bioephemera | December 12, 2010
"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book…
bioephemera | December 10, 2010Diptheria vaccinations in the 1920s
The town of Leicester was a particular hotbed of anti vaccine activity and the site of many anti-vaccine rallies. The local paper described the details of a rally: "An escort was formed, preceded by a banner, to escort a young mother and two men, all of whom had resolved to give themselves up to the police and undergo imprisonment in preference to having their children vaccinated...The three were attended by a numerous crowd...three hearty cheers were given for them, which were renewed with increased vigor as they entered the doors of the police cells." The…
bioephemera | December 8, 2010This video from the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment is like a conservationist's version of the "Right Here, Right Now" video about social media (although the music isn't as good). It has crisp design, good infographics, and makes a very important point: that nature has massive, unappreciated economic value.
I'm not saying that money should be the main reason for environmental protection; I value nature for purely aesthetic and scientific reasons, over and above economics (although aesthetics and science both have economic value - realized through tourism and R&D).…
bioephemera | December 8, 2010After some scrambling, the Eavesmade team (self-described purveyors of "lasercut science goodness") has their scientist ornaments back in stock! And I have my very own beribboned Carl Sagan and Albert Einstein!
Here they are on my mantel; Sagan is on a rocket, and Einstein is pondering time, of course:
Due to popular demand, Eavesmade just added a Nikola Tesla ornament to their collection. So now I need that too. (It would be especially awesome to have a Tesla ornament on one of those vintage aluminum trees. . . )
Thanks, Eavesmade!
bioephemera | December 7, 2010Whether you're studying, working, or just trying to stay warm this week, take a moment to appreciate this view of the inner workings of this positively Yeatsian music box:
Mechanical Bird Music Box
I admit it: I burst out laughing at the unexpected closure of the box. Poor little bird! (Yet he rose again, phoenix-like, to sing once more.)
From the collection of the Musical Instrument Museum. Thanks to my friend mdvlst for the link.
bioephemera | December 7, 2010The Wellcome Trust book prize honors books that "bring together the worlds of medicine and literature."
This year's recipient was none other than Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - a well-deserved win for a nuanced exploration of the tensions between pure research, medical ethics, and social injustice (with a meta-message about the role of the science journalist in telling these kinds of stories).
Some of the other books on the Wellcome shortlist were new to me, so I wanted to highlight them in case you're interested in some holiday reading. But I'll be honest, this…
bioephemera | December 5, 2010FYI:
Science Art-Nature and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) present the "Science Without Borders" online art exhibition in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C., February 17 - 21, 2011.This on-line art exhibition, was conceived to display and promote the best contemporary Science Art and to encourage discourse between the scientific and artistic communities. Designed as a companion to the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, each selected piece of…
bioephemera | December 4, 2010Want! (The telescope works!)
Digby and Iona Spyglass necklace, from Catbird.
bioephemera | December 4, 2010"Although science is seemingly the logical, rational, ordered antithesis of artistic creativity, artists and scientists still share a common drive to innovate, explore, dissect and reveal. They have a unified love and awe for the world around and within them."
--Mark de Novellis, curator of "Picturing Science," a sciart exhibition opening today at the UK's Riverside Gallery.
bioephemera | December 3, 2010Some awesome photos from NSF teams working in Antarctica (click for larger versions). This one makes me want to hum "O Little Base of McMurdo, how still we see thee lie. . . "
McMurdo base by night
James Walker/NSF
Palmer Station Sunset
Lisa Trotter/NSF
Aurora australis over McMurdo
Ken Klassy/NSF
Amundsen-Scott Station
Mel McMahon/NSF
Source: 'Dispatches from Antarctica,' a series of posts by Air Force Lt. Col. Ed Vaughan with OPERATION: DEEP FREEZE, the Defense Department's support of National Science Foundation research in Antarctica. Vaughan's ongoing series of posts includes an account…
bioephemera | December 2, 2010Okay, you've probably heard the buzz about the "arsenic organism" supposedly discovered in Mono Lake, and how NASA's 2pm press conference today will reveal more. I'll be honest, I wasn't that excited about it - extremophile bacteria metabolize some freaky stuff, and it seemed pretty clear the announcement wasn't about extraterrestrial life. But Gizmodo is now claiming the critter has arsenic based DNA.
