bioephemera
Posts by this author
April 1, 2008
Yeah, yeah, I know I haven't been posting much lately. I'll remedy that shortly.
I was hoping Gmail Custom Time would enable me to post some things last week, but it appears Movable Type doesn't support the feature yet. . . so sad.
I knew all along Google had a flux capacitor. How else do they…
March 28, 2008
histoire(s) naturelle(s)
Petra Werle
Petra Werle's sculptures are fantasy, not science - nevertheless, she pins them in display cases like a butterfly collection. Their faces are molded breadcrumbs, and their bodies are made of feathers, beetles, moths, butterflies, shells, and moss.
histoire(s…
March 27, 2008
Vitamin C crystals
Spike Walker
Crystals of oxidised vitamin C (dehydroascorbic acid). Vitamin C itself (ascorbic acid) is a good antioxidant as it is reacts easily with oxygen to form the stable and unreactive dehydroascorbic acid seen here.
Of the 2008 Wellcome Image Award winners, I like this…
March 26, 2008
I am normally the last person to find the wanton demolition of art amusing. But I just discovered that early this year, when a windstorm hit my alma mater, Whitman College, a falling tree broke this large metal sculpture by Ed Humpherys, known to generations of Whitties as "The Giant Paper Clip" (…
March 26, 2008
from Darwin's Natural Heir
Directed by David Dugan; produced by Neil Patterson
I am a specialized advocate: an advocate for the rest of life. I hope that doesn't sound pompous, but all of us should be advocates for the rest of life. -E.O. Wilson
Last Tuesday I visited the National Geographic…
March 25, 2008
Have you heard the song about Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle? Check out Jonny Berliner on yesterday's Guardian Science Weekly podcast:
Everett said that there are infinite realities
The Copenhagen explanations sound like insanity
With consciousness affecting wavy-particle dualities
The…
March 25, 2008
Photo: John Downer
Trunk-cams and tusk-cams - apparently when they're not painting portraits of each other, elephants are film auteurs:
One carried a "trunk-cam" - a device resembling a huge log concealing a camera which could be held in its trunk and dangled close to the ground. Another had a "…
March 24, 2008
I was reading last week's New Yorker, and this passage by Adam Gopnik - part of a long piece about professional magicians - caught my attention. I really agree with this:
Whatever the context, the empathetic interchange between minds is satisfying only when it is "dynamic," unfinished, unresolved.…
March 23, 2008
Landing, 2005
Ralph Helmic and Stuart Schechter
Me + iPhone + 3 hour layover = tour of the random art of SeaTac!
I was stranded in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for three hours Friday with nothing to do, so I went on a little treasure hunt and catalogued as many of SeaTac's random art…
March 20, 2008
Dodo, Mauritius, last seen in the wild 1690
33" X 16" X 27"
mixed media and chicken bones
Christy Rupp
One of my favorite art blogs, Hungry Hyaena, recently reviewed the work of Christy Rupp. Her last show at Frederieke Taylor, "Extinct Birds Previously Consumed by Humans (From the Brink of…
March 20, 2008
Eric Hand had an article on Nature.com yesterday about trends in post-doubling NIH grants. I don't agree that giving prominent PIs disproportionately large numbers of grants is automatically a bad thing - it depends on the size of the lab's staff and how productive/important their research strategy…
March 18, 2008
Yesterday I alluded to the wonder cabinet aesthetic of retailer Anthropologie. I love that store, though I can't afford to patronize it (not that insolvency always stops me). But I'm sometimes ambivalent about their use of science as marketing tool.
Here's a screenshot from their latest web ad…
March 17, 2008
Nancy Fiddler with her mastodon skeleton
photo by Robert Galbraith
So apparently there's a week left to place your ebay bid on the Rustler Ranch mastodon skeleton. It's only $115K, and ebay helpfully notes that you can get "up to $25 back with ebay MasterCard"! So get out $114,975 (plus shipping)…
March 16, 2008
The following is another post from the "old" bioephemera (originally published June 18, 2007).
Last weekend I discovered Seattle's Gas Works Park. By accident. And ended up on a tour through the derelict gasworks - led by the park's designer, Richard Haag. The structures are fenced off, so I got…
March 12, 2008
Glove map of London, 1851, by George Shove. Printed map on leather.
