bioephemera
Posts by this author
March 23, 2011
"You'd think that art is based more on intuition and science is based more on knowledge and fact, but what I think happens is that as you get more proficient in either of those fields, the intuitive knowledge base and the factual knowledge base become equally important. In this sense, Einstein may…
March 22, 2011
This week is zombiefest! Why? Because I finally had a chance to finish my reviews of two zombie-themed books. Up today is the third in the series spawned by the mash-up Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (P&P&Z), the new Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After.
The original P…
March 21, 2011
The federal government, including NIH, isn't exactly seen as a hotbed of artsy drama types. ("Faceless gray mega-bureaucracy" might be a more typical descriptor.) So I was tickled to learn that the National Institute on Drug Abuse is framing a series of continuing medical education (CME) courses…
March 18, 2011
Louis Vuitton, the high-end accessory company, is suing a Dutch artist, Nadia Plesner, for painting a likeness of one of their handbags in a work of art publicizing the conflict in Darfur. According to the artist's attorneys, the painting, "Darfurnica,"
is modeled after Picasso's Guernica and…
March 18, 2011
. . . I know we are all thinking of the victims of last week's earthquake and tsunami, and of the ongoing nuclear plant crisis.
The Japanese Embassy directs would-be donors to the Red Cross, and asks that donors give to their local chapters. In the US, one can donate to the Red Cross here, or text…
March 17, 2011
I guess it's not surprising, my dopamine is rising
And my glutamate receptors are all shot
I'd surely be bemoaning all the extra serotonin
But my judgement is impaired and my confidence is not
Allosteric modulation
No Long Term Potentiation
Hastens my inebriation
Give me a beer. . .
Physiology…
March 16, 2011
For everyone frustrated with the unscientific, spotty, incoherent and often inaccurate coverage of the Japanese nuclear plant situation: one geo-blogger and her dad try to help out. Now THAT is how you use your scientific expertise to improve public understanding in a meaningful, immediate way.…
March 16, 2011

The Cyclotrope from tim Wheatley on Vimeo.
The cyclotrope is a cycle of 18 images that is spun at a certain speed so that the frame rate of the camera filming it gives the illusion of animation.
A humble suggestion to high school art/science/media teachers: if your curriculum is not already too…
March 15, 2011

When I was about eleven years old, I loved to draw intricate ornamental initials with sea serpents twining all over them and castles sprouting out of them, etc. Sometimes my friends would have me draw ink letter "tattoos" on them, but really, the only way I could get satisfactory…
March 12, 2011
So lately I've been trying to understand open source licensing options for software code, which is hard, because I'm not a coder. (If I don't understand an xkcd, it's almost always because it's some sort of Python joke.)
Anyway, Michael Ogawa made some videos a few years back depicting the growth…
March 11, 2011
On Wednesday, I gave a breakout session talk on science policy jobs at MIT. I love talking about science policy, so it's not too hard to get me to do it - it's harder to get me to stop - and we had a great group of Boston-area grad students who asked excellent questions. Very fun.
The talk did…
March 11, 2011
David Clarke, president of the DC chapter of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (a great group that I considered joining once, long ago and several careers away), just passed along an invitation to an event next week. The artists who created the work in the Smithsonian's NMNH Hall of Human…
March 7, 2011
Scientific American does - and they have new info on whether pseudonymity really decreases blogger credibility.
A. I am so glad I was on hiatus during the whole Pepsigate thing. Whew.
B. I have been dying to write about blogger pseudonymity like, forever, and NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR IT. WAAAAAH.
