Yikes!
bioephemera | April 24, 2010Yesterday was a great day for space images. First, celebrating Hubble's 20th anniversary (via Wired):
This craggy fantasy mountaintop enshrouded by wispy clouds looks like a bizarre landscape from Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" or a Dr. Seuss book, depending on your imagination. The NASA Hubble Space Telescope image, which is even more dramatic than fiction, captures the chaotic activity atop a three-light-year-tall pillar of gas and dust that is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being assaulted from within, as infant stars buried inside…
bioephemera | April 20, 2010I'm not going to comment too much on this, but this is hilariously wrong. I learned from this EFF post that the maker of the oft-parodied Hitler film The Downfall sent a bunch of takedown notices (or something similar using filtration technology) to YouTube, prompting removal of a swath of Hitler meltdown scene parodies.
Not only are many of these parodies clear cases of fair use, the parodies even included one by EFF's Brad Templeton,
"which depicted Hitler as a producer at Constantin Films. He hears about all the videos and orders DMCA takedowns. His lawyers (generals) have to explain…
bioephemera | April 18, 2010
WTF! My boyfriend, an astrophysicist, says the Sun "does this all the time." I am going to hide under my bed now until I die.
bioephemera | April 12, 2010
Reader Jake alerts me that Wired has just put up a gallery of robot spiders (and spider-like critters). If you've always wanted to be creeped out by a 40-foot robot Shelob, be my guest!
bioephemera | April 11, 2010Fellow lab rats, banish the lingering odor of LB broth from your nostrils and imagine how awesome research would be if these little cuties were your model organisms!
Buy them from Specimen7 on MakersMarket.
bioephemera | April 1, 2010
Nate Hill has a strong stomach and, er, unique artistic vision: he likes to cobble sculptures together out of dead animal parts. While his "New Animals" are the sort of clever, genteel, well-sealed artifacts you might find in a trendy loft belonging to a medical illustration enthusiast, his "ADAM Project" is rawer: it's a life-size human figure made of meat. Lots of fishheads. With chicken head genitalia.
No, not genteel at all. Looks like some of the gallery visitors felt a bit faint. No wonder he calls his website "Nate Hill is Nuts".
Thanks to Tom for this one.
bioephemera | March 31, 2010
With some portraits, you can feel the eyes following you around the room. With Sophie Cave's art installation make that fifty pairs of eyes - in fifty expressions ranging from disgust to shock to delight. All suspended above you in the atrium of a Victorian museum.
photo credits: Ashley R. Good and chatirygirl. Visit kuriositas for more pictures of the installation at Kelvingrove Art Museum.
Via She Walks Softly and many others.
bioephemera | March 30, 2010Slate asks,
"You rarely see women holding management positions in terrorist groups. Is there a glass ceiling for female Islamist terrorists?"
Um. . .
A. Did you just seriously ask that question?
B. Are we supposed to be surprised that Islamist terrorists don't respect women?
C. Are we supposed to be outraged by this blantant gender discrimination?
Ummm. . . . I'm totally okay with it if my gender precludes me from becoming a terrorist mastermind. I'll just be on this other [rational, nonviolent] career path over here. Cheerio.
bioephemera | March 24, 2010
"Companion Parrot": An incredible, though slightly macabre, necklace of bird entrails and skull by Tithi Kutchamuch. When not being worn, the necklace rests in the minimalist golden body, and it's a sculpture.
Via Haute Macabre
bioephemera | March 23, 2010The Japanese have created some. . . disturbing. . . signage for the Tokyo subway. Not only are all the signs populated with pupil-less passerby-zombies staring with blank jealousy at the youthful protagonists, but the messages are a little mixed:
That's right - please go HOME to pass out in your own vomit minus a shoe. It's the civilized thing to do.
Kicking bookworms in the knee is also best done at home. Unless you don't have bookworms there to kick. In which case you can disregard this sign.
