Frivolity
bioephemera | January 8, 2010
Ten Words You Need to Stop Misspelling (detail)
view the whole thing at The Oatmeal - it's great.
While blogging late at night, I've sometimes wondered whether an extensive study of blog comments would yield a set of emergent categories, which could then be organized into a sort of phylogeny representing different species of blog commenter. I'm not referring to politics, academic discipline, or favorite ideological hobby horses: I'm talking about comment writing style and what you can infer from it, independent of a comment's content. For example, you have no doubt encountered Grammar Nazis…
bioephemera | January 6, 2010
Boston's fatorangecat studio has a wonderful blog where photographer Li Ward posts some of her most spontaneous work (like the time her furry subject got all tangled up with Cameron Diaz). Ranging from the absurd to the poignant, Li's photos capture what we love best about our pets. (I'm pretty sure the cats above are plotting our demise as a species for subjecting them to years of heinous indignity.)
I'm a kitten person, not a puppy person, but these photos are adorable!
Perhaps the most poignant of all Li's work is this candid shot of Kepler, an aging Weimeraner:
Looking at this photo…
bioephemera | January 1, 2010
I went to see Randall Munroe, creator of xkcd, a few weeks ago at MIT. Unfortunately the line to get him to sign books was about fifty frenzied geeks long, so I didn't stay for that. But I did enjoy his dialogue with the audience, which mainly consisted of answering questions ranging from obsessive fanboy minutia (why is xkcd published on Monday, Wednesday and Friday?) to vast and metaphysical (what is the true difference between geeks, nerds and dorks?) The latter question led to Munroe doodling and tinkering with a ridiculously convoluted Venn diagram, the details of which I can't remember…
bioephemera | December 31, 2009
With the Mallard Heels from anthropologie, you can say "Yes, I'm wearing a 3-inch high duck decoy!" with confidence. But alas, I waited too long to blog these - they're out of stock. :( Sorry, Isis.
bioephemera | December 31, 2009
This explanatory video from Wired/the Exploratorium shows how "Dr. Megavolt" (Austin Richards) created a birdcage-topped stainless steel bodysuit, so he can play with the giant Tesla coil he built. This guy knows how to have fun, man.
bioephemera | December 24, 2009
The recent blizzard turned our decorative holiday planter into a suspiciously Cthulhulian holiday effigy. A cephaloconiferopod? A gymnosquid? An everoctogreen? I have no idea what to call it, but it obviously says "Merry Christmas, BioE readers!"
bioephemera | December 23, 2009
A year or two ago in Washington, DC, I saw this charming series of windows in the downtown Macy's. It's a technical makeover of the traditional Santa's workshop, complete with pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo like "Through Synchronous Siphonization, Gigglium added in 2:1 ratio to Teeheelium," "Octopusilex arms begin extension/contraction/reaction sequence," and "Once outspoutified, capillary action introduces .43 milligrams per 100 parts of Elation Suspension." I never got around to blogging it, I guess! So here you go. . . Merry Christmas!
bioephemera | December 13, 2009
Okay, so these tricks aren't rocket science. But I think lighting and extinguishing candles remotely is a pretty entertaining diversion - definitely for an audience experiencing a post-holiday meal food coma. You can lecture them all about chemistry, and they won't be able to flee! Bwahahahahaha! Good stuff.
Then I found this "Extreme Physics Party Trick". . . and I'm still laughing.
EXTREME!
bioephemera | December 6, 2009
Origami is as ephemeral as art gets - delicate paper, with no more than creases and physics to maintain its shape. It's also the ideal art form for blurring the boundary between art and science, because it's all about geometry. You could argue that the origami medium is math, just as much as it's paper.
That's why Between the Folds, a documentary film by Vanessa Gould about origami-happy artists, mathematicians and scientists "working in the shadows between art and math," is such a success: the connections between math, science, art and paper aren't strained at all, so you can sit back and…
bioephemera | December 5, 2009
The smallest orchid in the world (above) - only 2 mm across! (Thanks for the heads-up, Laura!)
Cassette-tape skeletons at Designboom.