Did April Fools Day relocate to December? I'll believe this story when I hear it from the researcher herself, but that would be SO COOL. I'm getting my wide-eyed-awestruck-biologist hat out of…
bioephemera | November 30, 2010APOD got some attention yesterday with this stunning photo of a supercell thunderstorm several kilometers wide, brooding over a Montana field:
Mothership
Sean Heavey, 2010
I'm not sure it's possible for a work of art or photography to more effectively convey the grandeur of nature and the awesome power of physics. The image is simply unreal (which is why the title "Mothership" works so well). But Montana photographer Sean Heavey has a whole gallery of these stunning storm photos.
I'm especially nuts about the ominous, Tesla-esque drama of "Base Reflectivity":
And for all you would-be storm-…
bioephemera | November 30, 2010
The BBC is screening a new documentary, "The Joy of Statistics," hosted by Hans Rosling of Gapminder. This is a short clip; you'll probably recognize the data and presentation from a couple of years back, but the Minority Report-style, virtual full-body interface is new. Granted, it starts off a little reminiscent of a local news meteorologist gesturing stiffly at a greenscreen. But within the first minute it starts to seem more natural, and the data (comparative life expectancy, wealth, and population in the developed and developing continents) is always eye-opening. The BBC seems to be…
bioephemera | November 30, 2010Dave Hone's blog, Archosaur Musings, is hosting a wonderful series of interviews with paleoartists - artists and illustrators who specialize in resurrecting lost species for scientific publications, popular media, and/or fine art. Check out Mark Witton and Todd Marshall for particularly interesting perspectives.
Not only are these pretty posts with lots of eye candy, they're also excellent windows into that varied career options for anyone considering freelance medical or biological illustration. Kudos to Dave Hone for this truly useful (and I'm sure very time-consuming) series of sciart…
bioephemera | November 29, 2010Just in: Carl Schoonover's Portraits of the Mind, which I reviewed a few weeks ago, gets the New York Times Science section treatment. Check out their video interview with Carl; his account of the book's genesis illustrates the benefits that accrue when scientists take the opportunity to share the things that excite them about their work with nonscientists. And congratulations to Carl for all the well-deserved attention!
bioephemera | November 28, 2010
I've been dithering about buying these for my scientist friends, but it looks like eavesmade's etsy shop may be running low, so I'm going to quit dithering and just post this for your pre-Cyber Monday enjoyment. They're wooden scientist holiday ornaments, featuring the likes of Carl Sagan, Rosalind Franklin, and Stephen Hawking. I think they're both great and hilariously awkward.
You get six for $30 plus shipping. Order fast. . . . !
PS Thanks to Joanna for the link!
bioephemera | November 28, 2010Yes, that's what I said - Gunther von Hagens has a gift shop, and he's selling earrings and necklaces made of slices of equine and bovine genitalia. Don't like ostentatious, plastinatious penis jewelry? There's always a bull penis vasculature walking stick.
I had to blog these, but honestly, I didn't really want to know they existed at all.
bioephemera | November 26, 2010
All shopped out? I can pretty much guarantee that difficult person on your gift list does not have a huge, one-of-a-kind mama Emperor scorpion carrying baby scorpions made of fleece, felt and pom-poms.
At $200, this plush scorpion sculpture may sting your pocketbook, but seller weirdbuglady also offers more affordable amoebas, tardigrades, fossils and insects. Check out her etsy shop and her blog.
bioephemera | November 26, 2010
I made the pieces fit then took them apart
then made them fit when I got tired I lay me down my little head
against the flannel chicks and ducks then slept then woke then took
the puzzle up my mother had another child sick unto death
she needed me to fall in love with solitude I fell in love
it is my toy my happiness. . .
poem: excerpt from "Fox," by Ellen Bryant Voight. Read the rest of the poem at the Atlantic.
photo: fox rolling around, from Everything is Permuted's flickrstream.
More:
a 1999 interview with the poet.