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Written By: grant on March 18, 2012 No Comment

SONG: “Back into flow.” (To download: double right-click & “Save As”)

ARTIST: grant.

SOURCE: Based on “What it’s like to wear a brain-stimulating ‘thinking cap’”, BoingBoing, 4 Mar 2012, as used in the post “Slipping on the thinking cap”… and “Zap your brain into the flow: Fast track to pure focus”, New Scientist, 6 Feb [...]

Written By: grant on March 18, 2012 No Comment
Science Art: <i>5257: Life cycle of</i> Diphyllobothrium latum.


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This is Diphyllobothrium latum, a tapeworm that might make itself at home inside you if you eat undercooked fish. The picture comes from the 80s but it must’ve been pretty retro even then.

From the CDC description:

This diagram depicts the various stages in the life cycle of the tapeworm Diphyllobothrium latum, a cestode.
Diphyllobothriasis occurs in areas [...]

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Written By: grant on March 11, 2012 No Comment
Science Art: <i>Manière de pêcher la Tortüe; le Lamantin</i> from <i>Histoire des aventuriers flibustiers</i>, Volume I (1744)

This engraving shows a bunch of humans spearing a sea turtle. But wait! A manatee looks on in terror, clutching her child! And thinks back to all the different kinds of harpoons she has seen… and thus far avoided.

Or something like that.

It comes from Alexandre-Olivier Exquemelin’s rollicking History of Filibustering Adventurers*, published in 1744, although I found [...]

Written By: grant on March 4, 2012 No Comment
Science Art: <i>Building the Forth Bridge</i>, by Charles J. de Laoy, 1909


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This is the Forth Bridge, spanning the famous Firth of Forth (on the way to Fife)*. And for Archibald Williams, editor of Engineering Wonders of the World, this was ripping stuff. The bridge still stands today, because it was designed and built by the Scots, who pay attention to every detail and waste nothing. It was [...]

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Written By: grant on February 26, 2012 No Comment
Science Art: <i>Angiome Annulaire</i>, by Dr. Michel Royon


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An angioma is a benign tumor. This one is on a finger.

Image made by Dr. Michel Royon, apparently by using digital subtraction angiography – taking an X-ray of some body part, injecting fluorescent stuff into the vessels, then taking a second X-ray. Overlay the two images, subtract the non-fluorescent stuff, and you’ve got [...]

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Written By: grant on February 19, 2012 No Comment
Science Art: <i>Amundsen Expedition Map of Antarctica</i>, 1911-1912


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Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen did away with Terra Australis Incognito for good in December 1911. (It was more than a decade later that he went after Santa Claus in his polar fortress.)

He credited his success with not wasting much time surveying and mapping – he went to the South Pole, took two photographs, claimed it [...]

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Written By: grant on February 12, 2012 No Comment
Science Art: “Engine of the Veteran Association” from <i>Our Firemen: A History of the New York Fire Department</i>, 1899.


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This device paraded at the inaugurations of President Grover Cleveland and the Statue of Liberty.

It also put out fires, nobly, before the turn of the last century.

Image from the New York Public Library Picture Collection.

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Written By: grant on February 5, 2012 No Comment
Science Art: <i>Quiet Engine Sonic Inlet</i>, NASA Glenn Research Center

Let us take a moment, while contemplating the sleek engineering of the quiet engine sonic inlet, to consider that tie. That man is not a model. He is, in all likelihood, an engineer. An actual rocket scientist. There are no horn-rim glasses, no pocket protectors and neither white coat nor jumpsuit. Perhaps… and I can find no higher resolution [...]

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