through the hedge
undefinable undersea tulip critters
A bizarre creature that lived in the ocean more than 500 million years ago has emerged from the famous Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies.
..."Most interesting is that this feeding system appears to be unique among animals. Recent advances have linked many bizarre Burgess Shale animals as primitive members of many animal groups that are found today but Siphusauctum defies this trend. We do not know where it fits in relation to other organisms,” says lead author Lorna O’Brien.
..."Our description is based on more than 1,100 fossil specimens from a new Burgess Shale locality that has been nicknamed the Tulip Beds,” adds O’Brien.
via futurity.org
uncategorizable ancient and kind of cute animalian species
lamplight, streetlight, figlight
So cozy to come into the house when the raindrops are so big and ploppingly heavy, and everything in here is so much warmer than my bare fingers.
(Day two of River of Stones, collecting a "small stone" of a moment and shining it up into words)
new year, new poms
My New Year's Day windowsill: one old pomegranate, two new ones.
"A small stone is a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment."
People all over the world are stepping into the second annual River of Stones, practicing the art of attending to and catching a moment, every day this month. Here's how your attention become a "small stone":
"1. Notice something properly every day in January 2. Write it down."
curbside haiku
CURBSIDE HAIKU
Via image, text and qr code, NYC's DOT will install over 200 signs around the city on light poles and at public parking lots using image and haiku to engage distracted pedestrians, cyclists and drivers in an attempt to make them more sensitive to their whereabouts and encouraging them to share the street.
Imagine a world
Where your every move matters.
Welcome to that world.
Aggressive driver.
Aggressive pedestrian.
Two crash test dummies.
8 million swimming,
The traffic rolling like waves
Watch for undertow.
Sales of the poster of all twelve signs and poems by artist John Morse benefit the Safe Streets Fund: http://safestreetsfund.org/store/
oh BTW, this is how Selective Laser Melting works
The 2011 winner of Science magazine's Dance Your PhD contest, Joel Miller of Western Perth University and friends:
"The video was created using 2200 photos because we didn't have a video camera, but also, and (more importantly), because stop motion, even though tedious to shoot, is fun."
(Thanks, Thomas, for linking to the TEDxBrussels presentation given by John Bohannon, who invented this contest idea to explore how "dance can make science easier to understand")
cross-disciplinary curiosity
From the very wonderful Brain Pickings site:
But what’s perhaps most interesting is Darwin’s remarkable cross-disciplinary curiosity, a quality I believe is the key to combinatorial creativity. Though he never studied art formally, he had an active interest in art, read art history books, visited art museums, and mingled with the artists on his HMS Beagle voyage. Eventually, the sensibilities of art seeped into his work.
urban oases
I love this charming movie by William H. Whyte ("distinguished scholar of the human habitat and urbanologist") about what makes urban spaces socially alive, describing and showing, in such a friendly and cheery way, the qualities that spaces need to have (a variety of places to sit, for example; splashing water; food - but also more subtle elements).
William H. Whyte - Social Life of Small Urban Places from Robin van Emden on Vimeo.
Buddhadharma: Make Me One With Everything
* What did the Buddhist say to the hot-dog vendor? “Make me one with everything.”
Elaine Smookler is a comedic actress and playwright living in Toronto. Her most recent theater
production was Brigitte’ s Bardo, a musical comedy based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
the article in its entirely can be found here
