Art
voltagegate | September 11, 2007Shelley, Orli and Grrl have amply discussed the untimely death of Alex and the history of his relationship with Irene Pepperberg, so I will say nothing more than how much of an inspiration he was to my fiance. She has been working on a series of paintings depicting animals in famous experiments, and was immediately taken by Alex's charm.
Three cheers to Alex! You taught us much, and will be remembered.
neurophilosophy | September 8, 2007
Bill Scott uses electroencephalogram (EEG) data to create computer-generated images like this one.
(Via Dr. Karen)
neurophilosophy | September 5, 2007From a comic book called What are Cosmic Rays, by researchers at the Solar-Terrestrial Evironment Laboratory at Nagoya University in Japan.
There are 5 others in English, and more in Japanese.
omnibrain | September 4, 2007Check out these amazing pieces of 3d Fakery in a swimming pool. I'd personally get a 3d shark pool to keep those damn kids out of my yard. Well... at least I would if I were 80 and had a yard with a pool.
neurophilosophy | September 2, 2007
These illustrations by Jacques Fabien Gautier d'Agoty are part of a collection which is to be auctioned off at Christie's in New York on October 5th.
The auction, which is called Anatomy as Art: The Dean Endell Medical Collection, has 229 lots, including the first edition of De Humani Corporis Fabrica, by Andreas Vesalius, estimated at $200,000- $300,000. The illustrations above are from lots 85 and 91, which together have estimates of $80,000- $120,000.
Illustrations by both Vesalius and d'Agoty were used by Jessica for 3 of my beautiful rotating custom headers.
(Via Morbid…
cevans | August 31, 2007I once said that 2007 on Universe would include many new features, one being an occasional review of a work of science fiction. Hello!
The Black Cloud is a 1957 science-fiction novel written by British astronomer Fred Hoyle. Like the novels of Carl Sagan, and, often, Arthur C. Clarke, it's something of an extrapolation of the author's deeply-held scientific conceptions. Because it was written by a scientist, further, it's almost overwhelmingly dry at times; the narrative often gives way entirely to pages full of mathematical formulae, diagrams, and lengthy expository footnotes.
The…
pharyngula | August 31, 2007This is a kind of cephalart quickie, two images that are perfect for Pharyngula. If I had rooms here I'd hang them in ornate frames surrounded by expensive lighting.
Here is the patron saint of Pharyngula, St Architeuthis, by Skot Olsen.
This one is so beautiful it brings a tear to me eye; the only way it could be improved is if it were painted on black velvet. Here's a test: I can't name all the people seated at da Vinci's Last Supper, but I can name every one in this picture. Can you?
neurophilosophy | August 30, 2007
A caricature of me, aged about 4, by Bahgat Osman (1931-2001).
Osman was Egypt's most prominent political cartoonist during the 1960s and '70s. He was a close friend of my father's, and I have vivid memories of him from my early childhood in Cairo. I even vaguely remember posing for this portrait, which was completed in a matter of minutes.
Both my father and Osman were members of the diaspora of Egyptian intellectuals. My father was imprisoned and tortured under Gamal Abdel Nasser in the mid-1950s, and came to London in the early '70s for medical treatment. At around that time, Osman…
ksharpe | August 30, 2007"The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds," says artist Theo Jansen. For over 14 years, Jansen has been engaged in the production of animari, or beach animals—massive kinetic sculptures constructed of light materials. After a firm push to begin, the wind takes over, and the skeletally beautiful 'animals' walk unaided over the beaches of the Netherlands, where Jansen lives and works.
The next video presents a computer simulation of Jansen's 'mechanism,' set to music by Philip Glass. After the jump, a 20-second spot of "Animaris Rhinocerous Transport" in motion.
zooillogix | August 21, 2007"I'm probably the only person to ever remove a grasshopper from Richard Burton's crotch."
