bioephemera
Posts by this author
December 22, 2008
At io9, Annalee Newitz asks, "can robots consent to have sex with humans?"
Do you think the blondie bot in Cherry 2000 was really capable of giving consent to have sex with her human boyfriend? Or did her programming simply force her to always have sex, whether she wanted to or not? And what about…
December 22, 2008
I'm snowed in here with the staffer in Washington state, but our luggage made it and we have Wifi, so it's all good. For your pre-holiday enjoyment, here's a treasure from an old book - "Pepper and Salt" by Howard Pyle. Click the image for a larger, more readable version.
December 22, 2008
. . . at least according to XKCD:
(All right, fine: they're acknowledging cephalopods' supremacy, not biologists'. It's probably a ploy to lull us into complacency while they corrupt our cuttlefish minions and eventually wipe us out.)
December 19, 2008
Apparently Winston Churchill was not the greatest poet at 15 (but then, who is? Keats churned out some horrible clunkers[1] when young). In this month's BMJ, Angus Nicholl and colleagues call our attention to Churchill's classically influenced poem "The Influenza". (No, it's not actually called "…
December 19, 2008
This Indonesian mimic octopus pretends to be other creatures in order to avoid predators:
December 18, 2008
Vireo bellii nest with newspaper
Rosamond PurcellEgg & Nest
"It seems the bird had confiscated a shredded detail from a story involving Adolph S. Ochs, newspaper baron and one-time owner of the New York Times and Chattanooga Times. . . since the story is from Tennessee but the nest was found…
December 17, 2008
I want them. They're backordered. I can't have them. Cry.
Mad Scientist Blocks from Xylocopa:
"At Xylocopa, we know that the key to a successful education is to begin learning at a young age. Like many of you, we are concerned about the state of science education in the public school system,…
December 16, 2008
When I met one of my stylish fellow-bloggers for the first time a few months ago, I was mesmerized by her gorgeous blown-glass bubble necklace - although the thought of klutzy me in such a necklace is a little scary. (Shards of glass + carotid artery = euw!)
Anyway, I was charmed to see a similar…
December 16, 2008
FYI, to those in the DC area, tomorrow Dr. Bulent Atalay will be giving the monthly history of medicine talk at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda.
"Leonardo and the Unity of Art and Science"
Dr. Bulent Atalay, University of Mary Washington
The speaker examines science through art, and…
December 15, 2008
Recently I've been lamenting that none of my friends, including my boyfriend, will listen to the Icelandic band Sigur Ros - an eclectic, idiosyncratic group I adore. Although I've noticed Sigur Ros' music infiltrating the mainstream recently, routinely appearing in commercials and soundtracks,…
December 15, 2008
Some Monday randomness: a living kaleidoscope of domestic animals.
Seriously, why does everyone like that corner so much?
I laughed, then felt a little bad about laughing - given the repeated collisions with the walls, other animals, etc. Hopefully they took everyone out for a nice pile of grain…
December 15, 2008
You know those packaged toolchest gift sets that stores relentlessly market as holiday gifts for "Dads"? Well, none of them can hold a, er, socket wrench to this object of beauty from the 1800s, customized by a piano tuner named Studley. Wow.
Via Boing Boing
December 14, 2008
"Remains Benches"Elyse Marks
@Behance Network
The inlay design on these wood benches depicts skeletal animals crawling among bare trees - with, according to the artist, "a noose thrown in for good measure." It's kind of a memento mori thing, I guess. What an unusual Christmas gift these would be!…
December 12, 2008
Emerald Damselfly
Martin Amm, 2008
Martin Amm's beautiful photographs are perfect bioephemera: insects bejeweled with droplets of dew. The crisp iridescence of these photos is simply mesmerizing.
Ugly Beauty
Martin Amm, 2008
I particularly love the way the droplets of water on the head of the red-…
December 11, 2008
The physicists are getting rather jubilant over the selection of Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu as Secretary of Energy. Sure he's the Director of LBNL. Sure, he has a Nobel Prize in something involving lasers (ho hum - I don't know any physicists that don't work with lasers). But I'd like to point…
December 11, 2008
Last week, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that retaining DNA samples from innocent individuals in a national law enforcement databank violates human rights.
