bones rocks and dirt

jtotheizzoe: Tyopgraphy/Topography An Earth-inspired typeface...

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:32:55 -0400

Tyopgraphy/Topography

An Earth-inspired typeface designed by Siyu Cao that creates shapes and letters from classic typographic map features. The two-dimensional forms are great, but the 3-D carvings really drive it to the mountaintop.

I’ve seen a lot of Earth as Art projects, but never a typeface. Excellent work.

Bonus: Check out some of my other favorite science-inspired typography here.

"Where no place on the planet is untouched by humans, faith in nonintervention makes little sense. We..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 08:57:55 -0400

“Where no place on the planet is untouched by humans, faith in nonintervention makes little sense. We have already altered nature’s course everywhere. Our future relationship with nature will be more complicated. Stepping in will sometimes be wise, but not always. Navigating that complexity without hubris will be a great challenge.”

- Save the Wolves of Isle Royale National Park - NYTimes.com

Ladislav Sitenský (1919 – 2009)

Sun, 05 May 2013 20:13:13 -0400

Ladislav Sitenský (1919 – 2009)

kateordie: Heaven

Sun, 05 May 2013 20:11:51 -0400

kateordie:

Heaven

astronautwivesclub: Harper’s Bazaar Space Age fashion, April...

Sun, 05 May 2013 19:33:11 -0400

astronautwivesclub:

Harper’s Bazaar Space Age fashion, April 1965, by Richard Avedon

"[N]arratives are ultimately more important for species survival than any data, management plan or..."

Thu, 02 May 2013 07:53:05 -0400

“[N]arratives are ultimately more important for species survival than any data, management plan or science, because they determine how hard society is willing to work to keep a species going — as he puts it, “the bear is dependent on the stories we tell about it”.”

- Conservation: Storied rarities : Nature : Nature Publishing Group

"We seldom stop to think that we are still creatures of the sea, able to leave it only because, from..."

Wed, 01 May 2013 08:18:56 -0400

“We seldom stop to think that we are still creatures of the sea, able to leave it only because, from birth to death, we wear the water-filled space suits of our skins.”

- Arthur C. Clarke (via mad-as-a-marine-biologist)

danforth: spineless by Dr. Monster on Flickr. Don’t snicker!...

Wed, 01 May 2013 07:52:48 -0400

danforth:

spineless by Dr. Monster on Flickr.

Don’t snicker! It’s a platyhelminth!

Bessie Banks - Go Now (by sukouyant)

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 19:57:04 -0400

Bessie Banks - Go Now (by sukouyant)

Rothko dessert (via Modern Art Desserts: From Mondrian Cake to...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 10:04:36 -0400

Rothko dessert

(via Modern Art Desserts: From Mondrian Cake to Matisse Parfait | Brain Pickings)

"We have, as one colleague put it to me, replaced our pre-9/11 naïveté with post-9/11 sobriety. Where..."

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:04:03 -0400

“We have, as one colleague put it to me, replaced our pre-9/11 naïveté with post-9/11 sobriety. Where before we’d have been struck dumb with shock about such events, now we are almost calculating about them. When ball bearings and nails were found in the wounds of the victims, everyone understood the bombs had been packed with them as projectiles. At every hospital, clinicians considered the possibility of chemical or radiation contamination, a second wave of attacks, or a direct attack on a hospital. Even nonmedical friends e-mailed and texted me to warn people about secondary and tertiary explosive devices aimed at responders. Everyone’s imaginations have come to encompass these once unimaginable events.”

- Why Boston’s Hospitals Were Ready : The New Yorker

Lake Baikal, located in the southern part of eastern Siberia in...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 19:30:16 -0400

Lake Baikal, located in the southern part of eastern Siberia in Russia, is an incredible natural wonder of the world that one can only hope to visit at least once in their lifetime. It’s not just the oldest freshwater lake on Earth, at 20 to 25 million years old, it’s also one of the largest and deepest, holding an astounding one-fifth of the world’s freshwater.

In the winter, for about five months or from January to May, the lake freezes over but the water is so clear that, from the surface, you can see an astounding 130 feet below you. A photographic worthy natural phenomenon occurs around a very specific time of year, March. Wind, temperature differences, frost and sun in the ice crust cause cracks and ice hummocks to form. Transparent and shining in a turquoise color, these masses of broken ice look like shards of glass rising into the sky. They are caused by the slow and unequal pressure in the main body of the packed ice as well as by the unequal structure and temperature. Now that’s one for the bucket list.

