Author Archives: cicada

Updating the blogroll and waxing nostalgic

Posted on December 5, 2011 by cicada

Over the weekend, I updated the blogroll; I haven’t yet added all the links from my current feed subscriptions, but I’ve at least cleared out links to abandoned or retired blogs. It was a sad, nostalgic process, because I hadn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogs and Blogging | Comments Off

This tea robot is too cute to exist

Posted on December 1, 2011 by cicada

OMG, sTEAmpunk! I don’t even know what to say about this tea infusing robot other than IT IS SO ADORABLE. I want to buy them for everyone, regardless of whether they like robots or drink tea. (If you get one … Continue reading →

Posted in Conspicuous consumption, Frivolity, Retrotechnology | Comments Off

Holiday gift ideas for the BioE reader

Posted on November 26, 2011 by cicada

It’s almost Cyber Monday! In our household, we do our shopping online, mainly because when we go to the trouble of renting a car, we have experiences like we did yesterday, when we were ticketed for lingering a full 32 … Continue reading →

Posted in Artists & Art, Biology, Book reviews, Books, Conspicuous consumption, Design, Education, Ephemera, Frivolity | Comments Off

Short links for Thanksgiving

Posted on November 25, 2011 by cicada

Some hors d’oeuvres. Happy Thanksgiving! Steampunk Mr. Potatohead (thanks for the link, Miles!) Briny ice finger of death Titanoboa, A Fifty Foot Electromechanical Snake Sculpture (via laughingsquid) Todd McLellan’s dissected technology — like a pages from an atlas of mechanical … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogs and Blogging, Ephemera, Frivolity | Comments Off

“Womanspace,” sex stereotypes, and things that are “bad for” science

Posted on November 23, 2011 by cicada

Ed Rybicki’s “tongue-in-cheek” sci-fi vignette, “Womanspace”, has provoked quite the controversy in the weeks since it was published.  Various critics are calling the story sexist, anti-science, and unworthy of publication in a science journal (it appeared in Nature). Some have even … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogs and Blogging, Ephemera, Gender Issues, Littademia | Comments Off

SF/F as a lens for looking at the law

Posted on November 1, 2011 by cicada

As Arthur C. Clarke once put it, technology is — at some sufficiently advanced tipping point — “indistinguishable from magic”.  An interesting question that follows from that realization is this: how big a difference is there, really, between the law … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Film, Video & Music, Gender Issues, Littademia, Neuroscience, Science in culture & policy | Comments Off

“A masterful congress of word and image, science and art”: I think Darwin would approve

Posted on October 30, 2011 by cicada

Artist, naturalist and calligrapher Kelly Houle is seeking support through Kickstarter for her “Illuminated Origin of Species” project: Houle promises “a masterful congress of word and image, science and art, in celebration of the grandeur in this view of life.”  … Continue reading →

Posted in Artists & Art, Books, Ephemera, History of Science, Littademia, Medical Illustration and History, Random Acts of Altruism, Retrotechnology | Comments Off

World enough, and time

Posted on September 21, 2011 by cicada

“The special value of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive.” –Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, September 12, 2011

Posted in Words | Comments Off

Where’s 2008-2011?

Posted on September 16, 2011 by cicada

Greetings, readers! As you may have noticed, the most recent posts here date back several years. That’s because my posts from 2008-2011 were published at Scienceblogs.com/bioephemera, where they remain. I do not know if the posts will continue to remain … Continue reading →

Posted in Blogs and Blogging, Department of the Drama | Comments Off

An unstable contest of minds

Posted on March 24, 2008 by cicada

I was reading last week’s New Yorker, and this passage by Adam Gopnik – part of a long piece about professional magicians – caught my attention. I really agree with this: Whatever the context, the empathetic interchange between minds is … Continue reading →

Posted in Department of the Drama, Love | 1 Comment