Monthly Archives: January 2008

Sneeze In Your Sleeve!

I’ve had the sniffles now for a few days, and as always, I feel self-conscious about where my germs are landing. This little tutorial combats wayward nasally-propelled microbes with the Sneeze-In-Your-Sleeve strategy. Very amusing – and it suggests another possible use for the tentacle arm.  … Continue reading

Posted in Biology, Education, Frivolity | 3 Comments

The Making of a LEGO

Businessweek has this little slideshow of a LEGO factory. Neat. Apparently the system is so precise, only 18 in a million LEGO bricks are defective. Which sounds about right; I’ve never found an irregular LEGO, and I’ve handled thousands. Still, … Continue reading

Posted in Frivolity | 2 Comments

Wise old recycled owl

Great Horned Owl Kathryn Spence Kathryn Spence’s owl sculptures work on several levels at once. This Great Horned Owl is a Lear of birds, ragged but regal. Like an impressionist painting, up close, he’s a bundle of discordant rags – … Continue reading

Posted in Artists & Art, Biology | 2 Comments

Empty houses, blind eyes

Photo by Eugene Richards From “North Dakota, The Emptied Prairie” National Geographic Magazine These photos bear an eerie, graceful, painful resemblance to the country where I grew up. The year I finished high school, my parents left “town” (7,000 people) … Continue reading

Posted in Artists & Art, Department of the Drama, Destinations, Photography | 6 Comments

Seriously, now. . .

OK – enough frivolous posts for the moment. There’s an election in the offing, and I want to address those of you who care whether the next President is science-and-technology-literate. Which should be ALL of you, right? Sciencedebate 2008 (of … Continue reading

Posted in Blogs and Blogging, Science, Science in culture & policy | Comments Off

Tentacle Arm

  What more is there to say, really? It’s a tentacle arm. A friend of mine told me I need “at least two” of these. . . . . . at LEAST two???? What?? And once the first one’s on, … Continue reading

Posted in Cephalopodmania, Conspicuous consumption, Frivolity | 1 Comment

Who’s your daddy? Ask PCR

Ah, I have the warm fuzzies now for my eppendorfs and thermal cycler. . . but I’m sure it will pass.

Posted in Biology, Film, Video & Music, Frivolity, Science | Comments Off

Because science teachers don’t get enough respect

FYI: AAAS will award a $1,000 prize this year to a high school science teacher, for “leadership in science education”. Candidates must be nominated by their chairs or administrators, and must complete an application by March 2: Entries must be … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Science | Comments Off

3-D Textual Spirographs!

. . . or something like that. Courtesy of JK Keller, these Volumetric Redundancies represent the number of times a word appears in a given text. Red cubes represent non-unique words, with size depending on number of occurrences; blue cubes … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Frivolity, Words | 3 Comments

This would be my third-favorite show

Geoffrey Chaucer is back on his blog after a hiatus almost as long as Lost‘s, with a comment on the television writers’ strike. He proposes some shows of his own which sound a tad familiar, perhaps – but in literature, … Continue reading

Posted in Blogs and Blogging, Frivolity, Littademia | 2 Comments