(via Shards of Turquoise Ice Jut Out of the World’s Largest Lake - My Modern Metropolis)

Photo: Alexey Trofimov

The Science of Subway Riders: Perhaps most telling is the...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 17:06:18 -0400

The Science of Subway Riders:

Perhaps most telling is the authors’ account of rider decisions when a fellow traveler rises from a seat. “Customers do change seats as seats become available due to passengers disembarking,” the report said, in language riders would be unlikely to use: “but seat-change maneuvers incur utility costs (movement effort, and risk of desired seat becoming occupied midmaneuver).”

To mitigate this risk, the authors found, riders must often “relinquish their current less-desirable seats in advance of busy stops” to better position themselves near to where “seat-turnover” seems more likely.

“We cannot fully explain seating preference,” the authors added; they “only can describe it.”

Photo: Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times

Ancient Greek entrance to hell & temple to Pluto discovered!...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:38:42 -0400

Ancient Greek entrance to hell & temple to Pluto discovered! Hierapolis’s Ploutonion:

By tracing the path of the hot springs through the ancient site, the team from the University of Salento, led by Francesco D’Andria, uncovered the entrance to the cave. An engraved dedication to Pluto above the entrance has confirmed the identification of the gate.

The ancient Greek geographer Strabo, who recorded tales of his travels in Asia Minor in the final years B.C., mentions the “singular properties” of the Ploutonion, saying “it is an opening of sufficient size to admit a man, but there is a descent to a great depth … [The] space is filled with a cloudy and dark vapor, so dense that the bottom can scarcely be discerned … Animals which enter … die instantly. Even bulls, when brought within it, fall down and are taken out dead. We have ourselves thrown in sparrows, which immediately fell down lifeless.”

The eunuch priests of Pluto would prove their power by entering the gassy cleft and coming out alive (presumably by holding their breath and taking advantage of known pockets of safe air within the cave), while birds that flew too close were often felled by the poison. During the modern excavations, dead birds at the site helped convince the archaeological team they’d found the Ploutonion’s actual “gate to hell.”

Digital illustration courtesy Francesco D’Andria

seafarers: Starry Nights by Jorge Maia

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 08:50:34 -0400

seafarers:

Starry Nights by Jorge Maia

Photo

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:00:58 -0400

A sparrow sits in the muzzle of a former Soviet T-34/76 tank at...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:54:05 -0400

A sparrow sits in the muzzle of a former Soviet T-34/76 tank at the Soviet Memorial in Berlin’s Tiergarten on April 5, 2013. By Tim Brakemeier/AFP/Getty Images.

(via Face Of The Day « The Dish)

itscolossal: Can You Guess the Owner? New Macro Photos of...

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 10:00:28 -0400

itscolossal:

Can You Guess the Owner? New Macro Photos of Animal Eyes from Suren Manvelyan

Kintarō Riding the Carp - from Sketches by Yoshitoshi (1882) |...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:25:25 -0400

Kintarō Riding the Carp - from Sketches by Yoshitoshi (1882) | The Public Domain Review:

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) is widely recognized as the last great master of Ukiyo-e, a type of Japanese woodblock printing (literally meaning “pictures of the floating world”). He is additionally regarded as one of the form’s greatest innovators. His career spanned two eras — the last years of Edo period Japan, and the first years of modern Japan following the Meiji Restoration. This series of coloured woodblock prints were produced in 1882. (Wikipedia)

(All images from the series “Sketches by Yoshitoshi” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

ianbrooks: Amber Inclusions by Anders Damgaard With all this...

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:11:12 -0400

Biting Midge by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

Spider (araneae) by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

Beetle (Latridiidae) by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

Erythraeidae - a parasitic mite larva on a Fulgoromorpha nymph by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

millipede (Polydesmida) by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

Beetle (Latridiidae) by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

male wedge-shaped beetle (Rhipiphoridae) by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

rove beetle (Staphylinidae, Paederinae) by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

Caddisfly (Trichoptera) by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

Pseudoscorpion by Anders Damgaard posted by ianbrooks.me

ianbrooks:

Amber Inclusions by Anders Damgaard

With all this discussion recently surrounding the ethics of manipulating DNA in an effort to resurrect lost species, it seems appropriate that we take a look back in time at the vessels for our future T-Rexes and (fingers crossed~!) Giant Ground Sloths. Until that glorious day when we will ride atop the backs of huge beavers (it was a thing! Science up), admire the beauty of these amber-encased insects, forever looking out at us through a layer of several million years.

Photog: Flickr / Website / Blog