blogosphere
bioephemera | February 15, 2010I have my priorities!
Do I even need to comment on how awesome this is? Via iO9.
bioephemera | February 15, 2010Hola BioE readers,
I've been blogging at Scienceblogs for two years this month, and prior to that, I blogged for another year at my own site. So it is not surprising that I am very, very tired.
Blogging uses up a big chunk of my dwindling free time, which I also need for such things as reading non-work-related books, going to the gym, writing long-delayed letters to friends, and cooking with my boyfriend. Not to mention maybe painting something for once, which was the original focus of this blog long, long ago.
So I'm going on blogcation, effective immediately. I expect I'll be back in a…
bioephemera | February 13, 2010
Upcoming at Observatory in NYC: Entomologia (Feb 26-April 4), a group show of art incorporating and inspired by insects. I'm particularly intrigued by the discussion scheduled for April 3, "Transgenics, Cybernetics, and Evolution:"
Silkworms engineered to produce pharmaceuticals and hormones, cyborg dragonflies designed for high-speed missions and surveillance... In connection with her recent work, Shanna Maurizi has been delving into the nether regions of genetic engineering and transgenics, molecular biology, and military cybernetics.
Ok, sounds good to me! Plus it's curated by Curious…
bioephemera | February 9, 2010
It literally took me a good 20 seconds to figure out what was. . . off. . . about the first photo in this great post by Emily at SheChive. Sigh. ;)
Thanks to Jake for the heads-up!
bioephemera | February 5, 2010
An interactive flowchart/concept map from Berkeley's Understanding Science project. Click around a while, and tell me what you think of it. Accurate? Too simple? Useful?
bioephemera | January 30, 2010This is apparently a real ad for the hotly contested Orleans Parish Coroner's race:
Poor Dr. Frankenstein Minyard. This takes negative campaigning to a whole new level.
bioephemera | January 28, 2010Virtual reality trailblazer Jaron Lanier has a somewhat curmudgeonly, critical new book out called You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto. Here's an excerpt:
If you want to know what's really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to advertising instead of to musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than with truth or beauty. If content is worthless, then people will start to become empty-headed and contentless. The combination of hive mind and advertising has resulted in a new kind of social contract. The basic idea…
bioephemera | January 28, 2010
Via my friend Sylvia, here's an old (2008) but interesting post arguing that over time, the quality of medical illustrations have declined. From Artemy Lebedev.
bioephemera | January 26, 2010When I dared my friend John to make "You've Been SCIENCED" into a pop culture tagline, using his science radio show as a platform, I didn't think he'd actually DO it. But he did:
I just wish Drew Carey had used the "Pigs In Space" intonation of "You've been SCIENCED."
bioephemera | January 26, 2010This is the best blog post ever. And read the comment thread - it's totally worth it.
Via many people.
bioephemera | January 26, 2010Suppose you have a question about a new medication your doctor has prescribed to you. How do you find out more about it? You probably Google it, right? But what do you do with the list of results that come up, which is likely to include a Wikipedia page, a blog entry or two, some posts on e-patient forums, the manufacturer's website, and a few online pharmacies with FREE SHIPPING? Perhaps you skim these pages, judge their usefulness and reliability, and end up at a Wikipedia page or a knowledgeable blog entry written by the likes of Scibling Abel Pharmboy. No problem.
But now suppose it's…
bioephemera | January 25, 2010A quick plug for Fashion For Nerds, a fun blog by a San Francisco biologist with an eye for mixing thrift store finds. See? Living in the lab doesn't mean you can't have style.
bioephemera | January 25, 2010
Yoda Borguereau
Mandrak
An old link, but still a good one - the "Star Wars in classic art" digital fx (advanced) contest from Worth1000.com. And the sequel contest (not as good). And the third contest. (Let's hope they're more prudent than George Lucas, and stop at three!)
bioephemera | January 23, 2010
Jorge Cham's PhD skewers the "wisdom of crowds" - and poorly done stats.
bioephemera | January 22, 2010Did you hear about the scio10 civility meltdown? More about that in a minute. As you may have heard, it got a bit. . . uncivil. I wasn't there, so you, like me, will have to get your impression from this highly realistic renactment, created by an attendee who witnessed the confrontation between Nature's Henry Gee and our very own Zuska:
Whoa. Do I detect some tension? I'm reminded of the classic post 7 reasons the 21st century is making you miserable, according to David Wong:
Some of us remember having only three channels on TV. That's right. Three. We're talking about the '80s here. So…
bioephemera | January 19, 2010Madonna and Child with Angels, AKA "Madonna with the Long Neck"
Parmigianino, c. 1534/40
From Edward Winkleman's blog, a good post about yet another art historian with convenient medical explanations for the artistic idiosyncrasies of the old masters. In addition to arguing that the Mona Lisa had high cholesterol, the historian has an even more timely link to current events:
Among his other findings are that two of the most iconic figures in Renaissance art had a rare condition that may also afflict Osama Bin Laden. One is the young man with a red cap and distinctly sardonic expression who…
bioephemera | January 17, 2010
A short (~4 minute) sweet overview of the political power of data visualization, by Tufte disciple Alex Lundry. He says so-called "dataviz" exists (you guessed it) "at the intersection of art and science." Quite right, sir!
You'll note Lundry makes use of the classic pirates-global warming relationship, Tufte's "pie charts suck" message, and so on. It's one of several good videos from a great event I really want to get to - igniteDC. I'd also like to mention that I'll be reviewing Connie Malamed's new book, Visual Language, which appears near the end of the video, in about a week or so, so…
bioephemera | January 14, 2010Thanks to everyone who participated in the unscientific survey on commenting. The results are back, and I'd like to share them with you.
As many of you have noticed, we've been talking about comments a lot here lately, both at BioE and on Sb in general. There's also a big session on online civility coming up at SciOnline '10. So the main purpose behind the survey was to get you involved in that discussion.
I've brought the issues of uncivil and uninformed comments up in several posts, sometimes rather provocatively, but we already know that the majority of blog readers don't comment often,…
scientificactivist | January 13, 2010The top 50 science blog posts of the year, as judged by a large panel of bloggers, have been announced and will be included in The Open Laboratory 2009. The fourth annual volume of this blog anthology will be published early this year, but you can go ahead and see the winning posts here and here. The editor, Scicurious, the series editor, Bora Zivkovic, and all of the judges deserve a round of applause for their hard work.
And, I'm happy to announce that my post on H1N1 influenza antiviral drug resistance ("Why Swine Flu Is Resistant to Adamantane Drugs" from 01 May 2009) made the cut and…