bioephemera | August 27, 2008
Surgical suture sampler, circa 18th cen.
Zurich Medical History Museum
Photo from Ickybitty's photostream
. . . unless your grandma was a trauma surgeon. This antique sampler from the Medical History Museum in Zurich represents a variety of stitch techniques appropriate for different anatomical regions and types of injury. Both the embroidery and the illustrated backing are rendered in remarkable detail:
bioephemera | August 26, 2008
Forestle uses the Google search algorithm, but the ad revenues associated with each search go to prevent deforestation (via donations to the Nature Conservancy).
According to the site, the average search saves about 0.1 square meter (0.11 sq. yd) of rainforest - approximately the surface of your computer screen. And Forestle's browser plugins make altruism about as easy as possible. (Its creators estimate that about 5% of revenues will go to admin costs).
Here's the interface - it's minimalist just like the real Google, and has most of the same functions:
Via ars technica
bioephemera | August 25, 2008
The Cure of Folly (The Extraction of the Stone of Madness)
oil on board
attributed to Hieronymous Bosch*, c. 1475-1490
Museo del Prado, Madrid
At one point or another, Hieronymous Bosch must have turned his paintbrush to every bizarre practice known to the fifteenth century Dutch mind, and this early piece is no exception. The composition is relatively simple: a surgeon is performing trepanation (craniotomy) on a restrained subject, while two onlookers watch. But looking closely, one can see that all is not right in Bosch's peculiar countryside: the surgeon is wearing a funnel as a hat, and…
bioephemera | August 24, 2008
A great gift for the medical history junkie, from Manifesto Letterpress: twelve "Dreade of Death" letterpress bookplates ($9.95 on sale). The designs are also available as coasters.
Manifesto also has skeleton and microscope letterpress postcards for the scientist in your life.
bioephemera | August 22, 2008
For the cephalophile's gift registry: a large octobowl by Hudson Beach Glass. Available here and elsewhere.
bioephemera | August 21, 2008
Today I wandered over to the National Zoo and saw the baby golden lion tamarins, who are just about a month old now. I've never seen anything so cute in a zoo in my life. The babies leap on any adult in reach and cling as the adults scramble across branches - clearly raising these babies is a team effort. This photo by RoxandaBear captures the excessive cuteness.
Shortly afterward, an orangutan climbing along the O-line dropped feces on the crowd (he missed). You can trust primates to bring the cuteness and the grossness, in rapid succession. . . they are our cousins, after all.
photo via…
bioephemera | August 21, 2008
Bibliodyssey just published an outstanding collection of illustrations depicting the development of the microscope. I recently saw these antique microscopes at the National Museum of Health and Medicine, and I enjoyed trying to match my photos with the engravings.
This ornately decorated microscope was made by Christopher Cock (~1665), designed by Hooke and used by him in preparing Micrographia. (NMHM, "The Billings Microscope Collection," 1974) Note the similarity to the microscope in this plate from Hooke's seminal book Micrographia (via Bibliodyssey):
I love the NMHM's period display…
bioephemera | August 20, 2008
Check it out! For my birthday, my mom sent me two little bird skulls! They weigh almost nothing - I can't even feel them in my hand.
I guess I have to forgive my mom for some of the embarrassing things she did to me while I was a teenager; few girls have a mom who will collect skulls for them, much less wrap them up and mail them. Thanks, mom!
bioephemera | August 19, 2008Very Slow, Very TiredMachine-Animals
Nicholas Lampert, 2006
I promised last week to review the MoMA exhibition "Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities." Since making that promise, I've heard from several more friends that they've been to see it - so perhaps this review is preaching to the choir! I was extremely impressed with the breadth and curation of this show, and would go again, if I were in NYC.
Wunderkammern, or cabinets of curiosities, arose in mid-sixteenth-century Europe as repositories for all manner of wondrous and exotic objects. In essence these collections--combining specimens…
bioephemera | August 19, 2008My friend Don Engel, a physicist, is running for delegate to the Maryland Assembly. In addition to understanding math far better than I ever will, he's extremely web-savvy, and has harnessed Facebook to mobilize supporters.
A few days ago, Don sent out this link to his ElectBlue page:
As a scientist, I'm excited about bringing a different, much-needed perspective to the state legislature. As far as getting there, this perspective has a handicap attached. My personal network has many scientists and techies. Other candidates' networks tend to have many former law school classmates who…
bioephemera | August 18, 2008Jen Ouellette takes lethal aim at the myth of the sexless girl-geek in this post, which made me want to pump my fist and cheer and go out dancing in a sexy dress and look in a microscope and write a blog post all at the same time:
The mistake many people make, however, is to over-compensate too far in the other direction, wherein anything remotely "girly" is somehow exerting undue pressure on young girls, with no thought to the possibility that maybe some girls genuinely like this stuff. Maybe this is part of who they are. Maybe they also like science and math. Ergo, we are putting a whole…
bioephemera | August 18, 2008Third EyeWayne Martin Belger
This is one of the most strangely compelling artworks I've encountered recently: a pinhole camera made from a 150-year-old skull.
