bioephemera
Posts by this author
January 5, 2010
Call to artists: ALCHEMY: Art and Science
Call to Artists at the Schiltkamp Gallery, Traina Center for the Arts, Clark University. This show will explore the intersections of art and science; art that is inspired by science or scientific images/models that are transcendent. The concept of "science…
January 5, 2010
Miguel Rivera, a systems administrator at a U.S. Air Force base in Southwest Asia, builds robots and vehicles from the base's trashed hard drives:
"The overall concept was to make something out of just hard drive parts and pieces," says Rivera. "I wanted it to look solid and heavy so I leaned…
January 4, 2010
These photos from satellites and the international space station show how relatively featureless deserts form beautiful patterns when seen from above. Via Wired.
January 4, 2010
Beggar
Joao Ruas
Starting January 8, Thinkspace in Los Angeles is hosting a group exhibition to benefit wildlife conservation efforts:
Though we live in the city, animals exist all around us - they sleep in our beds, creep past our windows at night and visit us in our dreams. Symbolizing all that…
January 3, 2010
Street artist Banksy thumbs his spraycan at global warming skeptics.
Via Londonist, via the ESPP blog.
January 3, 2010
I encourage everyone to read this thoughtful post by Janet, and contribute your thoughts.
Often, questions about online civility are dismissed with the comment "get a thicker skin" - as if it simply doesn't matter whether people address each other with respect online. I think it does matter. In…
January 3, 2010
To follow up on my previous review of KC Cole's book about the Exploratorium, here's a nifty exhibit called "How People Make Things." It's a traveling exhibit (by the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, not the Exploratorium) that demonstrates the basics of manufacturing processes like injection…
January 2, 2010
"the whole point of the Exploratorium is for people to feel they have the capacity to understand things." --Frank Oppenheimer
I admit it: I'd never heard of Frank Oppenheimer until I received my review copy of K.C. Cole's Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens: Frank Oppenheimer and the world he…
January 2, 2010
Oh noes! Chris Mooney just used the phrase "scientific consensus on global warming" in a WaPo article on Climategate:
While the controversy has receded, it may have done lasting damage to science's reputation: Last month, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 40 percent of Americans distrust…
January 1, 2010
According to Christina Warren at mashable.com, the switch to allowing non-Latin alphabet characters in web domains could give scammers a brand new toolkit. That's because browsers can't render many non-Latin characters, and the approximations may be doppelgangers for trusted sites. Alternatively,…
January 1, 2010
I went to see Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, a few weeks ago at MIT. Unfortunately the line to get him to sign books was about fifty frenzied geeks long, so I didn't stay for that. But I did enjoy his dialogue with the audience, which mainly consisted of answering questions ranging from…
January 1, 2010
Happy New Year!
It's been a great two years (almost) here at Scienceblogs. But since most readers don't comment, I don't really know who many of you are. Who are you, where are you, what do you do, and what plans/hopes do you have for the upcoming year?
December 31, 2009
With the Mallard Heels from anthropologie, you can say "Yes, I'm wearing a 3-inch high duck decoy!" with confidence. But alas, I waited too long to blog these - they're out of stock. :( Sorry, Isis.
December 31, 2009
This explanatory video from Wired/the Exploratorium shows how "Dr. Megavolt" (Austin Richards) created a birdcage-topped stainless steel bodysuit, so he can play with the giant Tesla coil he built. This guy knows how to have fun, man.
December 30, 2009
Many of the commenters on my earlier post about the so-called wisdom of crowds, "Science is not a democracy," have expressed distaste for the phrase "scientific consensus." I don't really share that distaste, and here's why.
To me, it's like being disturbed by the phrase "electoral college." You…
December 30, 2009
the Hallelujah Mountains
film stills from Avatar by James Cameron
The Messengers
Christophe Vacher
Fantasy artist Christophe Vacher was doing the floating mountain thing for years before Avatar.
Update: apparently, for those of you who remember the 1970s, Roger Dean was doing it too:
Jason R…
December 30, 2009
If you've ever worked in a bio lab, you know what I mean: these look too real!
Yes, I know Pharyngula and BoingBoing already got to them early this month, while I was in the middle of finals, but I just had to blog them anyway. They're too bioE. Besides, you can use them as a New Year's diet aid.
December 29, 2009
"It is the largest thing we have ever built," says Whitesides, "and we have assembled it from transistors--the smallest things we know how to make. It is a chrysalis we are forming around the planet...a table where we sit to gossip, a suq where we buy and sell; a shadowy corner for planning…
December 29, 2009
There are two contradictory headlines today on Google News, both regarding someone I couldn't care less about. However, they nicely illustrate one of my key concerns about the internet: the pervasive illusion that the "wisdom of crowds" is in fact wisdom, or in fact fact.
Both stories involve the…
December 28, 2009
scarobeus cornepleura
Mauricio Ortiz
The technically gifted Mauricio Ortiz is originally from Costa Rica, but now lives in London, where his artistic star is on the rise. His octo-beetle, above, was recently selected to appear in a deck of playing cards as part of a high-profile British charity…
December 26, 2009
Orchis Nodulosa
Kate Street
The delicacy of Kate Street's pencil drawings belie their sinister undertones: a garden of chimeric orchids flowering with skulls, intricate skeletons of birds perching on leaves, tuberous roots that are half heart and half honeycomb. Her installations, on the other…
December 24, 2009
The recent blizzard turned our decorative holiday planter into a suspiciously Cthulhulian holiday effigy. A cephaloconiferopod? A gymnosquid? An everoctogreen? I have no idea what to call it, but it obviously says "Merry Christmas, BioE readers!"
December 23, 2009
A year or two ago in Washington, DC, I saw this charming series of windows in the downtown Macy's. It's a technical makeover of the traditional Santa's workshop, complete with pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo like "Through Synchronous Siphonization, Gigglium added in 2:1 ratio to Teeheelium," "…
December 23, 2009
NPR now has its own science-meets-culture blog, 13.7:
13.7: Cosmos And Culture is written by five prominent scientists or science journalists with different fields and focuses. The five will write, as individuals and sometimes collectively, on the places where science and culture intersect, on all…
December 20, 2009
artwork by Ryan Abblegen, via iO9.
(Since he was BoingBoinged, his etsy shop is all out of mechanized murder cards, so bookmark him for after the holidays).
December 19, 2009
Photo: Jana Asenbrennerova / The Chronicle
SFGate has a great interview with Raven Hanna of madewithmolecules! I love Raven's stuff an am thrilled to see her getting recognition.
December 18, 2009
"Insectopedia"
Kiff Slemmons
Self-taught metal artist Kiff Slemmons' classic series "Insectopedia" is a collection of metal pins fusing insects with typography. She's also known for working with found objects like shells, stones and bones, as in the following pieces from her recent show with Kay…
December 17, 2009
A question I used to get fairly frequently is "what medical advance has saved the most lives?" Guesses usually include antibiotics, vaccines, and septic surgical method, but it's probably. . . clean water. Not a medical advance, you say? Maybe not, at least the way most people think of medicine…
December 15, 2009
Found on ebay: "Peter Parley's Tales of Animals, containing descriptions of three hundred quadrupeds, birds, fishes, reptiles, and insects. With numerous engravings."
Note to the Critics.
This book is almost wholly a mere compilation; free use has been made, in preparing it, of the Library of…
December 14, 2009
Hey readers, since blogging about my holiday educational fundraising push, I've noticed that clicks and views are up - thanks to everyone for helping out! All BioE traffic through the end of December will help benefit CEF, a scholarship and grant program for kids in Washington state, so keep…