Found while foraging (June 13, 2012)

Tags

fun, israel, language, occupy, Open Access, photography, science, Science communication, video

I’m sorry that I haven’t been posting regularly lately — I’ve been unexpectedly busy with “real life” lately. Things seem to have settled down a bit, so hopefully I’ll be back to my normal frequency soon. In the meantime, here’s a collection of various things I’ve come across recently.

Science

One of my posts has been nominated for the 3quarksdaily science writing contest. There are some great posts among the nominees, so head on over, pick your favourite and cast your vote!
Cameron Neylon discusses some the implications of the Open Access Petition I linked to a few weeks ago.
F1000 Research is another Open Access initiative trying to change the way science communication happens.
Digital Morphology is an amazing library of morphological images including high resolution X-ray tomography. Have a look at this veiled chameleon!
When I visited the Smithsonian in DC, I saw their gorgeous exhibit of X-ray photos of fish. There’s also a flickr page with more pictures.
Johnathon Chase summarizes a study which tries to measure and compare the economic and ecological impact of different salmon harvesting strategies. We need more studies like this to help accurately assess the choices we face with regard to sustainability.
Jeremy Yoder wrote a brilliant imaginary dialogue between a biologist and an evolutionary psychologist. What a wonderful way to critically summarize a study!
Julie Sedivy discusses a study which found that people are less likely to experience certain cognitive biases and framing effects when they’re not working in their native language.
An animation of serial sections through a human body from head to toe. It goes by quite quickly, but it’s pretty fascinating.

Just for fun

Ben Heine mixes photography and pencil sketches to create striking new scenes.
A street artist’s clever take on a bikini advertisement.
Pentametron is a website of found poetry — an algorithm is used to mine twitter and generate sonnets in iambic pentameter.
An article in The Atlantic about the sound of a dial-up modem — a nostalgic cue for those of us in the right age bracket.

Politics

Levi Jacobs muses on what Occupy encapsulates — or perhaps what it should strive to be.
Dan Hind’s op-ed about the constitutional reform process in Iceland and in Europe.
The Church of Finland has started a campaign to label products from the Israeli colonies in the Occupied Territories. There is an example letter to send to companies as well as a petition you can sign (which will be sent to four ministers). The BDS movement is an important response to Israeli colonialism and apartheid practices, so please join the boycott! [The information on their page is only in Finnish at the moment; I’ll work on translating (some of) it to English when I have a bit of time.]

That’s all from me! If you’d like to add something, feel free to leave a comment. 🙂