bioephemera | May 16, 2011Physicists are ontological detectives. We think of scientists as wholly rational, open to all possible arguments. But to begin with a conviction and then to use one's intellectual prowess to establish support for that conviction is a methodology that really has worked for scientists, including Deutsch. One could argue that he dreamed up quantum computing because he was devoted to the idea that science can explain the world. Deutsch would disagree. In "The Fabric of Reality," Deutsch writes, "I remember being told, when I was a small child, that in ancient times it was still possible to know…
bioephemera | May 15, 2011Alienation often accounts for a macabre sense of the marvellous. At the entrance to "Savage Beauty," there is an evening gown conjured entirely from razor-clam shells. Antelope horns sprout from the shoulders of a pony-skin jacket, and vulture skulls serve as epaulettes on a leather dress. There are angel wings made out of balsa wood, and worms encased in a bodice of molded plastic. "I'm inspired by a feather," McQueen said of all the duck, turkey, ostrich, and gull plumage in his clothing--"its graphics, its weightlessness, and its engineering."
--Judith Thurman
"Dressed to Thrill," a…
bioephemera | May 13, 2011
If you haven't already seen the Photopic Sky Survey, you really should. Nick Risinger toured the world's least light-polluted sites to photograph and stitch together this 37,440 exposure, 5000 megapixel image of the night sky. I honestly don't think I've ever appreciated the sheer number of stars out there as much as I did this morning, zooming in on Nick's amazing panorama. Someone really needs to mash this up with a Carl Sagan monologue or something, because anything I could say about our relative insignificance in the universe would be inadequate.
bioephemera | May 13, 2011
From instructables user Copper Twist, this impressionist masterpiece of bacon is both biological and ephemeral (euw). What would Van Gogh say? Why do I feel if Van Gogh were alive today, he might be Vegan?
Via Chow Bella, via lots of people.
bioephemera | May 13, 2011
Yes, I cry at everything -- Love Actually, holiday commercials, abandoned furniture on curbs -- so what could I do to resist this little guy? Is he not adorable?
He is also a letterpress card on sale at Blue Barnhouse. I just ordered several of him because I CAN'T HELP IT, he needs to be cuddled! (Fortunately envelopes can do that.)
bioephemera | May 12, 2011
I was playing The Fracking Song last night about midnight, and my boyfriend was grooving to it. At the end he asked, "what was that about?" "Uh. . . fracking."
"Which kind of fracking?"
Yes, we are a BSG household.
Anyway, it may be an explainer, but it's actually quite a nice little piece of music too. And I'm a sucker for good typography any day.
Is your fracking attention span longer than 2:33? Then go dig around in ProPublica's fracking investigation. "The Fracking Song" is by members of Jay Rosen's NYU graduate journalism class. Nice work, guys!
bioephemera | May 12, 2011
Through the end of May, UMBC's Albin O Kuhn gallery is hosting a large exhibition of postmortem daguerreotypes, death masks, coffin plates, etc. from the collection of Dr. Stanley Burns.
Medical ephemera always have an emotional valence, because they represent patients who suffered, struggled and eventually lost their physical battles. But this collection of memorials are about the survivors' needs, not the dead, and are thus particularly eerie and wrenching.
From the curator:
Trace the evolution of postmortem photography through 19th-century daguerreotypes and prints from Sleeping Beauty…
bioephemera | May 11, 2011
Earth Spirit, 2010
Enrique Gomez de Molina
Reader Laura alerted me to this iO9 post I missed on taxidermy artist Enrique Gomez de Molina, whose work would be written off as bad Photoshopping - except it's real sculpture.
The artist says,
The impossibility of my creatures brings me both joy and sadness at the same time. The joy comes from seeing and experiencing the Fantasy of the work but that is coupled with the sadness of the fact that we are destroying all of these beautiful things.
See a video of a sculpture in progress - a rhino covered with peacock feathers and thousands of individual…
bioephemera | May 11, 2011
Miracle of Science: the Cambridge bar around the corner from MIT, where the menu is a (pseudo) periodic table. May I recommend the grilled chicken salad with cilantro lime dressing, "Sc"?
bioephemera | May 7, 2011
Thanks moms! Slightly more than half of everything we are we owe to you. :)
Song by cadamole - late of the St. Patrick's Day song.
bioephemera | May 6, 2011An absolutely beautiful hummingbird illustration by paperfashion, AKA Kathryn Elyse:
According to the etsy listing, it's pencil, ink and watercolor. That tickles me, because yes you can get those bold colors in watercolors, but few people do, and I thought it might be digital. As you can see from her etsy shop (where you can buy a print), the artist predominantly does fashion illustration -- but then, this hummingbird looks like it's wearing bird haute couture. It positively glows.