C.…
March 7, 2011
O designer-readers who like to work and play with Photoshop, this contest may be up your alley: Quirk Books, the outfit behind Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, has joined with Bridgeman Art Library to invite submissions for its "Art of the Mash-Up" competition. Basically, they want you to prove…
March 6, 2011
Lest any of my faithful readers think they're the only ones whose wonderful linky suggestions I don't seem to get around to posting, my boyfriend sent me this and I didn't post it, and apparently it's on the Daily Dish and 3QD today & he's all like "why didn't you post it sooner? Didn't you…
March 5, 2011
Let's be honest: the past two weeks have been horrible. On Thursday and Friday, for example, I worked for over 24 hours straight (who needs sleep) on a single project. You may have noticed BioE's silence - no, when I don't have time to sleep, shower or go to the gym, I generally don't find time to…
February 21, 2011
Perfect for a holiday* with big fluffy slo-mo snowflakes** and wintry, brittle light, Clemento's Macro Kingdom short films. The most recent one is below, and the two prior films are below the fold.
I love the incorporation of the fragile, distorted type, but can't resist observing that the words…
February 20, 2011
It's strangely artistic, like a Dutch still life: this disturbing short film by Sam-Taylor Wood defies our expectations of decomposition, as a rabbit churns with decay while a peach sitting nearby remains fresh. (Video below the fold, so as not to gross anyone out by surprise).
Via wouldn't you…
February 18, 2011
I'm too busy to write anything remotely interesting right now, so thanks, NYT & Bay Citizen, for filling the gap with an article about how Eadweard Muybridge. Best known for photo sequences capturing running horses and athletes, Muybridge bridged (ahem) art and science in his work, in addition…
February 14, 2011
A classic tale of love and sacrifice, illustrated by Sean Bieri:
While Bieri's artistry technically depicts a Christmas story, it also nicely captures the undying-even-while-decaying-putrefying-and-hemorrhaging-IQ-points nature of true love. What more could you want for Valentine's Day? (And let's…
February 13, 2011
The placebo effect, of course!
A video by Daniel Keogh (Twitterfeed) and Luke Harris.
h/t Ed Yong.
February 13, 2011
We've been buried under ice, snow, and slush up here in Massachusetts for months, and the chlorophyll deprivation is brutal. The other day I was chatting with someone, and he suddenly tuned out of our conversation, gazing into the distance wistfully. "Oh, sorry," he said, "I just noticed I can see…
February 11, 2011
. . . by Matt Nisbet, formerly of Framing Science, and now at at Big Think/Age of Engagement:
Too often art is viewed instrumentally by science, as a vehicle for gaining public support or promoting science. This is unfortunate. Science and art should be viewed as cultural equals with art an…
February 10, 2011
Okay, I knew that planets are big, intellectually, but a well-done graphic is worth a thousand words, and a pretty HD video is even better. Brad Goodspeed made this video to suggest what other planets would look like, if they orbited Earth at the same distance as the Moon does. I've embedded it,…
February 9, 2011
I get mail with wonderful links in it, but I'm hard pressed to find the time to post them, so my apologizes to those who've sent me things and not heard back. I'm beyond swamped. In the meantime, perhaps you'll enjoy these two nontraditional takes on "mapping." First up, map as music (or is it vice…
February 9, 2011
Don't look now, but the field of acoustic botany was just invented. It may take a while to catch on. Or grow. But it's a cool concept.
February 8, 2011
Remember the synthetic biology documentary I blogged about a while back? Well, the filmmakers are still working toward their goal. They have a little less than a month left, and I just noticed that they've seriously beefed up the rewards you can get for funding them. There are some interesting…
February 7, 2011
I think the Haptica, by David Chavez, is pretty awesome:
I've seen some criticisms that this watch is misguided, because you can already get affordable watches that speaks the time aloud. As far as I'm concerned, those criticisms miss the point (as does the Kickstarter video, somewhat, with its…
February 6, 2011
"Association, juxtaposition, metaphor is how the poet can go further than the scientist in addressing systems. The poet can legitimately juxtapose kelp beds with junkyards. Or to get really technical, reflect the water reservoir system for a large city in the linguistic structure of repetitive…
February 5, 2011
"we find ourselves constantly experimenting and pushing the boundaries. . . the really great thing about our business is the fact that we take raw materials, and we design, we color, we make. . . and we have complete control of the process. It's very gratifying."
Danny Cooke, maker of the short…