bioephemera
Posts by this author
September 12, 2009
Tyrannosaurus photoventris
Judith Hoffman, 2009
This is just awesome! It's a dinocamera from artist/photographer/metalworker/amateur time traveler Judith Hoffman:
That's a lens cap/shutter on his navel. He takes pinhole photos of the late Cretaceous using paper negatives.
Here's one of the "photos…
September 12, 2009
Perfect for kids, teachers, or paleontologists, this "Paleobet" by artist Rosemary Mosco is cute and educational! You can buy a Paleobet print here.
Thanks to reader Laura for the find!
September 10, 2009
My friend John, a Nintendo aficionado, alerted me to this post at Gizmodo about the "AnatoWii." Kinda creepy, if you ask me. ;)
September 10, 2009
"It will die, eventually, because no one will know how to do it." But for now, a few miles from here, Firefly Press' John Kristensen is keeping the tradition of letterpress alive, as seen in this beautiful video by Chuck Kraemer.
Via NOTCOT.
September 9, 2009
I previously blogged about Jennifer Angus' insect installation, Insecta Fantasia, in the Newark Museum's Victorian Ballantine House. For those of you who couldn't make it to the show this YouTube video is a wonderful tour.
Note the layered interplay of 2D wallpaper patterns with 3D insects - some…
September 8, 2009
The Haunted Vagina is just one of the titles featured in Abebooks' Weird Book Room, where you can find such treasures as Bombproof Your Horse, Is Your Dog Gay, The Thermodynamics of Pizza, Do-it-Yourself Coffins for Pets and People, and People Who Don't Know They're Dead.
The funniest thing about…
September 7, 2009
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'
-John Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
On rereading the whole "Ode,"…
September 7, 2009
From the 8/31/09 New Yorker: "Still, she recognized that the aesthetic enjoyment of dereliction was a recondite and ultimately unsustainable pursuit."
Perhaps. I find these touching photos of Detroit's abandoned, overgrown houses from Sweet Juniper! disturbing because they are lush and lovely.…
September 6, 2009
Via iO9, a gallery of stunning glass viruses by sculptor Luke Jerram, originally from the Guardian. (The one above is swine flu.)
September 6, 2009
The editors of the Columbia Journalism Review weigh in on the media's uneven treatment of the health care debate:
So far this year 55 percent of coverage of health care has been about the political battles, 16 percent about the protests, and only 8 percent about substantive issues like how the…
September 4, 2009
This enraged, possibly rabid, antlered and befanged squirrel (?) encapsulates the spirit of my week so well, I just had to share. TGIF, friends.
Via Crappy Taxidermy, of course.
September 4, 2009
This ad for Scribe notebooks - depicting a world of doodle-covered scratchpaper - is almost entirely created with digital imaging software. Am I the only one who finds that a little ironic?
Via NotCot.
September 3, 2009
This morning, I'd like to point out two interesting stories on how the health care debate has become more irrational than rational. First, a WaPo op-ed decrying the imbalanced media coverage of health care, which may be leading to a perception that opposition is larger than it really is:
The most…
August 28, 2009
Blue Barnhouse Letterpress is simply awesome. I was idly coveting these classy anatomical heart thank-you cards when I discovered they actually have a special card FOR COLONOSCOPIES:
No, not even letterpress can make these brutal (and hopefully fictitious) colonoscopy implements "classy." But…
August 28, 2009
The Science and Entertainment Exchange blog has an interesting post up about artist Willard Wigan, who creates sculptures that can only be seen through a microscope.
Wigan's story is touching - he started sculpting as a child, when his dyslexia made school a painful challenge. He says,
"I started…
August 27, 2009
Science's July issue has an interesting article about mathematician Byron Cook, who teamed up with artist Tauba Auerbach to create nine new mathematical symbols. The symbols were intended to make the notation for Cook's work on a particular mathematical problem, called the "halting problem," more…
August 27, 2009
I'm still tickled by the British scientists who discovered a cache of ancient squid ink and used it for. . . art:
Paleontologists discovered the remains of the creature, called a Belemnotheutis antiquus, during a dig at a Victorian excavation in Trowbridge, Wilts. They cracked open what appeared…
August 25, 2009
An irreverent, sometimes wince-inducing, profoundly touching sampler of the ephemeral moments we take for granted:
Video by Will Hoffman and team, found via Scibling/author Jonah Lehrer.
August 25, 2009
Lovely minimalist poster design from Jordan Michael Gray's flickrstream.
via NOTCOT.
August 22, 2009
"Neurosigntist" and blogger John Ohab sent me this photo of garish carpet in a Vegas hotel. It appears to depict mitochondria on a field of roses. And it's really, really ugly. Thanks John!
August 19, 2009
For me, back-to-school shopping was always accompanied by a frisson of anticipation and excitement. It was the only time of year I actually got to go on a shameless shopping spree - which required leaving town and adventuring an hour or two north to find a wider selection of department stores. I…
August 18, 2009
Notice--Forest (McDonald's paper bag)
Paper Bag, Glue
Yuken Teruya, 2005
Paper artist Yuken Teruya does the impossible by turning a fast food bag into a stunning sunset-dappled lone tree. The Forest Series, creating paper trees out of disposable waste products like toilet paper tubes and paper bags…
August 17, 2009
No, I'm not being rude, I promise! The Gates Foundation is matching DonorsChoose donations to high-need schools. They'll fund 50% of any classroom project request that prepares students in rural and high-poverty schools for college, up to $4.1 million.
Just jump in and pick from a list of projects…
August 16, 2009
H. annuus
Macoto Murayama
Nanobots? Alien spaceships? A scene from TRON? No, it's illustrator Macoto Muriyama's delicate diagrams of flower structure. Muriyama says,
Generally, a plant is considered to be a being that has an organic form. However, that is just one of the aspects because along with…
August 16, 2009
I read Scibling Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide some time ago, but Moveable Type ate my half-finished review, and it's taken me until now to get back to it. You may have seen quite a few reviews elsewhere by now - Adam Kepecs reviewed it for Nature back in April, and to make a long story short, I…
August 15, 2009
BIKES
cardboard and glue, life size
Chris Gilmore, 2003
I've been unpacking after the move, which means I'm surrounded by piles of cardboard boxes that need to be broken down and recycled. I wish I had Chris Gilmore's skill with cardboard! He sculpts machines and mechanisms, from Fiats to…
August 15, 2009
Photographer: Rudy Huhold
Agency: Artplan
Apparently package delivery service Sedex Express is quite similar to. . . your brain on drugs. Hmmmm.
Via fubiz
August 14, 2009
It commemorates Hans Christian Ãrsted, who discovered the relationship between electricity and magenetism. Re-enact Ãrsted's experiment here.
But what about that other Hans Christian, Hans Christian Andersen? Here's what the Guardian had to say: "while there's nothing wrong with fairy stories,…
August 14, 2009
How NOT to practice medicine - no matter how bad the health care situation gets:
Benson has no medical degree. His expertise comes from his youth, which was spent on a farm in Indiana. "When one of us needed medical attention," he told me, "we dipped into our veterinary supplies." According to…
August 13, 2009
Artist Emmanuel Polanco does amazing collage work reminiscent of Eduardo Recife. I especially like this piece, but he has several more with more overt vintage-science content. See a gallery at Fubiz.