Painting by Kathryn Elyse, based on an original photo by Jose Yee. (The photo is on a velvety black field, so…
bioephemera | May 6, 2011Daniel Margulies of the NeuroBureau, an open neuroscience community, shared this opportunity:
The Brain-Art Competition 2011
Submission Deadline: 11:59PM CDT, Sunday, June 5th, 2011
Award Notification: June 28th, 9PM at the Cirque du Cerveau Gala (OHBM Annual Meeting), Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec.
In order to recognize the beauty and creativity of artistic renderings emerging from the neuroimaging community, we are launching the first annual Brain-Art Competition. Countless hours are devoted to the creation of informative visualizations for communicating neuroscientific findings…
bioephemera | May 5, 2011So I ran across this thread, and it made me sad. (And no, not because it wasn't Ed Yong's blog, although that too.)
It started off as a happy post: the author, Paula Chambers, is a PhD who began her own online community for PhDs seeking jobs outside academia. That's awesome. But when Chambers went to hire an assistant, and received applications from fellow PhDs (and ABDs - "all-but-dissertation" scholars), she was not impressed:
I was and remain astounded by the failure of so many smart, educated people to follow instructions. It wasn't complicated. I asked for a résumé, cover letter, and…
bioephemera | May 3, 2011Ok, what are the people at Quirk Books on?
I have to say, I love the cover of the book, and the typographical trailer is cute - but isn't this just blatant meme abuse?
Quirk explains The Meowmorphosis thus. . .
"One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten." Thus begins The Meowmorphosis--a bold, startling, and fuzzy-wuzzy new edition of Franz Kafka's classic nightmare tale, from the publishers of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! Meet Gregor Samsa, a humble young man who works as a fabric salesman to support…
bioephemera | May 1, 2011Now this is just cruel: yesterday the Cambridge Science Festival kicked off - a week of science, sciart, sci-journalism and sci-education activities at MIT, Harvard, the Museum of Science, and surrounds. Am I going to be hanging out all day with my fellow-geeks in the sun (which finally came out a few days ago, right on cue)? No! Because I have to write two final papers. (At least they're about sci-law. . . )
Anyway, don't be like me. If you're in the Cambridge/Boston area, have a life and check out the Cambridge Science Festival schedule. There are talks, performances, screenings, panels,…
bioephemera | April 29, 2011Thanks to Coilhouse, I just learned that artist Theo Jansen is producing 3D printed baby versions of his amazing strandbeests - wind-powered kinetic sculptures that "walk" on their own.
If you don't remember Jansen, here he is with his eerie, lifelike beests, which he calls "new forms of life:"
Of course you want one, right? Well, now you can get one! A small 3D printed version, at least, without all the wings and propellers. Here's a video of a little strandbeest running around on a string. Give it five seconds, and you won't believe this little guy isn't actually alive:
Squee! (Yes, I'…
bioephemera | April 28, 2011
Scapular Art Dress
Rachel Wright
I'm about to go back offline again because I don't feel up to blogging, but I had to share this find from my friend Shana - she does know what belongs on BioE! These are one-of-a-kind art dresses by artist Rachel Wright (Toolgrrl Designs on etsy). Wright says,
This piece is called "Scapular" because of the wing-like velvet shoulder blades that grace the back. The slip is a rayon slip probably from the 50's that I dyed a scarlet red. I then used a variety of different fabrics for the appliqué: velvet, silk for the many petaled breast & kidney, a recycled…
bioephemera | April 28, 2011Recently, IP scholar and government corruption critic Larry Lessig gave a talk at CERN in which he talked about the mismatch between the goals of copyright and scientific publishing. I was excited to watch it, but . . . well, I fell asleep partway through. (It's a long talk.)
I haven't been well lately (thus the lack of posts) so I should probably thank Professor Lessig for the much-needed nap. It honestly wasn't because the video was boring - I love Lessig talks and their typographic design, and if it was boring, I wouldn't be sharing it here. But prior to the nap, I was a little troubled…
bioephemera | April 24, 2011From Linda Holmes, a poignant post about how the deluge of information makes it impossible to scratch the surface in a single lifetime:
there are really only two responses if you want to feel like you're well-read, or well-versed in music, or whatever the case may be: culling and surrender.
Culling is the choosing you do for yourself. It's the sorting of what's worth your time and what's not worth your time. It's saying, "I deem Keeping Up With The Kardashians a poor use of my time, and therefore, I choose not to watch it." It's saying, "I read the last Jonathan Franzen book and fell asleep…
bioephemera | April 15, 2011How do you get kids to master science, math, and engineering? Ask them to make a video game that teaches it to other kids. Check it out:
One of these kids wrote a video game to teach himself his multiplication tables. Another calls his elementary school cousins his "user test group." I clearly am way, way, older than I ever realized I was. I learned to "program" by writing long strings of BASICLOGO commands for a "turtle" which could. . . drumroll. . . draw lines. Pathetic.
Video: winners of the 2010 national STEM video game challenge, "a competition to motivate interest in science,…