Conspicuous consumption
bioephemera | March 13, 2009
I don't know how in hell I missed this one, but thank heavens A Repository for Bottled Monsters alerted me to the "Uterine Plush Recall" over at I Heart Guts! Apparently the uterus "failed a pull test" and "the ovaries may be pulled off and become a choking hazard"! I do not think I am alone in saying eeeuuuuww!
I Heart Guts assures us that rest of their smiling fuzzy internal organs are perfectly safe for all ages, but if you are in possession of a smug, Thriller video-dancing, pink plush uterus with hazardous trachea-sized violet ovaries, please contact appropriate support personnel…
bioephemera | March 9, 2009Rumor has it there's going to be a no-holds-barred culinary throwdown here at Scienceblogs in honor of Pi Day. Personally, I need little excuse to make a pie. And the staffer needs little excuse to eat pie - particularly pecan pie. So here is my entry. . . .the "Yes, PeCan" Pi.
As pies go, this is a simple one that can handle some imprecision. It's a little different every time I do it. And in the spirit of 3.141592-oh-whatever-who-cares, I embrace freely rounding off quantities whenever I feel like it.* In fact, I used my ubercool but uberimprecise Equal Measure to make this Pi:
"Yes,…
bioephemera | March 8, 2009
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
--WB Yeats, "Sailing to Byzantium"
My coveted bauble of the week is this fabulous, foot-high Gladiator Raven from Anthropologie. Maybe it's not hammered gold and gold enamelling, but the patina and quirky textures in this piece should satisfy any ephemeraphile with $648 to spare.
bioephemera | March 1, 2009
image by Mike Rosulek
buy merchandise here to benefit NCSE
It's a classic question: if Charles Darwin had known about Gregor Mendel's genetic research, would Darwin have realized it was the missing piece he needed to explain how individual variation was inherited and selected? Was it simply bad luck that Darwin never stumbled on the right experiments? Or was Darwin so constrained by his own perspective on inheritance that he couldn't have seen the importance of Mendel's work, even if he had known about it?
Jonathan Howard has written an intriguing overview of this question. He argues that…
bioephemera | February 27, 2009
Yup, that's a flying bat gripping a lamp in its mouth, with his buddy, a coiled snake, crawling along above him. And it's not a faux-Victorian, nouveau-Goth creation - it's a replica of an actual late 1800s fixture, by eclectic lighting company Rejuvenation. Seriously - over a hundred years ago, someone thought this was the greatest lamp evah! I'm not sure I'd actually choose the Dracula-esque Drake fixture for myself, mind you; not only is it more than $2K, I think you need a very special space for this 45" long creation. Like a living room designed by Edward Gorey. But if you've got that…
bioephemera | February 21, 2009Smartcars are cute. But when you add a turning windup key, they're so cute it's almost wrong. I saw this specimen in a flotilla of Smartcars in Alexandria president's day parade last week - the custom license plate says "wnd itup". Nice.
bioephemera | February 20, 2009San Francisco based company Cordarounds seems hell-bent on living up to every stereotype about that quirky city. Their store is online-only and features a trippy blog. Their catalog ads involve horizontal corduroy pants worn by attractive-and/or-grungy people drinking, eating, playing guitar, camping, reading The Satanic Verses in a reversible smoking jacket, that sort of mundane thing. They offer free shipping - but only to Greenland, of course.
Best of all, they're not afraid to offend people with their uberedgy science:
Okay, maybe that's actually pseudoscience. If it's not, I really…
bioephemera | February 13, 2009
These Periodic Table of Sentiments cards by Pink Loves Brown are the atom bomb. Happy Birthday is represented by element Hb, etc. So clever!
But why isn't there a Valentine's Day card suitable for telling that special geek about your deep chemical attraction? What could say "love" better than element Vd??
Believe it or not, I had to write out Vd before I saw the obvious problem. What a catastrophic holiday FAIL that would be. . . I shudder at the thought.
bioephemera | February 3, 2009
Artist Jason Freeny asks us to suspend our disbelief for this mashup of two of my favorite things ever: anatomy and Lego. Surprisingly, after ripping the interchangeable heads and legs off hundreds of Lego people during my misspent youth, I find I can almost believe they *are* alive.
