Cell phone mitosis.
.
Tag: biology
November 30, 2011
Rapid mutations in the 1950s? The evolution of Charlie Brown.
But what exactly was responsible for this drastic change? Maybe there’s evidence out there for a punctuated equilibrium effect?
Illustrated by Charles Schulz, scanned from The Peanuts Collection (Little, Brown and Company, 2010), via Hey Oscar Wilde!
November 28, 2011
A social media experiment: Can we use twitter to produce an interesting analogy on the subject of viruses?
This may crash and burn, but might also be interesting. Extra coolness, if the tweet mutates somewhere along the line (although it’s also obvious that it would take a lot to reach the necessary “viral load” to see the tweet propagate – maybe instead of a dot, a star would be better?).
Anyway, if it sounds like fun, you can RT by visiting the link of the original tweet.
November 24, 2011
The Mere Anticipation of an Interaction with a Woman Can Impair Men’s Cognitive Performance.
We needed peer review to tell us this?
(Click on image for pdf of first page)
Pubmed link, via NCBI ROFL.
November 10, 2011
Knitting Anatomy 101 (aliens and frogs!)
First the Alien autopsy. I’m sure this could be used as a slide on the subject of anatomy, surgery, etc.
Then, of course, there is the classic frog dissection.
Best of all, both of these are available as knitting kits. From the talented Emily Stoneking (alien | frog). Via @kpwerker.
October 18, 2011
Beautiful: what you get when you mix a dead turtle with chemistry that includes potassium hydroxide and red dye.
Iori Tomita transforms marine life with scientific technique of preserving and dying organism specimens into art. A series that he calls New World Transparent Specimens. Tomita first removes the scales and skin of fish that have been preserved in formaldehyde, he leaves the organism to soak in a mixture of blue stain, ethyl alcohol, and glacial acetic acid before utilizing the enzyme trypsin to break down protein and muscles, stopping the reaction as soon as they become transparent but before they lose their form. The bones are then stained by soaking the fish in a combination of potassium hydroxide and red dye, before the specimen is preserved in glycerin.(link).
October 17, 2011
“Man as Industrial Palace.” Wonderful image.
“Der Mensch als Industriepalast (Man as Industrial Palace): Fritz Kahn, (1888-1968)
Kahn’s modernist visualization of the digestive and respiratory system as “industrial palace,” really a chemical plant, was conceived in a period when the German chemical industry was the world’s most advanced.”
Via Dream Anatomy.
October 13, 2011
Luke Jerram’s amazing microbial glasswork
By Luke Jerram: go here to see more of this collection. Note, I’ve written about Luke’s work previously in Seed.
October 13, 2011
Naked Mole Rat Genome Sequenced.
Paper link: (E. B. Kim et al. Nature doi:10.1038/nature10533;2011)
“The naked mole rat is one of Mother Nature’s great survivors. The busy underground lairs in which the animals live almost always run low on oxygen and high on carbon dioxide. Steady subterranean temperatures have sapped the creatures’ ability to regulate their body temperature. Yet what they sacrifice in quality of life they more than make up for in extraordinary quantity. Comfortably the longest-living rodent, naked mole rats can live for more than 30 years. They seem impervious to cancer and do not feel some types of pain.
All of which means that the frankly ugly naked mole rat could prove a sight for sore eyes in the biomedical community. The information published on its genome and transcriptome has already revealed patterns of gene expression different from those in humans, mice and rats, and this may underlie its longevity. With further study, mechanisms of ageing, genetic regulation of lifespan, adaption to extreme environments, low-oxygen tolerance, cancer resistance, sexual development and hormonal regulation are up for grabs.”
Via Nature. Image from Livescience.com.
October 12, 2011
Aorta tell you how much I love you.
From a collection called “Nerdy Dirty” by Nicole Martinez. There’s a few of them, and they’re all very nice. Check them out at this link. For now, the one below has a little anatomy…
October 12, 2011
The “I pity the fool” cell.
Awesome. Via Velica DeviantArt page, hat tip to Fresh Photons.
popperfont.net 