From WTAMU Newsroom
CANYON A recently published major research project by a West Texas A&M University assistant professor is a reminder to go where the science leads.
Dr. Peter A. Scott is the lead author of a study of the DNA of Mojave desert tortoises that appeared as the cover story of the Nov. 27 issue of Science.
“It’s pretty wild,” said Scott, an assistant professor of wildlife biology. “It’s not something I ever thought studying some tortoise DNA would get me. Part of that is that these results stem from a side project, so one of the main lessons is to listen to what the data says and be flexible enough to go where it tells you. Sometimes, you get an unexpected but powerful result.”