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.
And seriously - don’t sneeze on people. Or your hands. Euw.
(Thanks to my friend Jacob, intrepid microbiologist, for the heads-up on this one.)
3 comments January 29th, 2008
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, a LEGO-making factory is just not as impressive as a factory made from LEGO. Someone with apparently infinite patience built a car factory out of Mindstorms LEGOs and posted it to YouTube. There’s no narration, and it’s kind of hard to see what’s happening, so you just have to have faith until the end; but the machinery itself is hypnotic.
2 comments January 29th, 2008
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, how do you get the second on. . . ? Do I want to know?
Tentacle Arm from GaiaStore.com
1 comment January 19th, 2008
Ah, I have the warm fuzzies now for my eppendorfs and thermal cycler. . . but I’m sure it will pass.
Add comment January 17th, 2008
. . . 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 are unique words. The X-axis represents the order of the text, from beginning (top) to end (bottom). The diameter of the column is determined (somehow) by length of paragraph.
As to why The Art of War looks so different, I can only guess it’s because it’s shorter, and thus the blue cubes - which ought to be equivalent in size in each text, since they represent single occurrences - appear bigger merely because we’re zoomed in on a smaller virtual object. But really, I have no clue. They’re just real durn pretty, ain’t they?
Via Moon River
2 comments January 17th, 2008
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, what is wholly new? And the first proposal in particular is oh so tempting:
Sectes in the Borough: This hot and explicit showe wil handle religious dissent yn a more free and open way than evere bifor. Carrie Baxter is an underground writer of Lollard tractes in Norwich and the oonly thynge she loveth moore than questioning the validitie of the institucional church is her III best freendes: sexie Samantha, who seduceth many a preeste, intellectuale Charlotte, who speketh out ayeinst women being unable to preche, and Miranda Kempe, who receiveth visiouns from God. Thei meet every week to rede of the Bible in Ynglisshe and talke smacke about pilgrymage sites. Carrie is alwey resistinge the temptaciouns to submit to the orthodoxie of the Church, personifyed by Archbishop Thomas Arundel, whom she clepeth “Mr. Big.” (Paraventure for a cabel network, by cause main-streme audiences aren not redi for frank depicciouns of heretical practice?)
Cashmere Mafia begone! What could a heretical city girl enjoy more, than talking smack about pilgrimage sites? (If “pilgrimage sites” means “happy hour venues,” and I think it must, I did that every day last week!)
1 comment January 17th, 2008
Tragically, the epidemic of hanging artificial genitalia from truck hitches has spread, prompting still more state legislation, this time in Virginia (as I posted in 2007, Maryland already tried to ban them).
We are a really bizarre species to find this sort of thing amusing, aren’t we? I’m at a loss whether to be exasperated that artificial body parts are seen as so horrible and indecent they must be banned, or to be exasperated that people think putting artificial body parts on machinery is funny. Trucks don’t even reproduce sexually. Duh.
5 comments January 16th, 2008
National Geographic
I used to have a pet hooded rat, which is why I think the giant rat recently discovered in Indonesia is actually kinda cute. Plus, it’s almost as large as my cat! It would be hilarious to get them together.
You know, I hope the rat is sedated in this photo, and not dead. Hmm.
1 comment December 20th, 2007
Is there some sort of typological standard for disembodied medical hands? I took this picture in London, and thought nothing of it at the time - but it does strongly resemble the hands in Nicole Natri’s collage, and the descriptions of hands at the Spitzner museum. Hmmm. . . .
2 comments December 18th, 2007
Reader/medical student Niall Hamilton, photographer of microorganisms, sent me this oh-so-seasonal Christmas petri dish:
Niall says, “the black is a yeast species often found around bathroom sinks, and the snow is another yeast species (a pretty unremarkable environmental one).”
Looking at this, I can almost smell the LB. Nothing like a festive Christmas in the warm room!
This reminds me of the time I gave petri plates to my beginning biology students, with instructions to expose the plates to their fingers, doorknobs, pens, etc, then put them in the classroom incubator. Usually this assignment yields nasty yellow and white microorganisms, some hairy fungus, and a satisfying “euw, gross.” But the next morning, I was horrified to find neon-colored slime on many of the plates - bright red, hot pink, even orange! I was envisioning MRSA and looking around for antibacterial hand soap, when I found a plate with iridescent glittery colonies. Ack! It turned out that my female students had decided to test their lip glosses.
1 comment December 16th, 2007
Still frantically shopping? How about this anatomically accurate tee, from the musically named autumnomatopoeia (”legos, livers, and more. Oh my!”)?
Here’s an excellent gift idea list from Heather at Cabinet of Wonders.
See also my gift idea list. And Vanessa’s anatomy-related gift list at Street Anatomy.
2 comments December 11th, 2007
Designed by Kathleen Walsh, from Walteria Living: a Rorschach blot teapot!
