bioephemera
Posts by this author
May 25, 2009
This is. . .
A. The surface of one of Jupiter's moons
B. Thermophilic archaebacteria in a hot spring
C. The pigmented iris of a Madagascar gecko
D. An electroformed enamel and copper pendant
E. Multicolored lichen at Enchanted Rock, Texas
Answer after the fold!
D* is correct: it is actually an…
May 23, 2009
Morgan Care Pharmacy on P St. in Georgetown has all the character so sorely lacking from new drugstore franchises. Drugstores used to be so different: as a child, I savored root beer floats at our local drugstore soda fountain counter. (I know, very Norman Rockwell of me.) Are there any pharmacy…
May 20, 2009
The Princeton Art of Science competition has named its 2009 winners. The image above, by Celeste Nelson, is a bright field micrograph of baby squid (Loligo pealeii). See the rest of the winners here.
May 20, 2009
Los Angeles Electric Isle
Brooks Salzwedel
Brooks Salzwedel's solo show opened May 16 at the Tinlark Gallery.
The artist works in layers of graphite and translucent resin, which create an especially nice effect in vintage tins. Imagine if you picked up a rusty old tin on an abandoned worksite or…
May 18, 2009
My first thought on seeing the new Toyota Prius commercial was, "are those cells and membranes?!" No, they're people in costumes, but the resemblance of the Prius' cartoon world to a cell animation is pretty remarkable. The sun TOTALLY looks like it has transmembrane receptors on it.
My second…
May 18, 2009
I love this line of covers for a UK publisher's re-issue of sci-fi classics: their simplicity underscores the stark, anxious, fractured psychological underpinnings of futuristic fiction.
As author Stephen Baxter told New Scientist, "Science fiction has rarely been about the prediction of a…
May 18, 2009
Edge of Loch, Scotland
Jason Hawkes
Phoographer Jason Hawkes specializes in aerial views that emphasize patterns in nature and manmade structures. While his Apartments, Hong Kong first caught my eye at io9, Edge of Loch, Scotland plays even more fascinating games with scale. Is that a closeup of a…
May 17, 2009
Another fabulously weird map, from the great blog Strange Maps. This one is entitled "The Man of Commerce" and dates to 1889.
According to the American Geographical Society Library,
The highly detailed 31" x 50" map/chart conflates human anatomy with the American transportation system, in an…
May 16, 2009
Students and laypeople alike often view biotech patents with baffled disbelief. How is it possible to patent bacteria? Mice? Cell types and DNA sequences? How can someone else "own" gene sequences that all of us have carried inside our bodies since birth?
Honestly, as a biologist, the concept of…
May 16, 2009
I have a feeling that this is what Isis sees when she looks at a map. Only with sexier shoes, of course.
From one of my new favorite blogs - Strange Maps. Thanks to Jake for the find.
May 15, 2009
This appears to be from a graphic novel called The Unknown. But I happen to think it's the ultimate all-purpose illustration for every discussion of science policy ever.
I want it on a T-shirt!
via io9
May 14, 2009
The Bridesmaid
1851
John Everett Millais
The Now Smash Of Style for Vogue Italia, via Haute Macabre
May 2009
Craig McDean
May 13, 2009
A quick note: remember I blogged about Crayon Physics a while ago? Well, Adrian wrote a massive review of the game at his blog. While he has reservations, he concludes,
Crayon Physics is worth more than a lot of other things you can buy for twenty American dollars, and it gave me days of genuine…
May 13, 2009
OMG! This Chris Beckett story is totally about me!
You can read the title story of The Turing Test online, and it's well worth checking out. In a dystopian future, Jessica runs a gallery where art increasingly involves human body parts and is designed to shock and appall bystanders.
Now I have to…
May 13, 2009
Well, not really. Artist Carel Brest van Kempen timelapsed stills of an acrylic painting to show his work process. It's remarkable how quickly the anole comes to life!