You can order Jason's poster here - he has also created posters for gummy bear anatomy and balloon animal anatomy. These would be excellent additions to a physiology teaching lab. Plus, Jason has created a free iPhone wallpaper of the Visible Lego Man, which is now on my phone:
Thanks, Jason!
bioephemera | January 29, 2009
For Christmas, my friend Vanessa got me this wonderful Equal Measure measuring cup by Fred. One side gives measures in cups and ounces, along with the equivalent quantity of various granular substances (five thousand drops of water, as many grains of flour as people on the planet). The other side gives metric volumes, alongside biological volumes (half a human brain; enough corn oil to fuel a biodiesel car for three miles, amount of table salt in a large human).
If I were still teaching physiology, I'd totally be using this in lab! As it is, I may have to convert a recipe or two into T. rex…
bioephemera | January 29, 2009Sadly, Hershey has announced the immediate closing of the small Berkeley factory that, since 2001, has been the flagship of Scharffen Berger chocolate. Scharffen Berger's dark chocolates were a favorite among Bay Area residents years before it was sold to Hershey in 2005; the cozy Berkeley factory used to be open for tours and chocolate tastings (followed by obligatory hot cocoa at the cafe next door). I have many fond memories of Scharffen Berger chocolate, so this news is depressing.
To add insult to injury, Hershey is also closing the factory of Joseph Schmidt in San Francisco - a company…
bioephemera | January 4, 2009
Is it a small torpedo? A thermos? A shiny handbag? Who cares, it's adorable!
Metal purse by Frank Strunk, who has also created some really uncomfortable-looking "industrial chic" outfits and men's ties. Uh, I'll just take the purse, thanks.
Via Haute Macabre via Coilhouse.
bioephemera | January 2, 2009
We spent most of last night playing a very cool board game, Pandemic. It's sort of like Risk, but instead of fighting opposing players' armies, you're cooperating against a global wave of infections.
In the game scenario, four different diseases break out in different regions of the world (they're given colors, not names, though you can guess at an ID based on the games' illustrations; one is clearly a bacillus, another is a filovirus). The players have to cooperate and pool their resources to treat and control local outbreaks, while searching for cures for all four diseases. The surprising…
bioephemera | December 17, 2008
I want them. They're backordered. I can't have them. Cry.
Mad Scientist Blocks from Xylocopa:
"At Xylocopa, we know that the key to a successful education is to begin learning at a young age. Like many of you, we are concerned about the state of science education in the public school system, especially in the lower grades. Specifically, we have noticed that there is absolutely no training in the K-6 grades that prepares students to become mad scientists."
bioephemera | December 16, 2008
When I met one of my stylish fellow-bloggers for the first time a few months ago, I was mesmerized by her gorgeous blown-glass bubble necklace - although the thought of klutzy me in such a necklace is a little scary. (Shards of glass + carotid artery = euw!)
Anyway, I was charmed to see a similar necklace in the Anthropologie holiday catalog - under the name "ephemera necklace," no less! BubbleEphemera!
@ Anthropologie.com
bioephemera | December 15, 2008You know those packaged toolchest gift sets that stores relentlessly market as holiday gifts for "Dads"? Well, none of them can hold a, er, socket wrench to this object of beauty from the 1800s, customized by a piano tuner named Studley. Wow.
Via Boing Boing
bioephemera | December 7, 2008
UK Reef (detail) - with candy striped anemone by Ildiko Szabo (foreground) and anemone grove by Beverly Griffiths (background). Photo by George Walker.source
This afternoon at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, physicist Margaret Wertheim of the Institute for Figuring will be giving a lecture and workshop on crocheting coral reefs with the "hyperbolic crochet" technique. While her creations can't replace the real reefs that are rapidly disappearing, they are purdy, and some of the forms are remarkably similar to real species of coral, diatoms, and anemones.
More about the crochet…
bioephemera | November 14, 2008
These are Food Chain Friends. According to FAO Schwartz, "They're friends. They eat each other. It's a complicated relationship!" Uh. . . okay. You try to explain that to YOUR kids!
Via Boing Boing Gadgets
bioephemera | October 22, 2008
Treehugger (detail)
Alex Pardee
They're partying it up in SF tonight to celebrate the release of Alex Pardee's new "cinematic clothing" line, Night of the Treeple. Check out the preview gallery of sinister forest brethren at Juxtapoz.
Note: the mythology Pardee created for this line is yet another typical scenario involving faceless government scientists (in this case, "Project Armadillo") and their vats of inconvenient toxic waste. Come on! I mean, unscrupulous government researchers can hardly be to blame for EVERY fictitious race of carnivorous angiosperms. Cut 'em some slack, and blame…
bioephemera | October 21, 2008This receipt from CVS was over three feet long!
I purchased exactly one item. How is this monstrous scroll of paper remotely necessary to document it? It's no wonder the world has conservation problems. . .