bioephemera | February 19, 2009Because I don't think the creators of Guitar Hero World Tour quite get it. . .
bioephemera | February 19, 2009For my DC peeps: I've been helping one of my colleagues with an event for college journalists, to be held next Friday at NIH (Bethesda, MD). It's a roundtable discussion on the challenges of covering addiction issues; scheduled guests include Lisa Stark of ABC News, Lauran Neergaard from the AP, and Jacqueline Duda of the WaPo, as well as scientists from NIH, NIDA, the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan. The event is free and open to college students at regional institutions of higher learning.
There is still some space left, so if you know any DC-area college students who…
bioephemera | February 16, 2009While reading the New Yorker yesterday I came across this gem of a quote from the late John Updike, which eloquently expresses one of the ideas I was reaching for in my own Darwin Day post.
The non-scientist's relation to modern science is basically craven: we look to its discoveries and technology to save us from disease, to give us a faster ride and a softer life, and at the same time we shrink from what it has to tell us of our perilous and insignificant place in the cosmos. Not that threats to our safety and significance were absent from the pre-scientific world, or that arguments against…
bioephemera | February 15, 2009
Lepidus timidus
Erica il Cane, 2007
Erica il Cane (AKA ericailcane AKA "Eric the dog") would be the perfect illustrator for that macabre children's book about vivisection that Edward Gorey should have written. In his etchings and drawings, adorable anthropomorphic creatures interact with labeled skeletons or watch as their own organs are neatly exposed. Disturbing, creepy, amusing, with a dash of pathos. Some of the drawings appear inspired by the European tradition of medical moulage - except instead of langorous, lovely women, these anatomical specimens resemble Teddy Ruxpin and his ilk…
bioephemera | February 14, 2009I look back over my life.
I try to find analogies.
There are none.
I have longed for people before, I have loved people before.
Not like this.
It was not this.
Give me a world, you have taken the world I was.
--from "Tag" by Anne Carson
read the whole poem at the New Yorker
bioephemera | February 13, 2009
These Periodic Table of Sentiments cards by Pink Loves Brown are the atom bomb. Happy Birthday is represented by element Hb, etc. So clever!
But why isn't there a Valentine's Day card suitable for telling that special geek about your deep chemical attraction? What could say "love" better than element Vd??
Believe it or not, I had to write out Vd before I saw the obvious problem. What a catastrophic holiday FAIL that would be. . . I shudder at the thought.
bioephemera | February 12, 2009Yesterday I prepared to write my Darwin Day post by attending a panel discussion at the Center For American Progress here in DC. The discussion was ostensibly about "evolution, transcendence, and the nature of faith," which led my friend Colin and I to hope for a spirited debate - perhaps even a die-hard creationist who would speak for the three-quarters of frequent churchgoers who don't accept evolutionary theory! But what we got was a predictable, rather boring discussion - at least until David Sloan Wilson arrived and threw me for a loop.
The first two panelists were Rev. Dr. Susan Brooks…
bioephemera | February 12, 2009In this video, the independent publisher of the forthcoming novel "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" expresses confusion and surprise that his acquisition went viral! Look, dude: it's about zombies. Have you even been on the intertubes before?
bioephemera | February 11, 2009I'm working on my Darwin Day blog entry for the Blog for Darwin swarm/carnival. In the meantime, you can have a little Darwin Day frivolity of your own by devolving yourself into an Australopithecus, courtesy of the Open University.
I hope it goes without saying that this is definitely not a scientifically accurate activity. But I'll say it anyway.
Speaking of frivolity, have you wished Darwin happy birthday on Facebook yet?
bioephemera | February 11, 2009
Leonotis nepetaefolia and Doctor Humming Birds, Jamiaca
Marianne North (1830-1890)
Kew Royal Botanic Gardens
Sponsorship price: £1,000
832 paintings in the Marianne North Gallery at Britain's Kew Botanic Gardens are up for adoption. No, you don't get to name them or take them home - but you do get a print and other benefits.