The ruling is a direct blow to Britain's DNA databank, which holds samples and data for 7% of its citizens (4.5 million…
December 10, 2008
full-size ad
Mercury 360, Bucharest, Romania
Illustrator: Andrei Nedea, 2008
More anti-drug ads, this time from Romania. Note that these ads' message is a little less obvious than that of the last batch. There's also an optics problem with the perception of each object - its representation should…
December 10, 2008
Word of the day: emoluments.
The House appears to have just addressed Hillary's emoluments problem, by passing S.J. Res 46 "ensuring that the compensation and other emoluments attached to the office of Secretary of State are those which were in effect on January 1, 2007." This undoes a 2008 cost-of…
December 10, 2008
"Could you paint a replica of the Mona Lisa using only 50 semi transparent polygons? That is the challenge I decided to put my application up to. . ."
Art lovers & coders, get thee to Roger Alsing's weblog to see how he "evolved" an approximation of Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting using a…
December 10, 2008
This coming June, the NIH Office of Medical Applications of Research is holding a three-day course entitled "Medicine in the Media: The Challenge of Reporting on Medical Research." The agenda is here. Amazingly, course registration is free, and meals and lodging are provided - all you have to do is…
December 9, 2008
Colonial Intelligence 3/4 (detail)
Eshel Ben-Jacob
One of the things I love about SEED Magazine is its incredible design (and no, they are not paying me to say this - in fact, my respect for SEED was one of the reasons I moved to Scienceblogs last February!)
SEED's editors have collected the "…
December 9, 2008
Bravo to the Brits' Channel 4 for coming up with this series of videos, which addresses kids' inevitable questions about whether their bodies (breasts, acne, periods, sex, penises, etc.) are normal. The take-home message of these educational videos? Almost certainly you are normal, so don't be…
December 8, 2008
This interactive climate change outcomes map is an ongoing project by the Center for American Progress. More on the rationale here and instructions for adding your own data points here. It's a nice example of an interactive online project that clearly cites scientific sources.
December 8, 2008
Are your kids bouncing around on a holiday sugar high? Send them off to brainstorm names for NASA's new Mars Rover. Winners can send a "special message to the future to be placed on a chip" on the Rover, so when they finish with the name, they can start working on their message, and who knows -…
December 8, 2008
These anti-drug ads featuring risk-taking vermin, by Above the Influence, are rather clever, don't you think?
I'm trying to figure out the aesthetic - the grungy clothes could be contemporary, 80s, or 90s, but the interiors seem older - like 60s. (Check out the rotary phone in the teenager's room…
December 7, 2008
UK Reef (detail) - with candy striped anemone by Ildiko Szabo (foreground) and anemone grove by Beverly Griffiths (background). Photo by George Walker.source
This afternoon at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, physicist Margaret Wertheim of the Institute for Figuring will be giving a…
December 6, 2008
How much do you love your significant other? Enough to crack your chest open? "True Love Tattoos offer you the ultimate way to express your love for that special someone, they open you up and ink your loved one's name on your heart."
Then, since it's not exactly the type of tattoo you can easily…
December 5, 2008
How much do I love this mashed up, remixed version of the standby "Did You Know"? So much that I couldn't help rocking out to it a little during the talk I gave today at work on Web 2.0. I heart fatboy slim.
I'm not getting into the question of how reliable these stats are - while many of them (…
December 5, 2008
I snapped this pic for my friend John O, connoisseur of weird photos. And he goes and gets on Failblog with it! What gives!
Anyway, help him out if you have a moment and vote for it before it disappears into the ether. Because totally misrepresented not-so-cutting-edge technology deserves its…
December 4, 2008
Body Swallows World
Aurel Schmidt
Aurel Schmidt's ethereal drawings depict green-man like figures whose visages dissolve at a closer glance into writhing snakes, larvae, and beetles, disturbed landscapes, and birds. Haunting work.
Via IBL3D
Untitled
Aurel Schmidt