(via Mapping the Marvellous)
Long before Googlemaps on an iPhone or handheld GPS devices, there was this very analog Victorian Glove Map! (I already posted this wonderful glove on the old bioephemera, but was inspired by a recent…
March 11, 2008
World Map (detail)
Martin Waldseemuller, 1507
Last week I had to visit the Library of Congress, so I dropped in on the 1507 map by Martin Waldseemuller. The map, which was acquired by the Library in 2003, is tucked in behind an exhibit of mesoamerican artifacts, which seemed arranged specifically…
March 6, 2008
Zooillogix posted this video of an elephant that paints "realistic paintings of other elephants:"
It's a fluff piece, granted, but it gestures towards credibility by bringing in an "art expert" (and, I'm guessing, cutting 98% of her comments). The genial narrator, anticipating our astonishment…
March 4, 2008
Gary Gygax, who died today at age 69, has a special place in my heart - but not for the obvious reason. I was never a disciple of his famous creation, Dungeons & Dragons. I grew up in a rural, conservative area, and while I'm sure there were a few gaming groups around, they were neither very…
March 3, 2008
St Elizabeth's Hospital, Washington, DC; wall of Room in Ward Retreat 1
Reproductions made by a patient, a disturbed case of dementia precox [praecox?]; pin or fingernail used to scratch paint from wall, top coat of paint buff color, superimposed upon a brick red coat of paint. Pictures symbolize…
February 29, 2008
When Garfield is digitally erased from his eponymous comic strip, Jon's life is somehow elevated to a minimalist tale of pathos, surrealism and irony - as this new blog proves:
I think buying a monkey is a cure for boredom that most people don't explore seriously enough. Especially if it's a…
February 28, 2008
"Fetus Egg"
The Museum of Food Anomalies
If you've ever seen Darwin's face on a piece of toast, or a midsaggital brain section in a Michelangelo, you'll love MoFA, a repository of culinary pareidolia.
February 27, 2008
Klingle Ford Bridge Wreck, 1925
National Photo Company Collection
Courtesy of Shorpy: proof that even in 1925, traffic on Connecticut Avenue was hell.
This wreck occurred about a mile or so from my apartment, near the National Zoo. As a work of art, it's uninspiring. But somehow its placement…
February 27, 2008
Homeland Security Kitchen Towel
Christy Rupp
Labels for Genetically Altered Food
Christy Rupp
Artist Christy Rupp has created a small line of products designed to freak people out, in the hope that alarm will translate into environmental awareness. Let's hope she's right. At the very least, they'…
February 25, 2008
Ron Pippin at Obsolete
One of my favorite mixed-media artists, Ron Pippin, just completed a stunning wonder cabinet of a show at Obsolete Gallery. Browsing the interactive panoramas on his website is like tiptoeing through the workshop of a slightly unbalanced Victorian scientist.
Book #8
Ron…
February 25, 2008
Well, this is funny. A new illustrated book about wax anatomical models - long one of my favorite topics - is about to be released. It's called "Ephemeral Bodies." Hey, did I write this book? I don't remember doing it. . . but who knows, it's been a crazy year.
The blurb:
The material history of…
February 24, 2008
Ok, this story is not my typical blog topic, but it's from my very own hometown - and so effectively illustrates why I don't live there anymore.
Back in December, our local paper coincidentally ran the following two photos on its front page. The top photo depicts a local sign painter doing his…
February 23, 2008
I first saw these anatomical letters at Street Anatomy:
Typeface Anatomy
Bjorn Johansson
Unfortunately artist Bjorn Johansson doesn't seem to have completed the alphabet; these three specimens are all we find in the fossil record. But you can view another typeface, Handwritten, based on photos…
February 21, 2008
My friend mdvlst just reminded me that there is actually an obscure DC superhero with my name, and moreover, she's a scientist superhero:
Jessica Palmer is the costumed super-hero known as the Atom and hails from a parallel reality known as Earth-15. A child prodigy, Jessica first began studying…
February 19, 2008
The following is my most popular post, by far, from the "old" bioephemera (originally published Jan 5, 2007). I'll do a repost each week for the next few weeks to give new readers a taste of the blog. . .
Anatomical Teaching Model of a Pregnant Woman
Stephan Zick, 1639-1715
Wood and ivory…
February 18, 2008
Well, the 2008 AAAS Annual Meeting here in Boston was fun! I didn't expect that. I'm not a huge fan of scientific conferences because I have an extremely short attention span. And I haven't been blogging a lot - I'd rather just enjoy the frenzy. I've been averaging 4.5 hours of sleep a night, to…