Art
neurophilosophy | August 27, 2008
At Bioephemera, Jessica has a fascinating post about depictions of madness in 15th-17th century art, during which time mental illness was popularly attributed to the presence of a "stone of madness" (or "stone of folly") in the head.
One of the earliest depictions of this is found in the above painting, Hieronymous Bosch's The Cure of Folly (The Extraction of the Stone of Madness), and similar scenes were subsequently depicted by other Renaissance artists.
As Jessica explains, historians of art and medicine are in dispute about the underlying meaning of the paintings. Were they depictions…
zooillogix | August 21, 2008There's no interesting news. It appears all the world's animals have finally been discovered, their strange mating behaviors documented, and their interest in acting all crazy for YouTube evaporated. But we are undaunted. We will make the logical transition and become a knitting blog.
Once again, we bring you critters from Mochimochi Land complete with their creator's commentary. Past installments here and here.
Evolving Punk
Evolution is still a pretty radical idea - just ask this little Evolving Punk. He recently made the big step onto dry land from the primordial ooze of a dirty toilet.…
pzminion | August 10, 2008MAJeff here, playing "host" this Sunday.
The image above is a bit dated. It was a poster produced for last year's Folsom Street Fair in San Francsicso. (For those out of the know, the Folsom Street Fair is a queer leather/BDSM festival.) Of course, the tighty-righties got terribly fussy over it.
Now, if you like your christ-cock a bit more hippie-ish, or if you're a show-tune queen, this might be more up your alley:
That's from the upcoming film, Hamlet 2.
Of course, you could just get your jesus-jizz the old fashioned way:
That's El Greco's Carducho's Stigmatization of St. Francis,…
pharyngula | August 7, 2008Once again, we open the floor to the lyrical expression of a few readers who have been inspired by the recent effusion of musical and poetical outbursts here. Fortunately for all, there is no gong hanging on the wall behind you, the judges…although some of these have been pretty good.
First up is a little poem written during the Dover trial by a very famous evolutionary biologist who has asked me to keep it anonymous. No confidence in the meter, huh? Or perhaps fear that declaring such talent will lead to the literary set distracting from the real work of biology?
I think that I shall never…
pharyngula | August 6, 2008For those of you who liked yesterday's little poem, here's a somewhat rowdier piece that I was sent.
DNA (to the tune of TNT by ACDC)
Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi! Oi!
See me divide up in your nucleus on your micro-screen
I'm all of you that you can get
If you know what I mean
Proteins to the left of me, lipids to the right
Aint got no oxy, but I got moxy
Don't you start a fight
"Cus I'm DNA
I'm Dynamite
(DNA) I'm wound up tight
(DNA) I have secrets to tell
(DNA) I'm in your cells!!!!
I'm Adenine! Guanine! Cytosine!
And Thymine man!
Nitrogen bases, a phosphate group
Understand?
G binds to C
A…
pharyngula | August 5, 2008I was sent this lovely bit of poetic biology, by someone who said it was written by a colleague at the Salk…maybe she'll give full credit in the comments. Consider yourself a knowledgeable cell biologist if you get all the allusions.
The p53rd Psalm
p53 is my shepherd, I shall not cycle
It maketh me to lie down in G1
It leadeth me beside still nucleotide pools
It restoreth my genome
It leadeth me past the restriction point for replication's sake
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of the cobalt irradiator
I shall fear no gamma rays, for thou art Guardian of the Genome
Thy…
grrlscientist | July 31, 2008
Everyone knows that the White House has been forcing scientists to only talk about research that conforms with GW's agenda, and the political cartoonists have been busily committing these shameful lies to paper in a form that we all can appreciate. One of those cartoons is pictured above. Thanks to a blog pal of mine, now is your opportunity to choose your favorite cartoon in the Union for Concerned Scientists' Scientific Integrity Editorial Cartoon Contest. They have 12 cartoons there for you to choose between -- good luck! I am still trying to figure out which one I want to vote for (the…
pharyngula | July 24, 2008Regular commenter Patricia sent me a present — isn't this pretty?
The octopus pendant is also very nice. You can get your own at the Emerson Glass Art Studio, if you're envious.
Thanks, Patricia! I will get it away from my cervical model someday, I'm sure.
aardvarchaeology | July 21, 2008
I'm a big fan of sculptress Maria Lundberg, particularly her work in hardwood. Now, I can't afford to buy her stuff. But being a good friend of the family, she's agreed to a somewhat unusual arrangement. I've rented one of her pieces for a year.
