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Created by: Ryan Schenck

Issue 226: This artistic representation of somatic clonal architecture of 2D tissue accompanies our recent publication on evolutionary dynamics of somatic mutational events within the epidermis. The artwork pays homage to the Sonoran Desert spanning parts of southern AZ, CA, and northern Mexico. It is home to the distinctive Saguaro cactus, a cactus whose mere silhouette invokes imagery of vast openness, cracked earth, rock, and expansive skies weathered by time through wind and water. I represent this using Voronoi tessellations whose color represents the expanding subclones as we age, depicted on the desert floor and within the body silhouettes of the child, adult, and elderly. The artwork was created using SciPy, Matplotlib, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop. The code for the base components can be found on my GitHub.