I especially enjoy watching the glazes go on and come off - each time he blots out part of the painting, I think, "oh NO!" But…
May 12, 2009
These eerie photos by Alin Dragulin are exactly why tilt-shift photos are sublime. The toy-like cars and buildings seem cute and nostalgic, but the lack of focus traps the viewer in a claustrophobic middle ground, with no idea what story is transpiring. And why does everything seem so still? It's…
May 11, 2009
This week, Nieman Journalism Lab is running a fascinating series of video interviews with the New York Times' R&D group on the possible future face of news media. I know - you're wondering why the supposedly financially moribund NYT is wasting money on nerds who play with Kindles. Who do they…
May 11, 2009
And if so, will it make us even stupider? Only one more week until we find out! This could be the datahead's ideal engine:
It'll tell you the family, genus, species, and caloric value of an apple, and it'll forecast Apple's stock price, but it won't give you apple pie recipes. It'll tell you the…
May 11, 2009
Over at his Discover blog, Carl Zimmer has asked readers to help choose a cover for his new non-majors evolution textbook. If you have a good eye for design, as I'm sure many BioE readers do, go over and help him pick the most appealing cover!
It's a hard choice, as so many design choices are. I'll…
May 10, 2009
Okay, these dolls by David Foox are just plain disturbing. And they're not just a concept - you can actually BUY ONE.
Via Street Anatomy.
May 10, 2009
We all know some cities "feel" smaller than others. But this set of subway maps presented at the same scale makes the differences obvious.
Just for fun, I made this image layering four of maps from major world cities in red, black, gold, and blue. Recognize the cities? Answer after the fold…
May 7, 2009
Long pin (detail)
Hand-made paper with cast silver seed inclusions and fine silver.
Sabrina Meyns
Irish artist Sabrina Meyns makes jewelry out of paper and silver. This piece may be less durable than your typical jewelry, but it's certainly more robust than the fragile poppies it mimics, and the…
May 7, 2009
An interesting perspective from education professor John Kitchens:
President Obama, you must understand that mandating standards without equitable funding creates punitive systems of education, and current forms of high-stakes testing too often pit student against student, and eventually citizen…
May 5, 2009
You've probably already heard that Merck and Elsevier are being called on the carpet for producing a medical "journal" - Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine - that appeared to be peer-reviewed, but was actually a marketing ploy to encourage doctors to prescribe Merck drugs. Ouch.…
May 4, 2009
The Lady of Broken Hearts
Natalie Shau
Lithuanian artist Natalie Shau works in digital media, mostly using Photoshop. You can see more of Shau's work at her website and at the website of jewelery designer Lydia Courteille, for whom she illustrated a cabinet-of-curiosities themed ad campaign. hat-…
May 3, 2009
Some Kansas State University geographers have come up with some interesting maps of the US that purport to show the national distribution of the seven deadly sins. Obviously they can't gauge "sinfulness" directly, so they're using proxy data - such as STD infection rate to measure lust (above).…
May 3, 2009
Following up on my previous post about visual illusions, reader Jake alerted me to this story from the BBC:
A design student made a battered old Skoda "disappear" by painting it to merge with the surrounding car park. Sara Watson, who is studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire (…
May 2, 2009
The Ambassadors, 1533
Hans Holbein the Younger
In the artistic technique called anamorphosis, an object is depicted in distorted perspective, so that the viewer has to take special action, like looking from a specific angle, to see the "correct" image.
The most famous example of anamorphic…
May 2, 2009
Medallion
Al Teich
Al Teich's photographs are explorations of symmetry and rhythm that resemble snowflakes, diatoms, or pollen grains. His method fuses old and new technologies: he photographs kaleidoscopes with a digital camera, incrementally moving them to adjust the image. Teich told the…
May 1, 2009
I was recently reading A Scientist's Guide to Talking With the Media, a useful and clearheaded book by Richard Hayes and Daniel Grossman of the Union of Concerned Scientists. Emphasizing the importance of science outreach, Hayes and Grossman praise the pop-sci luminaries who followed in the…