bioephemera
Posts by this author
October 21, 2008
This receipt from CVS was over three feet long!
I purchased exactly one item. How is this monstrous scroll of paper remotely necessary to document it? It's no wonder the world has conservation problems. . .
October 19, 2008
BeastChris Berens, 2007
Via the excellent art blog Erratic Phenomena, I discovered the work of Dutch painter Chris Berens. Actually, "discovered" is the wrong word; I'd glimpsed his work before, but never had a chance to discover the artist behind these warped-yet-graceful paintings, which appear…
October 19, 2008
On Friday, the Union of Concerned Scientists released a "report card" on media practices and scientific speech in federal agencies. According to UCS,
Both good policy and good practice in the communication of scientific results to the media are achievable goals for federal agencies. Yet there is no…
October 17, 2008
"Refitting repasts: a spatial exploration of food processing, sharing, cooking, and disposal at the Dunefield Midden campsite, South Africa."
Brian Stewart and Giulia Saltini-SemerariScience
If you couldn't stop twitching your pipetman to the crazy Euro-molecule party a couple posts back, or that…
October 15, 2008
Okay - it's halfway through the DonorsChoose challenge, and we need to do better. We still have several great projects left to fund. Luckily, our SEED overlords have decided to reward you for giving - not that helping kids learn isn't reward enough, but an iPod would be nice, wouldn't it?
So, Seed…
October 15, 2008
In the interest of supplying an educational, scientific alternative to the third presidential debate, I give you this:
This video is the creation of those kooky Europeans at Marie Curie Actions, who also gave us this disturbingly throbbing website. It all has something to do with science education…
October 15, 2008
If you had to persuade a medieval peasant that the world was round, how would you do it? Why do you believe the world is round? And what does the American public in general think?
One of the hardest tasks I encountered as a professor was getting my students to recognize that all of their…
October 13, 2008
The National Library of Medicine just opened a new exhibition, "Harry Potter's World: Renaissance Science, Magic, and Medicine."
"Harry Potter's World" explores the plants, animals, and magic featured in the Harry Potter book series and their roots in Renaissance traditions that played an…
October 10, 2008
I'm off to a wedding this weekend, so no posts for a few days. But I wanted to give you a heads up that six computers will be competing in a Turing test on Sunday.
The competitors, named Alice, Brother Jerome, Elbot, Eugene Goostman, Jabberwacky and Ultra Hal, must converse for five minutes and…
October 8, 2008
Fixed (fawn)Lisa Black
Lisa Black's hybrid clockwork animals are heartbreaking - especially the fawn and duckling. The title of her series, "Fixed," strikes just the right note of ambiguity. Is the fawn's state a travesty, or better than the alternative? Who did the fixing, and why?
Via Brass…
October 7, 2008
Dymaxion SkeletonMatthew Day Jackson, 2008
I had a pleasant surprise at our Apple blogging panel last week, when my friend Christopher Reiger of Hungry Hyaena dropped by. He's posted a thoughtful response to some issues we touched on very lightly in the panel.
Like Brian and I, Christopher was a…
October 7, 2008
No, that's not a phalanx of nuclear power plants in Harlem - it's a futuristic housing concept proposed in 1964 by visionary Buckminster Fuller and his student Shoji Sadao. The 100-story residential skyscrapers would hold 45,000 occupants each. Fuller and Sadao also proposed a two-mile wide dome…
October 6, 2008
Today's NYT describes a new strategy for Down Syndrome screening. The new test, developed by a company called Sequenom, screens the mother's blood sample for fragments of RNA produced from fetal chromosomes.
Dr. Lo looked for genes on Chromosome 21 that were active in the fetus but not in the…
October 5, 2008
Before heading to the Apple Store SoHo for our blogging panel last Wednesday, I dropped by evolution ("science and art in SoHo"), a store recommended by Pam of Phantasmaphile.