Via Wired Science: Mini microbe portraits from the Micropolitan Museum
Dude - there are spiny, venomous catfish? Who knew?
Finally, an interview I did recently with Ava at Paw-Talk.
bioephemera | December 2, 2009The best Lady Gaga parody yet? Judge for yourself:
I lay it out like they do in magazines
check out this typeface it's like smoking nicotine (I love it)
using Adobe's not the same without a Mac
if it was lead it would be lined up on a track
Oh yeah! Via Jennifer Ouellette.
bioephemera | December 1, 2009
Thylacine Dingo Comparison
Carl Buell
In Slate, Matt Gaffney explains how the constraints of a given system - in this case crossword puzzles - may lead to suspiciously similar yet independent solutions. Gaffney wrote a Poe-themed crossword with the elements BRAVE NEW WORLD, INTRAVENOUS DRIP, CONTRAVENE, COBRA VENOM, and VENTNOR AVENUE (all of which have "raven" embedded in them). He was very proud of his puzzle, but. . .
I soon learned that I wasn't as clever as I thought. Over the next couple of days, I started getting e-mails from solvers telling me that my theme had been done before. In…
bioephemera | November 27, 2009I encountered this jaw-dropping story, by one Emily Miller for AskMen.com, as the top "health link" on FoxNews this afternoon:
It seems like a reverse sexism started to take hold as the feminist movement came about and equality for women began gaining ground. Some women use their girl-power solidarity to come to a consensus on what's socially acceptable for women to do to men in a relationship. They've agreed among themselves that these behaviors are perfectly justifiable regardless of how they play with a guy's emotions or ego. With that, we've compiled a top 10 list of cruel things women do…
bioephemera | November 27, 2009
Apparently this toy company needs a zoologist on staff. (Parents: this is the perfect gift to seriously confuse your pre-adolescent wanna-be biologist, and derail them into a more profitable career in law!) From FailBlog.
bioephemera | November 23, 2009There's a new humor presence on Twitter and Facebook: rejectedcards. The author says, "I'm a copywriter for a major greeting card company. I get bored and create cards I know we'll never print. These are those cards."
Cards like. . .
"Another Year, Same Birthday Question: (inside) Are you sure you don't want us to pull the plug?"
or
"So sorry you lost your job. Are there other professions that use poles?"
I wish this writer would collaborate with the snarky letterpress outlet Blue Barnhouse. I'd totally buy their products. But FYI: some of them are pretty offensive, so don't say I didn't…
bioephemera | November 22, 2009Pop quiz: this Google Trends chart represents searches for what word or phrase?
the answer? a word that the vast majority of people never use - except on Thanksgiving.
Go chemistry! :)
bioephemera | November 20, 2009If I weren't so darn busy, I'd be tempted to read this book:
As you can tell from the photo, I've been spending a lot of time in the library. Sorry for the low post volume - I have quite a bit to write about the Harvard Lab opening and other things, and hope to get back on the blog in a few days. Have a great weekend!
bioephemera | November 11, 2009
Talk about ephemera - Willy Chyr makes bioart out of balloons! Check out his installation Balluminescence:
Balluminescence - Lights, Balloons, Jellyfish! was commissioned by Science Chicago and was created for the program's finale signature event - LabFest! Millennium Park. An interactive installation, Balluminescence engaged participants in the process of creating art inspired by science. A team of balloon artists taught LabFest! attendants how to create simple balloon shapes, which were then added to one of three balloon jellyfish costumes. Through the activity, participants learned about…
bioephemera | October 29, 2009
From the wonderful blog Letters of Note: in 1957, schoolboy Denis Cox generously shared his rocket blueprints with "A Top Scientist" at Australia's Woomera Weapons Research Establishment.
The important stuff (Rolls Royce jet engines, "Air Torpeados") is all there, although Denis explicitly gave the Top Scientists his permission to "put in other details" themselves, no doubt due to the lack of space for more detailed blueprints on his lined notebook paper ("I have discovered a truly marvelous proof, which this margin is too narrow to contain. . . ") Denis says modestly, "I thought it would…