Imaging The Arctic: "In Spring 2013, based out of the small settlements of Niaqornat and Kullorsuaq,
expeditionary artist Maria Coryell-Martin will accompany scientist
Dr. Kristin Laidre onto the pack ice of Baffin Bay." They are keeping an online field journal detailing Dr. Laidre's study of the effects of sea-ice loss on narwhals and polar bears, with Maria Coryell-Martin's illustrations accompanying field notes.
posted by ChuraChura
on May 1, 2013 -
1 comment
The Inside Story Of Pong - On Nov. 29, 1972, a crude table-tennis arcade game in a garish orange cabinet was delivered to bars and pizza parlors around California, and a multi-billion-dollar industry was born. Here's how that happened, direct from the freaks and geeks who invented a culture and paved the way for today's tech moguls.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Nov 30, 2012 -
18 comments
[raises envelope to temple] Human bone cancer. Sea gooseberry larva. Bat embryos.
[tears open envelope, blows inside, removes paper, reads] Some of the winners of the 38th Nikon Small World
microphotography competition.
posted by Egg Shen
on Oct 23, 2012 -
16 comments
These days, it's easy to take visualizations of biological molecules for granted, what with the
easy availability of an ever-increasing supply of high-resolution
X-ray and neutron crystallography data, as well as
freely available software that render them into beautiful and useful images that help us understand how life works. The lack of computers and computer networks in the mid-1950s made creating these illustrations a painstaking collaboration, requiring an artist's craftsmanship and aesthetic sense, as well as, most importantly, the critical ability to visualize the concepts that scientists wish to communicate. One such scientific artist was
Irving Geis, who painted the first biological macromolecule obtained through X-ray data: an iconic watercolor representation of the structure of sperm whale myoglobin, as seen in the third slide of this
slideshow of selected pieces. His first effort was a
revolutionary work of informatics, including coloring and shading effects that emphasized important structural and functional features of the myoglobin protein, simultaneously moving the less-important aspects into the background, all while stressing simplicity and beauty throughout. The techniques that Geis developed in this and
subsequent works influenced the standards for basic 2D protein visualization that are used today.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Aug 8, 2012 -
6 comments
Prototypes are usually the missing links in the evolution of human technology, the dead-ends of ideas that give way to the refinement of the final physical product. Prototypes aren't just for
Darth Vader. While the legal back and forth between Apple and Samsung continues, a
treasure trove of
prototype designs for Apple devices has been released to the public, showing insights into various design approaches and feature enhancements, including
larger form-factor iPads
with and without
kickstands and
landscape ports and iPhones that
parody the Sony logo, show a different layout for
camera elements, and look remarkably like
fourth-generation models, as far back as 2005. On the other hand, some have made prototypes into the end goal itself, such as the folks at
Dangerous Prototypes, a site which features a new open-source electronic hardware
project each month. Some are just
gratuitous fun, while others are a bit more practical, such as one project that
recycles old Nokia displays and another that provides access to
infrared signal, useful for hacking together remote controls for all sorts of IR-based devices. Other prototypes of
tomorrow's technology are less concerned with shrinking down the guts of the invention itself, to make it disappear, but rather on
how we
interact with and
integrate physical representations of these ideas into our daily lives. Above all else, prototypes are always forward-looking and are therefore inherently optimistic expressions of human creativity: Even
children are getting into imagining the world of tomorrow.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Aug 1, 2012 -
14 comments
She connected the discarded organ replacement machines together and had them 'breathe' in closed circuits. The machines of
The Immortal keep each other alive through circulation of electrical impulses, oxygen and artificial blood.
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on May 14, 2012 -
28 comments
In
The Geographic Flow of Music (
arxiv), researchers Conrad Lee and Pádraig Cunningham propose a method to use data from the
last.fm API to track the world's listening habits by location and time, showing where shifts in musical tastes have originated and subsequently migrated. Results show music trends originating in smaller cities and flowing outward in unexpected ways, contradicting some assumptions in social science about larger cities being more efficient engines of (cultural) invention.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Apr 26, 2012 -
13 comments
Princeton's 5th annual Art of Science Competition "The Art of Science exhibition explores the interplay between science and art. These practices both involve the pursuit of those moments of discovery when what you perceive suddenly becomes more than the sum of its parts. Each piece in this exhibition is, in its own way, a record of such a moment."
posted by dhruva
on Nov 15, 2011 -
8 comments
OpenCPU provides a
RESTful interface to the popular open-source statistical package
R, enabling the user to perform calculations and create publication-quality or web-embeddable visualizations via standard web requests.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Nov 10, 2011 -
17 comments
Biomedical Ephemera, or, a Frog for your Boils is "A blog for all biological and medical ephemera, from the age of Abraham through the era of medical quackery and cure-all nostrums. Sometimes featuring illustrations of diseases and conditions of the times, sometimes fascinating ephemeral medical equipment, and sometimes clippings and information about the theories themselves." The
archive page is also a useful starting point.
via Things Magazine.
posted by Rumple
on Aug 29, 2011 -
8 comments
My Life with Science, Art and Food: "Using scientific laboratory photo equipment, I journey over the surfaces of both organic and processed foods: my own favorites and America’s over-indulgences. The closer the lens got, the more I saw food and consumers of food (all of us!) as part of a larger eco-system than mere sustenance."
[more inside]
posted by bwg
on Jul 22, 2011 -
4 comments
Larry Gonick is a veteran American cartoonist best known for his delightful comic-book guides to science and history, many of which have previews online. Chief among them is his long-running
Cartoon History of the Universe (later
The Cartoon History of the Modern World), a sprawling multi-volume opus documenting everything from the Big Bang to the Bush administration. Published over the course of three decades, it takes a truly global view -- its time-traveling Professor thoroughly explores not only familiar topics like Rome and World War II but the oft-neglected stories of Asia and Africa, blending caricature and myth with careful scholarship (cited by
fun illustrated bibliographies) and tackling even the most obscure events
with intelligence and wit. This savvy satire carried over to Gonick's
Zinn-by-way-of-
Pogo chronicle
The Cartoon History of the United States, along with a bevy of
Cartoon Guides to other topics, including
Genetics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Statistics, The Environment, and (yes!)
Sex. Gonick has also maintained a few sideprojects, such as
a webcomic look at Chinese invention,
assorted math comics (
previously), the
Muse magazine mainstay
Kokopelli & Co. (featuring the shenanigans of his
"New Muses"), and
more. See also
these lengthy interview snippets, linked
previously. Want more? Amazon links to the complete oeuvre inside!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jun 6, 2011 -
29 comments