All of these paintings are the work of Marianne North, a prolific and Victorian artist who traveled throughout the British empire documenting native flora and fauna in her own idiosyncratic style. Independently wealthy, North gave the gallery building and the…
bioephemera | February 7, 2009
Courier
mixed media, 2007
Thomas Doyle
Thomas Doyle's miniature sculptures are dead ringers for the moldering houses and threatening forests of HP Lovecraft's Arkham. Each 1:43 scale vignette is like a scene from a horror film - if horror films were staged in the lovingly crafted O-scale countryside of a miniature railroad diorama!
Acceptable losses
mixed media, 2008
Thomas Doyle
I discovered Doyle's work via party like an art star, the blog of art gallery manager Chloe Gallagher. As Gallagher notes, the tiny scale of Doyle's pieces draws you intimately in, while the glass domes act as a…
bioephemera | February 6, 2009
Ready for the weekend? Having trouble focusing? Indulge yourself in this luscious nine-minute film from the National Gallery of Art about Vermeer's masterpiece "The Music Lesson." It leisurely unpacks the painting's geometry and shadows, showing a glimpse of the techniques that let Vermeer make quotidian Delft resemble a gold-drenched daydream.
Vermeers are often described as highly realistic, crisp, even jewel-like. Although the illusion of reality is powerful, Vermeer, like all good artists, made judicious alterations to the scene before him. This video of "The Music Lesson" shows an…
bioephemera | February 5, 2009I have two physics-based games to plug: Crayon Physics and Fantastic Contraption.
Crayon Physics is, well, just watch the demo:
Crayon Physics Deluxe from Petri Purho on Vimeo.
Cool, huh? The promo trailer reminds me of Line Rider (an online/iPhone doodling game) crossed with Fantastic Contraption (an online physics puzzle game, soon to be on the iPhone as well).
I once spent an afternoon trying to figure out Fantastic Contraption, but it confused the heck out of me. Still, it's free, addictive, and makes people stop and say "what are you doing?" Line Rider is more my speed, and since I can…
bioephemera | February 4, 2009
One Seth Grahame-Smith appears to be - ahem - reviving the Austen oeuvre with his own personal touch: zombies.
Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers--and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.
Mark your calendars now for this one, because if he can actually sustain the conceit for the…
bioephemera | February 3, 2009
Artist Jason Freeny asks us to suspend our disbelief for this mashup of two of my favorite things ever: anatomy and Lego. Surprisingly, after ripping the interchangeable heads and legs off hundreds of Lego people during my misspent youth, I find I can almost believe they *are* alive.
You can order Jason's poster here - he has also created posters for gummy bear anatomy and balloon animal anatomy. These would be excellent additions to a physiology teaching lab. Plus, Jason has created a free iPhone wallpaper of the Visible Lego Man, which is now on my phone:
Thanks, Jason!
bioephemera | February 3, 2009In case you missed it, my Sciblings are abuzz about journalists' dismissal of Jill Biden's education.
From the LA Times:
Amy Sullivan, a religion writer for Time magazine, said she smiled when she heard the vice president's wife announced as Dr. Jill Biden during the national prayer service the day after President Obama's inauguration. "Ordinarily when someone goes by doctor and they are a PhD, not an MD, I find it a little bit obnoxious," Sullivan said.
and
"My feeling is if you can't heal the sick, we don't call you doctor," said Bill Walsh, copy desk chief for the Washington Post's A…
bioephemera | February 3, 2009
Devana chasma
Peter Wasilewski
Dr. Peter Wasilewski, a NASA scientist, creates these beautiful photographs by passing polarized light through freezing films of water in Petri dishes. He calls the results "frizions":
The eye and brain combine the mixture of physical colors to produce a striking color impression. I began to control the way the ice grows, into forms I desired, always with color as my guide. Simple forms, detailed and complex forms, and forms that simply happened, as though I imagined them, established my medium. Ice growth became the landscape, and thickness and the polarizer…
bioephemera | January 30, 2009
The Pigeon of Passage
The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, 1754
Mark Catesby
Unlike Benjamin Button, he's not up for an Oscar, but he's also a film star - several hundred years late. Mark Catesby (1683-1749), a forerunner of Audubon, was the first European scientist/artist to document the flora and fauna of North America. He depicted live specimens in their natural habitats, and made special study of both migration and extinction. You can view Catesby's masterwork, The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, Vol 1 and Vol 2, at the University…