Actually, it’s not a Rorschach. According to the website, the teapot (and matching plates) are based on a much earlier pastime: a Victorian parlor game called Blotto, in which players blotted ink and invented interpretations of the results. No word on whether the mentally imbalanced (or the, ahem, blotto) had an unfair advantage in this game, but apparently Dr. Rorschach, a Blotto fan, was inspired by the game to create his eponymous test:
Rorschach became intrigued by the idea of comparing the Blotto responses of his patients to the responses of Gehring’s students. In 1911, Gehring and Rorschach began experimenting with different inkblots. Also in that year, Eugen Bleuler, who had directed Rorschach’s thesis on hallucinations, published his book on dementia praecox that introduced the alternative label, “schizophrenia.” Rorschach discovered that a repetitive character to the perceptions of certain inkblots existed among those who had the diagnosis of schizophrenia. (Masters of the Mind by Theodore Millon)
The text on the teapot reads “2 altruistic butterflies fly 2 wounded field mice to safety; compassion among species.” That’s kind of sweet.
3 comments November 17th, 2007
I’ve been running across an unusually large number of things I covet lately, and it occurred to me that if you are reading my blog, you (or your friends/family) might have similar tastes. So I thought I’d post a list of gift ideas for those of you who are starting to look. I am NOT getting commissions, I promise. 
First, with GREAT fanfare: Peacay/PK at BibliOdyssey has accomplished what I’d have judged impossible: a book! My mind boggles at the copyright implications. . . it must have been an incredible pain to track down book rights to the images, but what a treasure (and how fitting for the images to go full circle, from old books, to a blog, back to paper). BibliOdyssey - the Book: Amazing Archival Images from the Internet
There is a wonderful interview with PK here, at 3 quarks daily.
Just in: a review of the book here.
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The Undercover Brain Bag by Jun Takahashi: a purse with sulci and gyri. It’s like doing a callosotomy every time you get your wallet out! I found this via Virginia Hughes. Before you get your hopes up, apparently there’s only one of these bags, and I can’t figure out how much it is or how exactly to buy it! Maybe that’s the point: unless your brain is that big, you can’t have it. At (I think) Someday Store.
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Now this is the best. I hope you already know that for Christmas you can give your loved one gonorrhea, herpes, or even Ebola. And they’re so CUTE! Think Geek: Giant Plush Microbes
No explanation why they have a neuron in the list with all the contagions, but I’d like one of those, too.
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Made With Molecules: sterling silver beta-endorphin choker necklace
I know I keep plugging Raven Hanna’s neurotransmitter jewelry, but she just told me her long-awaited endorphin choker has been revealed publicly. This gem is the entire sequence of beta-endorphin. This is the gift for the lady geek who already has everything else - and given the time that goes into one necklace, you will want to order NOW!
Myself, I’m still eyeing Raven’s neurotransmitter charm bracelets. Who knows, it might help with what my boss referred to last week as “your very apparent GABA imbalance.”
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Not everyone knows their endorphin from their estrogen, and non-scientists need gifts too. For non-molecular jewelry, visit my friend Ophelia’s etsy shop (Ophelia herself IS a scientist). I get compliments every time I wear her work - it happened again today - and you know no one else will have the same piece, which is especially nice for me since I and all my friends shop at Ann Taylor, and unfortunately have the same clothes. Ophelia’s Jewels
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The “Science: It Works, Bitches” T-shirt. I have almost bought this like, five times. What is stopping me??? Oh yeah - I’m broke. Blame Ann Taylor. the xkcd.com store: t-shirts
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The “viva la evolution” t-shirt. Che Guevara’s Jurassic doppleganger: what more could you want?? Trilobite clothing
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Pretty things from Walteria Living and emily amey here, and here.
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New! Check out Street Anatomy’s own Christmas list of anatomy-related gifts
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I will be updating this list as more strange things appear on my wishlist. . . for the record, Santa, I have none of these things . . . yet.
Of course, if you really really like me, you’ll buy me this.
2 comments November 10th, 2007
Over at his blog, Jeff Prucher has challenged readers to think of five major LIVING poets. Can you do it? No cheating, no Googling, no looking at your bookshelf or New Yorkers! For verisimilitude, pretend Alex Trebek is staring smugly at you: doo DEE doo doo, doo DEE doo. . . Write down your answers, then see if you agree with mine (after the fold).
This was a little sad, since two poets I had the pleasure of hearing in person, whom I’d like to list, the charming Agha Shahid Ali and Stanley Kunitz, passed away recently.
Among living masters, Seamus Heaney plainly rules the roost (and would hold his own against the greatest dead poets, I’d wager). I can have only four others, so this list is biased: Louise Gluck, Jack Gilbert, Mary Oliver, Li-Young Li. Not necessarily the biggest names, but they’re the ones I want on my list of “major” (whatever that means) poets. Who would you choose?
4 comments October 31st, 2007
Jason at Cephalopodcast.com challenged me to visit this site, sponsored by the New York Zoo, to create my “wild self.” It’s like one of those flip books where you mix and match body parts. As a biologist, such egregious phylogenetic cross-pollination bugs me a little bit, but darn, I like my new look.
2 comments October 18th, 2007
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