Go tell it on the mountain! (Why are you trying to take the subway to the mountain anyway…
bioephemera | March 22, 2010
Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments: Cystic Acne, Back
Lauren Kalman, 2009
Metalsmith and mixed-media artist Lauren Kalman explores the nexus of body, adornment, and disease in her remarkable series "Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments". Yes, those faux-diseases are actually piercing the skin - but only temporarily: they're gold acupuncture wires modified into jewelry by the artist. The temporary/permanent nature of the piercings echoes the temporary visibility of the diseases she depicts, like syphilis and herpes, which eventually clear…
bioephemera | March 20, 2010
"Television Tube and Cheeze Whiz Jar Lid Necklace Steam Punk Recycled," via Regretsy.
Help. Pleeze.
bioephemera | March 19, 2010A slight science journalism FAIL in a story at iO9, originally from the New Scientist:
the Title: "First Quantum Effects Seen in Visible Object"
the Lede: "Does Schrödinger's cat really exist? You bet. The first ever quantum superposition in an object visible to the naked eye has been observed."
the Discovery: "[researchers showed] that a tiny resonating strip of metal - only 60 micrometres long, but big enough to be seen without a microscope - can both oscillate and not oscillate at the same time."
the Wait, what?: "Alas, you couldn't actually see the effect happening, because that very act…
bioephemera | March 18, 2010
Artist S. Shelley Jones sent me a link to some digital art depicting the lowly cockroach, who turns out to be much more attractive with a psychedelic spin. Thanks, Shelley!
PS. "The Psychedelic Cockroach" is a great band name, isn't it?
top: Cockroach No. V, 2009; bottom: Cockroach No. VII, 2009; by S. Shelley Jones.
bioephemera | March 14, 2010
Only National Geographic would dare cross The Amazing Race with the mystery of conception to get. . . The Great Sperm Race:
Each of us was the grand prize in an ultimate reality competition, the amazing race a sperm makes on the road to fertilization. Millions of sperm compete while overcoming armies of antibodies, treacherous terrain and impossible odds to reach their single-minded goal. To illustrate the full weight of the challenge, Sizing Up Sperm uses real people to represent 250 million sperm on their marathon quest to be first to reach a single egg.
Obviously there aren't 250 million…
bioephemera | March 13, 2010
By Joseph Hewitt, who clearly understands the Sb atmosphere quite well.
bioephemera | March 9, 2010Update: welcome Consumerist readers! While I use my own experience to illustrate concerns about third-party online merchants, this post is mainly about the bigger long-term informational problems I see with reputation, reliability, and online communities. Please feel free to weigh in!
A few weeks ago, I caught a familiar story on the local news. A local citizen had written in to the news team with a request for help after a local furniture company sold them a defective living room set, and wouldn't give them a refund. The news team went to the business, who - wary of the potential public…
bioephemera | March 2, 2010A provocative post over at the Intersection.
I haven't had time to weigh in on the vitriol-slinging because I'm on blogcation - and honestly, the stuff Sheril describes is one of the very reasons I decided to take a blogcation. But knowing that I'll be attacked for saying it, yes, I agree with her that hateful ad hominem attacks are increasing in the science blogosphere, it's nauseating, and it doesn't reflect well on any of us.
bioephemera | February 28, 2010
From the Center for Biological Diversity, "Endangered Species Condoms":
To help people understand the impact of overpopulation on other species, and to give them a chance to take action in their own life, the Center is distributing free packets of Endangered Species Condoms depicting six separate species: the polar bear, snail darter, spotted owl, American burying beetle, jaguar, and coquà guajón rock frog.
You can even sign up to win a lifetime supply. Whatever that is.
bioephemera | February 24, 2010Sad, weird, and odd: a 1kg spectacled owl attacked, killed, and ate (part of) a defenseless three-toed sloth. Apparently the owl stabbed its talons in the sloth's neck while it was on the way to the ground to defecate, and then pecked its organs out. I wish I was kidding.