the Small Science Collective 2.0

Hey all, just a shameless plug for a blog I work with - the Small Science Collective just got itself a facelift!

Yes after a long time in "idle" the blog is now back to being updated, with a whole slew of new titles to be posted over the next few months on topics as various as entomophobia, spirals, and moths that drink the tears of birds for sustenance.

science zines for the science scenes...

Four Blogs of the (anti) Apocalypse

With global warming, the world economic recession, carbonated yogurt**

Given this state of affairs, it is essential for us to avoid URLs that spell D.O.O.M. in any sort of subtle way (CNN, Alternet, FoxNews, etc.) and instead focus on those things that very well might provide us with some small measure of boost - spiritual, intellectual, visual, or otherwise. Here are four blogs along those lines and of late by dear friends:

Dread Naught - Tokyo observations on kids, media, skateboarding, anthropology and the Global Imagination

What is it like t be a Chicago media activist living and working in a women's dormitory for two months? Read Camb(l)o(g)dia and find out the remarkable truth to the matter.

Stencils and spaces, ink and wall faces - the a blog which documents a course - Silk Screen and Social Spaces - running at two universities simultaneously. Yes, spray paint is illegal in Chicago, but silkscreen ink isn't!

Physics, Fugazi, new life in SF - Instrument is a random sample.

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**Carbonated yogurt? Yes, well there are three ways to think about it. Firstly, as a matter of scientific and consumer studies, as we see in this peer-reviewed publication in the Journal of Diary Science or his one in the Journal of Food Science aka: how much fizz can yous take, fool?

How might you appeal to me as a yogurt consumer, with such a product? The internet is a good start, sure, but I DARE you go to the "Tongue Test Facility" at this frightening Yoplait site. Viewing may cause sterility or other side effects.

Whose brain child is this? Dr. Ogden. How Mormonism or the landscape of Utah might relate to this invention, I wouldn't even contrive to speculate about. One doesn't question a food product 24 years in the making.

button.belly

Doing we research for something biologic, I came across the site of a biologist I knew some time ago named Andre. In common was our interest in cabbage white butterflies. He raised them by the thousands for research. I caught them if I wasn't feeling lazy.

I noticed he had photos up on his site - travel pictures, friends, social potest, and the like. Although archived too was an odd little page called "bellybuttons"

Yes, simple as that! 28 "umbigos" which is apparently what bellybutton translates to in Portuguese, where Andre lives. So I assume they are all Portuguese bellybuttons, even the dog ones (no cats?). The composite shot (for the love of god, I hope that is what it is) is a little creepy, but I appreciate to for its creepy quality all the same and the fantastical mental image of a baby connected to 28 mothers.

But riddle me this - no outties?

Thinking back on it after noticing the dearth, I actually can't recall the last time I either seen nor heard to one referred to. Where have they gone? I should know the answer but I don't. Perhaps that particular knot has gone out of fashion or something. Maybe with the advent of velcro we don't need buttons.

that picTure there

My student Karly pointed out on our class Wiki that the Library of Congress has its own Flickr site = wonderful.

Wonderful like this photo by Jack Delano of kids picking potatoes in Aroostook Co. Maine. The comment tags on the image are really interesting, including testimonials of growing up in that part of the world, as well as the unsettling possibility that the child on the right is crying?



She also pointed out that COLORS 58 is themed on portrait studios...



How many us of from "generation X" had their pictures taken at Sears photo studio? Do they even exist anymore, I'm not sure.