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"If I can not dance, I want no part in your revolution." ~ Emma GoldmanFollowing
This is a picture of me touching the giant squid at the American Museum of Natural History. I then (drunkenly) told Nick Denton that he should touch it and take a picture “because it would get a million page views.” I like to keep it Kardashian level klassy.
So jealous!
Microscope Necklace from ShanaLogic
Do want, kthnx. I wanted to be a paleontologist until I discovered chemistry.
Discussed: the discovery of comets, Uranus, Tahiti, and hot-air ballooning.
A major theme of Holmes’ book is the double-edged promise of science, the sublime “beauty and terror” of his subtitle. Both played a role in the great balloon craze that swept across Europe after 1783, when the Montgolfier brothers sent a sheep, a duck and a rooster over the rooftops of Versailles, held aloft by nothing more substantial than “a cloud in a paper bag.” “What’s the use of a balloon?” someone asked Benjamin Franklin, who witnessed the launching from the window of his carriage. “What’s the use of a newborn baby?” he replied (editorial aside by yours truly: oh, snap!). The Gothic novelist Horace Walpole was less enthusiastic, fearing that balloons would be “converted into new engines of destruction to the human race — as is so often the case of refinements or discoveries in Science.”
i love this book.
In the late 18th century, Carl Schildbach was manager of a German estate famous for its ornamental park. He had no formal academic or scientific training, but at the request of his employer began compiling a reference collection of the natural history of each type of tree and shrub in the estate, eventually totalling 546 items…
“The format… was that of a box or casket, the raw materials for which were provided by the specimen itself, made up in the form of a book – varying in size from folio to duodecimo – with the ‘front cover’ forming a sliding lid…
For the left side of the ‘volume’ mature wood was selected and for the right side sapwood, while the fore-edge was made from heartwood; the top surface incorporated cross-sections from branches of various ages while the bottom surface showed a section through the trunk…
While the box itself served to illustrate the characteristics of the timber, the interior was reserved for an exposition of the whole natural history of the plant… a complete seedling is included to one side, with its roots, seminal capsule and first pair of leaves. In the centre of the box the tip of a branch displays buds and leaves in various stages of development…blossoms are shown varying from full blooms to faded flowers, while fruits are similarly represented at every stage in their development… Examples of associated parasites and lichens are included…”
The empress Catherine tried to purchase Schildbach’s collection, but he deeded it to his master, Landgrave Wilhelm IX; it now resides in the Naturalienkabinett in Kassel, where it is still used as reference material. Schildbach inspired several imitators, including Candid Huber, a Benedictine monk, whose collection survives in the Bavarian Burgmuseum. Peter the Great eventually acquired a collection for his Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg, and another resides in the Musee National des Techniques of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris.
(Image and text via www.neatorama.com)
A fanciful look at what lies beneath the mundane exterior. Find the secrets of the house, and under the ground it’s built on.
The Inner Workings of the Residence of Lulu Bell by JessRae888
It’s a simple enough concept: collect examples of every sort of material you can imagine and put them all in one place. If it’s not toxic or virulently radioactive, let people handle it. And while you’re at it, try to illuminate some of the materials science behind these objects – ideally while firing the imagination at the same time.
There are half a dozen materials libraries around the world, some more extensive than others, but the one based in King’s College London is arguably the most state-of-the-art, with more than 500 new and advanced prototype materials and counting. The Library was enshrined in 2003 with a fellowship from the UK’s National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts. Directed by Dr. Mark Miodownik, head of the Materials Research Group at KCL, the Library’s curator is Zoe Laughlin, an MA in fine art and a practicing artist, and Martin Conreen, a lecturer of design at Goldsmiths College, lends his expertise.
Make no mistake about it, these librarians are a bit nuts. I saw them as “Wax Lyrical” at last year’s Cheltenham Science Festival cabaret, performing the Beatle’s “Love Me Do” using wax candles as instruments. (Aren’t candles essentially silent, you might ask? Not when you’re holding your bare palm over the flames and shrieking in pain in time and pitch to the music).
Who on earth would be interested in a materials library? Kids of course, who might have heard the terms ‘bronze’ and ‘brass’, or ‘polypropylene’ and ‘polystyrene’, but with no idea what the difference was. Curious adults, young at heart enough to be charmed by tricks of fluorescence or illusions of mass. Artists, bored of the usual media and looking to branch out – and the Library is certainly infiltrating London’s mainstream art world, having exhibited at the Hayward, Tate Modern and the Institute for Contemporary Arts…
A touching display. Materials Library at Tate Modern
Posted for nerdgasms
Carl Sagan’s Cosmos is largely readable on google books. :)
Carl Sagan’s Cosmos is largely watchable on Hulu. Best time I had this summer, true story.
These antique microscope slides are delightful in their peek into what intrigued years ago. Like little museum specimens with their own special labels and handwritten notes, each tiny treasure is encased in a circle of mica and often mounted on a slide of bone or ivory. They appeal to our modern eyes, looking a bit like found specimens from another planet perhaps - Little reliquaries frozen in time. Lovely…
Book: Pat Schrodinger’s Kitty $25
Here are Paul Dirac and Enrico Fermi. They can do lots of things. You can do lots of things too! This parody of the children’s classic Pat the Bunny is perfect for the babies in your life who are interested in physics.
