Conspicuous consumption

. . . especially with these delicate, icy Orion constellation cards from Campbell Raw Press.
Fabrication de bonbons à Berlin from philmotion productions on Vimeo. Via NOTCOT.
I have no idea how I missed this before the holidays (sorry!), but NBDesigns has a line of oxidized silver embryo jewelry that is pure vintage lab-chic. The embryonic mice are particularly adorable: And, on the less-cute, more-sciency end of the spectrum, her embryonic chicks look just like illustrations in an old dev bio textbook: I should also note, since we are coming up on Valentine's Day, that she makes Erlenmeyer flask earrings and pendants with little hearts. (You can also request a glass heart worked into the chain of the zebrafish embryo pendant, or check out her sloth & heart…
The ultimate bioephemera: art you eat! This cephalopod by specialty cake artist Karen Portoleo is definitely NOT a cake wreck (although if there were a little cake(ship)wreck under those tentacles, it might not be a bad addition). Karen previously made a "gingerbread" house with an octopus icing and tiling the roof. For serious. Thanks to Patricia for the link! (Check out Patricia's art blog, too).
"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…
After 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!
Want! (The telescope works!) Digby and Iona Spyglass necklace, from Catbird.
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!
Yes, 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.
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.
In less than a month (December 2nd), Christie's will auction off Edward Tufte's library - an idiosyncratic collection of first edition books, plates, prints, and ephemera that the dataviz guru calls his "Museum of Cognitive Art," and I call "Jessica's Christmas List." I'm not going to sample low-rez images of the lots here, because there's a stunning slideshow, complete with curation, at the Christie's website. If you've got ten minutes, this is virtual antiquarian dataviz windowshopping at its best. There appear to be 160 lots; Tufte's website describes it as "200 rare books, including major…
Wildlife of Vietnam, by Brendan Wenzel This bundle of exotic animals by Brendan Wenzel is whimsical, yet unsettling. On the one hand, it would be perfect for a children's book; I imagine a tale in which the animals overcome their natural animosities, cooperate to free themselves, dump a hapless and ineptly nonthreatening poacher in the river, and return safely to their various homes, in the happiest of ecological endings. But we all know that's not how the story really goes. Wenzel, a New York illustrator who until recently lived in Vietnam, says his work was inspired by the worsening…
A couple of days ago, the New York Times reported on an undergraduate class at Harvard that teaches the science of cooking. It's called "Science & Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science," and it's popular: if you're a Harvard undergrad, you have about a 43% chance of winning a seat at the lab bench (still, as one of the instructors points out, better odds than most people have of getting reservations at one of the participating guest chefs' exclusive restaurants). The class also seems to be changing the way some students think about science: For Mr. Jean-Baptiste, a junior…
Here's a big time want: a sterling silver necklace cast from a frog spine and skull, by Elizabeth Knight. Wow. You can find it at Catbird! While you're there, check out Knight's spin on pearl earrings (the pearls are held by skeletal frog hands!), the 14K paired ant necklace by Jezebel, which I like even better than the skeleton (but it's way more expensive) and Cloven Hoof's Cleopatra jewel beetle necklace. Yes, they're all pretty pricey, but their brass monocle necklace is a sexy-naturalist (or librarian) option for only $22. Via the catbird blog - highly bookmarkable for all…
So I had the pleasure of meeting the awesome Dr. Isis a few weeks ago. It turns out she is even more awesome in person than she is in pseudonymity. And she brought me a fabulous thing: a scarf from A Slice of Life Scarves. Creator Eve Reaven, a Bay Area cell biologist, "has continuously marveled at the intricacy and beauty of the natural patterns found inside cells. She shares what she has seen with others through designs for scarves and other textiles. In the current selection, she captures the essence of structures related to cell movement, cell traffic, energy and performance. Many of the…
"Fossil geometry" (detail) Based on Eschschottzia Californica seeds collected by Mr W Reeves, April 1864. From the collection of the Royal Microscopic Society. UK sci-artist Heather Barnett has created a line of wallpapers using micrographs of cells, crystals, seeds, nanofibers, etc. They'd be particularly striking in a loft or other industrially inspired space - including a lab or a clinic waiting room. Come on, PIs, you can squeeze a wallpaper budget in your next grant application, can't you? "Fossil geometry" (repeat) Check out more of Barnett's biological wallpapers below the fold…
DC area artist Michele Banks works with wet-in-wet watercolor to create abstract paintings of biological subjects - lots of cells, mitotic spindles, etc. You can see more of her work at her Makers Market shop (under the nom d'art Artologica), or at the SoWeBohemian Festival in Baltimore this weekend.
This is what I miss out on by not reading the physical copy of the New York Times: ads! I recently picked up a copy of the Times science section and saw an ad for these wonderful vintage patent office models from the 1900s. As if they're not steampunky enough, each one comes with a little yellowed, handwritten, calligraphic tag that I'm dying to read because I am convinced it must contain cryptic clues to some sort of awesome Neil Stephenson-style mystery. Right??
Ok, maybe we're not quite there yet - but Panda Bicycles is making bikes out of bamboo. These partly renewable, lightweight bikes are striking, to say the least - though they're not cheap. But if you really want to make a statement with your bike, this is one way to go. . . Thanks to reader Linda for the link!
From a post by Erin Fitzgerald, a DoD Science Policy Fellow who consulted on the design of Mattel's new "Computer Engineer Barbie:" It might seem silly to get excited about a new Barbie doll. But, to me, she will help reinforce in math-loving little girls that they, like Barbie, can grow up to be computer engineers. It has been well documented that in recent years far fewer women are pursuing computer science degrees, so such role models are very important. What Computer Engineer Barbie will do, I think, is broaden the realm of not only what is possible, but what feels accessible--being…