Life is like Lego (TM) ...

... you learn something new every day. One of my youngest uncles bought me a Lego set when I was a wee sprog; it ever got completed to the specs on the box when he opened it and showed me how to do it. I am ever fail at following instruction, much less constructing three dimensional structures. No wonder I never even contemplated architecture school. :p

But this guy? I would award him eleventy billion internet for this. Soooo cool.

Arthropod abuse with trebuchet

Not many of us like the leggy creepy crawlies. If you want to see them get what's coming to them, mediaevel geek-style, take a look at this video.



Ganked from Improbable Research.

Cookies for egg heads

Cute and edible!

All from Ms Humble.Some are her artwork while others are done by other contributors who share their scientific artwork.

Gel electrophoresis cookies. Looks very close to the real thing what with the drum-stick appearance of the bands and the colour! Just like it was being viewed under ultraviolet light! ♥

Petri dish cookies inspired by Escherichia coli streaked on a nutrient agar. No complaining of the streaking technique; icing is a lot harder to work with than broth-and-inoculating loop.

Exploding brain + popped out eyes FTW!

Gingerbread men in aqua containment / clean room suits are so adorable. They look paranoid, though.

Zebrafish makes for an awesome haematopoiesis model because they are practically transparent during the juvenile stage (or so I'm told). Edible glitter simulates the translucence beautifully.

Atomic cookie + nucleus (proton + neutron+ electron represented yo!). Gorgeous and delicious.

Gingerbread scientists are so adorable and edible!

What's a laboratory without beakers, test tubes & Erlenmeyer flasks?

Drosophila melanogaster, the humble household fruit fly, has been the workhorse of genetics for decades.

Who says that scientific people are boring and not creative?

We salute women who kick ass & take names

Step aside Dr Brady Barr. Your chiseled features may make you a darling on the National Geographic Channel, but there's another herpetologist who kicks ass harder than you.

Why do I say that Dr Kate Jackson is more hardcore than Brady Barr?

That's because she's doing near the same thing he does, without the benefit of a television show funding, while half crippled by transverse myelitis.

Hats off to you, Dr Jackson.


Kate Jackson SNAKES from Rose on Vimeo.

Destroying childhood memories ... fanboy nightmare

Stolen from here.

Literature demystified by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut is one of those lauded authors whose books I am not tempted to seek.  But if the graphs below were what he used to teach literature, man, what would I give to audit that class. *props chin in admiration*

 

The story arc of a romance novel. Tried and true trope it may be, but romance is still one of the largest and most profitable genre of the publication industry.

Staggered build up of this nature is usually pleasing to the readers of fairytales. Cynics would say that fairytales fall under the romance genre; however, the truth is that readers of the romance genre are generally discerning and clever. We may like the happy ending guarantee, but there has to be a plot that makes us keep flipping the page.

If you are into nihilistic, post modern literature (IDEK what that means), this is the story arc you get. By the end of the book, you would either be insensate from alcohol imbibement to dull the existential pain or bleeding out into your bathtub/on your bed/some random surface from the neat, parallel cuts on your inner forearm.

Ah, Hamlet. Did he get justice for his father? Were all his sacrifice worth it? If you want to know what Vonnegut thought of Hamlet and Shakespeare's writing skills go to the site whence I ganked these graphs (which would be here).

Political incorrectness

If you subscribe to Machiavelli, you will accept that the ends justifies the means.

The cowboy movies and story books got it right ...

Whiskey does kill the pain. And according to this guy, it is a viable alternative to morphine for chronic pain.


Does that mean bottoms up? IDEK.

Festering pit of despair ... (just kill yourself already)

You were searching for a flower
And you found a fruit.

You were searching for a river
And you found a sea.

You were searching for a girl
And you found a soul.

And you are disappointed.


                               - Unknown Finnish poem from here-


I am not much a poetry person, but this?

♥___________♥

Ear candy in surgery

Medicine is srs biznez, yo. But does it mean you can't kick back and have fun? Of course not.

Enjoy the Laryngologists spoofing Breaking Up is Hard to Do, nurse anaesthetist style.



While we are in the medical vein, we must not forget Weird Al Yankovich's parody of Madge's eponymous hit, Like A Virgin.

Except with surgeons. Pray to God you don't get one of these guys should you need to go under the knife.