This past Sunday, the Washington Post brought a fascinating entomologist to our attention: Steven Kutcher, bug wrangler to the stars. Getting his start in show business quite haphazardly when he was asked to help arrange a plague of locusts for the Exorcist II (1976), Kutcher saw a niche career opportunity he couldn't turn down. Close to 200 movies, TV shows and commercials later, including the feel good hit Arachnophobia, Kutcher is a different kind of Hollywood celebrity.
As interesting as Kutcher's…
aardvarchaeology | August 13, 2007The poet, philologist and bishop Esaias Tegnér (1782-1846) once wrote,
All bildning står på ofri grund till slutet
Blott barbariet var en gång fosterländskt
"All our learning must always stand on a slavish foundation
Barbarism is our single true heritage"
This was in the context of how nice Tegnér felt that the late-18th century reign of Gustaf III had been. This was somewhat controversial in the time of national romanticism, as the Gustavian era had been inescapably saturated by French cultural imperialism.
And Tegnér was right. As European countries go, Sweden was very late with all the…
omnibrain | August 13, 2007From the creator of Women in Art comes Women in Film. Can you pick out all the stars?
-via Neatorama-
voltagegate | August 11, 2007Check out these human anatomy models from La Specola Museum in Florence. Perhaps not as ambitious as Body Worlds, but they are beautifully rendered.
Do people really faint when they see these? I find that hard to believe. I also find it hard to believe that they let that guy host this clip.
pharyngula | August 11, 2007Graphic-intensive collection of pretty pictures below the fold: beware.
Cephalopod poetry also counts as art.
Octopus
By Algernon Charles Sin-Burn
Strange beauty, eight-limbed and eight-handed,
Whence camest to dazzle our eyes?
With thy bosom bespangled and banded
With the hues of the seas and the skies;
Is thy home European or Asian,
O mystical monster marine?
Part molluscous and partly crustacean,
Betwixt and between.
Wast thou born to the sound of sea trumpets?
Hast thou eaten and drunk to excess
Of the sponges -- thy muffins and crumpets,
Of the seaweed…
sb admin | August 10, 2007Video of a Second Life virtual reality simulation of psychosis in schizophrenia, created by UC Davis Professor of Psychiatry Peter Yellowlees.
Also, create a psychotic VR therapeutic scenario with NeuroVR (from Positive Technology Journal).
neurophilosophy | August 4, 2007
Skeleton, brain, nerves, from John Banister's Anatomical Tables, c. 1580.
From the Anatomy Acts Exhibition website (via Morbid Anatomy).
omnibrain | July 30, 2007I discovered this pretty neat blog via boingboing today (at least that's where I think I found it). This illustration seems to show something that is strangely like an fMRI machine... well with fire instead of magnets, bricks instead of plastic, and smoke instead of a computer analyzing brain images...ohh and instead of the brain images it gives direct insight into the semantic content of the brain.
Check out the BibliOdyssey blog for many many more great illustrations.
P.S. Click on the picture for a larger version.
vhughes | July 25, 2007
For 34 years, Nikon has sponsored the "Small World" photomicrography competition to showcase, as they put it, "the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope."
The official judging for the 2007 contest took place on May, and now website visitors may rate the top 100 entries. Winners will be announced this fall.
The site also showcases winning entries from previous years. The deadline for entries in next year's competition is April 30, 2008. First prize gets $3,000 toward the purchase of Nikon equipment.
Shown here are two of the top entries from the 2007 competition…
pharyngula | July 25, 2007Next time GrrlScientist comes to visit, we're going to have to record what she says early in the morning, and then play it back ten times faster — I have a suspicion that we'll hear birdsong.
At least, that's the way this video art installation by Marcus Coates works. He had people sing strange little nonsense tunes (you can hear one here) that, when played back at a greater speed, recreated the songs of wild British birds. Why, if GrrlScientist had only talked a little faster, I'm sure the whole house would have sounded like an exotic tropical island inhabited by parrots!