30 September 2008

Sea creature knitting patterns

Hansigurumi has a large collection of sea creature knitting patterns for sale on her Etsy shop.

I'm partial to the anglerfish. These fish belong to the order Lophiiformes and live in the deep sea where very little light penetrates. They're named after the glowing lure they use to entice unsuspecting prey into their mouth, like an angler (fisherman) catches fish.


Also the nudibranch pattern looks a lot like their colorful real life sea slug counterparts. Nudibranch means 'naked gills' and refers to the feathery gills you see coming out of their backs.


p.s. The 100th post on this blog!

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26 September 2008

Plant cell cross stitch

I had an entry a while back about a plant cell pattern I designed, cross stitched, and turned into a pin. Looks like I wasn't the only person to think of recreating plant cell diagrams using cross stitch. Double X Geek has a more detailed design, complete with labels for the organelles! (via Craft)

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17 September 2008

Netflix Origami

I'm a Netflix subscriber, and I have lots of front flaps from the DVD mailers lying around my house. Usually, they turn into grocery lists and notes to myself, but now I can fold them into fun shapes thanks to Netflixorigami.com.

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15 September 2008

Glass insect sculptures

Wow. Wesley Fleming makes very intricate insect sculptures out of glass. It was hard to pick one example pic, so check out his whole gallery here. (Via Craft)

Hercules Beetle.
Info from the artist/wikipedia:

"Native to the rain forests of Central and South America, their title is well deserved as they are one of the largest beetles known. This scarab beetle is most noted for its thoracic and cephalic horns, which can grow longer than the body of the beetle itself. This adaptation is primarily used during fights with other males.

The Hercules beetle is said to be the strongest creature on earth for its size, able to carry 80 times its own body weight."

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07 September 2008

Seedless watermelon

Just saw this over on White Ninja Comics, "White Ninja is a Biotechnologist"

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05 September 2008

Science tattoos, part III

I get a lot of traffic on this blog from people searching for tree of life tattoos, and noticed that my previous posts about science tattoos had broken links.

As it turns out, Carl Zimmer's blog The Loom is now hosted at Discover, and the science tattoos have their own webpage!

There's also a new tree of life tattoo that was added since the last time I checked. Carl summarizes it much better than I could, so I'll direct you to the pic for a description.

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04 September 2008

Seafood Watch

The Monterey Bay Aquarium, in addition to being my favorite aquarium, publishes a pocket guide called Seafood Watch to help consumers choose sustainable seafood.

"[Seafood Watch is] a program of Monterey Bay Aquarium designed to raise consumer awareness about the importance of buying seafood from sustainable sources. We recommend which seafood to buy or avoid, helping consumers to become advocates for environmentally friendly seafood."
They have guides for various regions in the United States, and while I was over on their website to download a newer guide, I saw you can now browse to the guide on your cell phone. Just log on to mobile.seafoodwatch.org and you'll be automatically directed to the latest online pocket guide.
Technology is cool.

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Obama underwear

Off topic for this blog, but I had to share because it made me laugh.

Browsing for new clothes on the internet, I stumbled upon these "I'm Behind Obama" undies at Torrid.


Don't worry guys, a quick Google search revealed there are Obama underthings for men too.


McCain supporters have not gotten around to slapping his face on their underpants just yet. That's probably a good thing.

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