Frivolity

Unfortunately, the shift to digital music sales has largely eliminated the art of traditional album design - framing the music in cleverly designed sleeves and cases. The new Shidlas cd, "Saliami Postmodern," is a meaty exception. Yum: Via Fubiz (the weirdest thing about the fubiz post is when they show the cd in a Discman. Who still has those?) Design by Mother Eleganza.
What if Ke$ha joined Science Cheerleader? Yes, it would be awesome/disturbing/disorienting. No, it hasn't happened - yet. But this parody may induce a double-take: Now, NASA should clearly have just used THAT at their press conference. In case you're not into the auto-tuney-teeny-bop scene, the video is a parody of Ke$ha's "We r who we r" . And this is a parody of "Take it off" about meteors, asteroids, and comets. From Jank.
No. "If we could gather all the electric eels from all around the world," they would free their imprisoned brother from his Yuletide servitude and bio-tase the crap out of you, bro. Just sayin'.
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).
Raise your fingers if this video by Cyriak kinda creeps you out. Via Street Anatomy.
As children sleep, dreaming their materialistic dreams of the privileged classes, Santa - less impressive than his Falstaffian reputation would suggest - twists the narrator's grasp of reality beyond all recognition. A hilarious tale of Christmas horror by Ryan Iverson, inspired by Warner Herzog. Via iO9.
This is un freaking real. My friend John O at Armed With Science has dug up a classic animated film produced for the National Naval Medical Center in 1973. It starts with an awards ceremony for the "Communicable Disease of the Year," hosted by the Grim Reaper (who turns out to know a lot about medical history.) The top prize is won by the Dracula-esque Count Spirochete (AKA syphilis), over the vociferous objections of a shortlist of other diseases, including smallpox ("I've scarred and disfigured millions of people!") and gonorrhea (who resembles a lavender Tribble with a pitchfork). The…
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!
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.
IBM has a new commercial depicting the constant streams of medical biodata that can be gathered from a human body, and hopefully improve healthcare. In a shameless play to elicit warm fuzzies, they made it about very young babies: Awwwww. With all the glowing data, it's sort of like a baby TRON. And what's with the virtual-data-baby-mobile? Is it made of giant diatoms, or what? Wait. . . I know what this reminds me of. . . it's a PLANKTON PARTY! BTW, there's also a "behind the scenes" clip of the IBM commercial, with the apparent sole purpose of giving the babies extra cute camera time.…
Just plain awesome: Thanks to Jennifer Ouellette for the heads-up.
detail of "Williamsburg Bridge Plaza," Brooklyn, NY, circa 1906 Source: Shorpy I'm just saying, I don't think that's a speck on the negative. But maybe I'm too cynical.
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…
Lately Ms. Humble of Not So Humble Pie, "your typical nerdy biological anthropologist turned stay at home mom and baker of sometimes strange goodies," has cornered the market on science cookies. Check out her beautiful gel electrophoresis cookies (above): they are amazingly convincing AND ethidium bromide free (thank goodness). She's also made drosophila melanogaster cookies, zebrafish cookies, circuit board cookies: wii-mote and Six axis controller cookies (not science, but come on, gamers and scientists have a high overlap), and blood cell cookies. Check out this educational video using…
As you may know, the Phylo (Phylomon) project is crowdsourcing a collection of ecology-based trading and gaming cards, in the hopes of supplying kids with a more engaging way of learning and thinking about their environment. And here's a timely addition: the Oil Spill, with very nice artwork by Stephanie Tan. Scientist-artist types: have ideas, or artwork, to contribute to Phylomon? Check out their website for more info!
They're using DNA tests for everything now - even to catch canine vandals and their miscreant owners. Robert Frost was right: good forensics make good neighbors.
Now that's bioephemera: my friend Rhett sent me a link to the work of Fulvio Bonavia, who created a series of eighteen photographs of food reimagined as haute couture. My favorite? The glassy-eyed sardine-link belt. See all eighteen images, and his other work, at his website. Via Coute Que Coute.
Fox News is taking quality to a whole new level this afternoon. (I know, I know, it's my fault for accidentally clicking on their site. I deserve what I get.) Regardless, congrats to the new Queen Minister!
My friend Jacob just sent this to me and I had to pass it along.: it's a Bag End dollhouse by Maddie Chambers, apparently one of the most patient people in the world. Amazing and adorable! Can I have a full-sized one please?