Evolution is clearly NYC's prime destination for the amateur natural historian, an east coast cousin of Berkeley's Bone…
October 3, 2008
fanfin seadevilThe Deep: Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
Claire Nouvian
photographed by David Shale
For anyone who does not yet have a copy of Claire Nouvian's beautiful book, The Deep, here's a chance to win it - through Oceana's Freakiest Fish of 2008 contest. The book also has the Dumbo…
October 3, 2008
A recent PLoS Genetics paper triggered a sea change in the way genetic data is handled by research institutions like the NIH, the Broad Institute, and the Wellcome Trust. The paper, which came out last month, demonstrated that it's possible to identify a single individual's DNA in a pool of DNA…
October 2, 2008
Via bookofjoe via geekologie: a glossy black panther bike by Byron Hemmes.
October 2, 2008
Squid Suckers
Jessica Schiffman and Caroline Schauer (Drexel University)Honorable Mention, Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge 2008
The September 26 issue of Science contains the annual S&E Visualization Challenge winners. The feature is pay-only, but the winners are summarized in…
October 1, 2008
Today is the first day of the annual DonorsChoose Blogger challenge! As you may know, DonorsChoose is a website devoted to funding lessons dreamed up by creative (but underfunded) teachers. Everyone knows that teachers routinely spend their own time and money to create inspiring experiences for…
October 1, 2008
Just a reminder that tonight I'll be appearing with some of my Sciblings on a science blogging panel at the Apple Store SoHo. Come join us!
September 29, 2008
A new conservation international ad for the "lost there, felt here" campaign pays visual tribute to the Amazon's nickname "lungs of the world."
September 28, 2008
The Way Things Go
Peter Fischli and David Weiss, 1987
Hirshhorn Museum
I went by the Hirshhorn a few weeks ago, and this was my favorite piece: a film depicting a slow-moving, low-budget Rube Goldberg apparatus built by artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss out of tires, candles, fuses, ramps,…
September 27, 2008
Apparently this is the latest cover of Nature:
No comment. . . seriously, I didn't even think this was real, but I've seen it enough places now to think it probably is. Hilarious.
update: forgot to mention it's via stinque
September 25, 2008
Tomorrow may or may not be the first of the presidential debates between Obama and McCain. I'll watch, although I find political debates really depressing, and not just because reality is a little bleak right now. I'm always frustrated at the level of the discourse. If a candidate goes where a…
September 25, 2008
For some reason, Ben Folds has decided to make giant rotating skulls and brains part of his latest tour - this is the scene on stage last night in DC. There was a "brainwashing" theme in the first few songs, and I think that guided the choice of images, but darn, it was kinda weird!
September 25, 2008
Shelley Batts, Nick Anthis, and Tara Smith authored an article on science blogging which appeared yesterday in PLoS Biology. In their words,
We propose a roadmap for turning blogs into institutional educational tools and present examples of successful collaborations that can serve as a model for…
September 24, 2008
Shadow Hand
Check out this slideshow of robot hands from Wired. It tracks the evolution of the hand from the first attempts to duplicate the functionality of a human hand, to integration of self-monitoring proprioceptive and sensory capabilities, to replicating the anatomical and physiological…
September 23, 2008
Darwin's Ghosts (older than dirt)Dan Kennedy, 2008
Artist Dan Kennedy's new show, "Darwin's Ghosts," is opening next weekend at the Shooting Gallery Gallery Three in San Francisco. Kennedy's work is like spun candy: colorful cartoon figures; Seuss-like, rainbow-tufted plants; floating phrases;…
September 22, 2008
When was the last time you coveted something, but let prudence prevent self-indulgence - to your later regret? This summer I was gallery-hopping on Martha's Vineyard when I saw these wonderful stone neckpieces by artist Andrea Williams.
I really, really wanted the round Kyuma Pendant, a smooth…
September 22, 2008
For the past two years, Scibling Bora has shepherded the creation of an anthology sampling the best of science blogging, called The Open Laboratory. Blog posts written since December 20, 2007 are eligible for consideration; you can nominate your own posts, as well as posts by other bloggers. The…