Most artists have a large backlog of unsold work sitting around their homes and studios. This way, Lundberg has one less bulky piece to house, it earns her a modest amount of money, and she retains the option of selling it at any time with a simple partial refund for me.
I'm not a hoarder. This is actually an ideal arrangement for me: I get to keep a…
chaoticutopia | July 19, 2008There’s nothing like spending a month staring at trees. As I hinted recently, my purpose for I was wandering all over the mountains, searching for aspen, was artistic inspiration. But to what end? Well... it all started when I painted my walls. Folks would come and observe my progress.
"The color looks great. But what are you going to do about the doors?"
I’d cringe every time. The battered hollow-core doors in a dark wood stain stuck out like sore thumbs, especially upstairs. There, the hallway was the loft, which was also our office. It’s the one room we spend more time in than any, and…
laelaps | July 18, 2008Over the course of the past year I've had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of many paleontologists and illustrators of prehistoric life, people who have helped me with their comments, criticism, and support. One such person whose work I admire is Matt Celeskey, the artist (and blogger) behind the Hairy Museum of Natural History.
A few months ago I asked Matt to come up with a brand new banner for this blog, something unique that would capture the character of Laelaps. Although I gave Matt some initial direction, that I wanted an articulated skeleton Dryptosaurus (previously known as "…
pharyngula | July 9, 2008Never mind that, though — Hybrid Medical Animation has a lovely demo reel of cells and molecules bouncing around.
grrlscientist | July 7, 2008tags: eggshell carvings, art, Taiwanese artist, streaming video
I think of eggshells as beautiful natural objects, but a Taiwanese artist sees them as raw materials for his artwork -- even though this video is in Chinese, I think it is fascinating nonetheless [3:23]
neurophilosophy | June 24, 2008
Common cockles, by Nick Veasey, who "uses x-ray technology to create mesmerizing and intriguing art".
aardvarchaeology | June 23, 2008Over at Podcastle, I just heard an amazing reading/performance of an amazing surrealist love story, "Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery". It was written by John Schoffstall, first published as text two years ago, and read by Heather Lindsley at Random Jane. It's got some gore and a few naughty words, it's nerdily intellectual, it's lyrically written and it's really, really funny.
laelaps | June 23, 2008If you liked last week's post about the creation of The Whale at the AMNH you will definitely want to check out the new issue of Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture. The theme for the present issue is "rogue taxidermy," and it includes pieces on strange amalgamations of stuffed animals, nature dioramas as art, and other related stories. If you're interested in the topic in general then you should also have a look at Windows on Nature, Stuffed Animals and Pickled Heads, and Evolution, too.
The main page for the magazine says that it's looking for submissions on a number of topics…
pontiff | June 20, 2008One of the most amusing things about writing a blog is that people you've never met form an impression about you from your blabberings, and then, often, when they actually meet you they are astounded that you aren't "an old grumpy guy" or whatever image they had in their mind. So, in order to confuse you even more, here are some things which I've been reading and thinking about and doing while not working on efficient quantum algorithms for the hidden subgroup problem.
Spanish Treasury to Exclude Italian Government Bonds. Could this be an indication of problems ahead for the Euro?…
laelaps | June 18, 2008If Opabiniahad left descendants, what would they have looked like? That was the question on my mind as I fiddled around with the new Spore Creature-Creator last Friday night, tweaking my virtual creation this way and that in a bit of speculative biology. I admit that the end result has more to do with what I think looks cool than anything scientific, but the demo for the upcoming "Sim Life" game Spore sure is a lot of fun to play with.
I'll take some snapshots and video to share if I can (along with my thoughts on the demo), but if you really want to know you don't have to wait for me. The…
chaoticutopia | June 13, 2008I mentioned in my last post (a few weeks ago) that I was taking a hiatus from blogging to work on my overgrown home remodel. I’d like to say I’m finished: "woohoo! All done, come and see!" but I’m not. I am, however, getting close. Close enough to start thinking about what type of art I’m going to hang on my newly painted walls. Why not fractals?
A few years ago, I would never have considered hanging a fractal on the wall. Sure, maybe if you have a college dorm room with tie-dyed sheets and Jimi Hendrix posters... but in a family home? Then again, a few years ago, my family strongly disagreed…