Wayne Martin Belger's Third Eye is a human skull with a tiny hole drilled in the traditional location of the mystical "third eye." The pinhole allows light to enter the cranium and expose photographic film.
The cranium is opened and the film accessed through an elaborate, gothic set of findings crafted from jewelled aluminum, titanium, brass and silver. The effect is steampunky, but also reminiscent of the decorative metalwork used in…
bioephemera | August 17, 2008Okay, I haven't been very active on the blog the past few days because I'm on vacation - hopefully, an artistic vacation, during which I will actually paint something. To motivate me to paint that something, I commit to you, readers, that I will have some art product, however sketchy, to post in the next few days. If I do not, mock me mercilessly in the comment section. I have so far framed two pieces for a local group show I'm doing in a few weeks, and that's a good start, right?
I also plan to plow through the giant pile of blog fodder which is slowly devouring my computer desk - news…
bioephemera | August 13, 2008Le Corbeau Volant, 1875
Edouard Manet
While in NYC last weekend, I squeezed in an hour at the MoMA to see their exhibition Wunderkammer: A Century of Curiosities (July 30-Nov 10, 2008). It's really phenomenal. The main criticism I heard as I wandered the gallery was that the collection was perhaps a bit incoherent and scattered, and that may be true, but order barely imposed on a chaotic diversity of specimens is the essence of a wonder cabinet - isn't it?
This was one of the specimens that caught my eye: a simple, fluid lithograph of a flying raven by Edouard Manet. It's from the…
bioephemera | August 11, 2008
I love egregious examples of faux-scientific jargon and weird portrayals of the research process in advertising. I just noticed that Rembrandt, the company that makes tooth whitening systems, has a couple of doozies. From their "Brilliant Science" website:
At REMBRANDT®, we believe if you want to make something different, you have to do things a little differently. That's why we like to think outside the lab (which is, in actuality, a giant box). Who knows when a cloud in the sky or guitar playing in the park will lead to the next bit of amazingness. It's this novel, creative approach to…
bioephemera | August 10, 2008
From Canadian artist Francis Koch at Uberbrain, art that mixes Art Nouveau design, steampunk elements and a post-industrial grit. It's like Alphonse Mucha with sinister animals instead of languid nymphs.
bioephemera | August 9, 2008So far, the Sb meetup has been tres fun. Last night I met PhysioProf, Bora, Dr. Signout, Brian, Josh, Janet, Grrlscientist, Erin, Kate, Ed, and Mark, and got to see Zuska again. (Whew -did I forget anyone in there? Probably! Sorry!)
It's excellent to put faces with names, especially over martinis and Korean food.
Today there will be more festivities - Seed is hosting a reader meet-up from 2-4pm at Social bar and lounge. I'll be there, as will many of my fellow bloggers, so stop by if you're in NYC! All are welcome, and Seed's buying the first round of pitchers.
Meetup details:
2pm-4pm on…
bioephemera | August 8, 2008
This great retro-tech image is by Swedish artist Tomas Zackarias Westberg, via Imaginary Magnitude.
Today I'm taking a bus up to NYC for the annual Scienceblogs Meetup. I expect I'll still be blogging, because you must blog from a blog meetup, right? And Seed has kindly arranged WiFi for us, so I have no excuse.
In the meantime, if you haven't already done so, consider taking the Scienceblogs survey; you could win a yummy iPhone 3G from Apple. (If you win it and don't want it, I'll be happy to take it off your hands)!
bioephemera | August 7, 2008This remarkable orb spider web is courtesy of reader Matt:
This individual was in my garden, and the colors of the web caught my eye. I don't think I've ever noted something like this before, and was quite surprised it showed on the photo. The outer edge of the nickel sized web pattern is iridescent blue, the inside fades into a purplish-magenta. No colors are visible when shaded.
How did the spider make a color gradient in its web? I'm really not sure. Although spiderweb can refract or diffract light quite spectacularly, the result is not as organized as this - it's more of a rainbow effect…
bioephemera | August 7, 2008
Apparently artist Jan Vormann has been going around villages near Rome and patching ancient masonry with Lego. I'm not really sure what more to say about this, except that it seems perfectly reasonable to me.