Occasionally Random

bifanoland: “Handle With Care” 10.5 x 13 inches. Pastel and...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:11:19 +0800

“Handle With Care”

10.5 x 13 inches. Pastel and gouache on Arches 150 weight paper.

jamesmariarty: cumberbuddy: deeperstateofmind: why must we...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:10:43 +0800

cumberbuddy:

deeperstateofmind:

why must we play god

This is what being Moffat and Gatiss must feel like.

My friends better take notice. We are going to play this.

wnycradiolab: Portraits of New York’s Rooftop Pigeon Guys, by...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:09:52 +0800

wnycradiolab:

Portraits of New York’s Rooftop Pigeon Guys, by Zina Saunders

Each portrait comes with a short interview:

“Then we got eight milk crates, and we put them inside our room, and when we’d let the birds out, we’d open the window and the birds would fly over our beds out the window. My mother let us do that!”

Saunders also has portraits of NYC cricket players, circle drummers, bike messengers and many others.

futurist-foresight: This list offers a look at the apps...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:08:05 +0800

futurist-foresight:

This list offers a look at the apps currently available for Google Glass. I particularly like the news apps.

thisistheverge:

Google Glass apps: everything you can do right now

We test every Google Glass app so you don’t have to

steveholtvstheuniverse: cerebus92: What happen when Pepper Ann...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:07:20 +0800

steveholtvstheuniverse:

cerebus92:

What happen when Pepper Ann tries to buy a comic book?

1998

More than a decade later and this is still relevant

Photo

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:06:57 +0800

mentalflossr: Pop Chart Lab presents The Cocktail Chart:...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:05:55 +0800

mentalflossr:

Pop Chart Lab presents The Cocktail Chart: Signature Drinks of Fictional Characters (click to enlarge)

lucesolare: Karlie Kloss By David Sims For Vogue U.S.

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:04:53 +0800

lucesolare:

Karlie Kloss By David Sims For Vogue U.S.

jtotheizzoe: ES from SCNT: Another Human Stem Cell...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:04:16 +0800

jtotheizzoe:

ES from SCNT: Another Human Stem Cell Milestone

Human embryonic stem cells have been created using a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) for the first time. Interestingly, SCNT might be the oldest genetic reprogramming technology in our biological arsenal, but its use in creating human ES cells has proven elusive.

We’ll get to the news in a moment, but first some history. In 1958, John Gurdon made a frog from a tadpole.

“Congratulations, John, that’s how frogs are usually made. Big whoop.”

Except that he did it by inserting the nucleus from a tadpole cell into a frog egg that had its own nucleus removed. It should have been immediately clear to everyone how cool this was, but it took 54 years for him to get the Nobel Prize, which he shared in 2012 with some other stem cell reprogramming pioneers.

Why did that work? It makes perfect sense when you think about the job of an egg. Compared to sperm cells, eggs are huge. They are Death Stars and sperm are X-wings, each looking for an exhaust port into which they can shove their half of the genetic material. The egg is stuffed full of the proteins, mRNAs and other biological machinery that it will need to hit the ground running and begin the process of development. In other words the sperm just brings genes to the party (there’s a joke in there somewhere). The egg is the pilot, engineer and tech support. (For the genetics fans out there, this is also why maternal effects exist)

In a sense, the egg is a big bag of stuff that will define what the embryo is, at least for the first several cell divisions. Somewhere in all that eggy cytoplasm is a set of factors that are primed and ready to lead the way to embryoville.

Wait … where were we again? Oh yeah: Human stem cells.

So while SCNT technology has been around for a while (and has been used to create some very famous sheep), it never worked in humans (despite a faked claim in 2005). The process of removing and replacing the nucleus of donated human eggs was too disruptive. Until the new report in Cell last week.

Using donated eggs (obtained by consenting women from certfied IVF clinics) robbed of their own nucleus, a whole skin cell was injected and given an electric shock to stimulate cell division. That that even works is amazing. But the harvested stem cells acted like normal ES cells, and appear to be just as useful. They can be used to create patient-matched cells to study specific diseases in the petri dish, or engineered into neurons and other tissues to implant into a donor’s own body. All without destroying embryos.

Of course, we can already make near-embryonic stem cells by directly reprogramming skin cells with a simple genetic cocktail. So does it make sense to seek out egg donations for a technology like this? The ethics of making an economy out of egg donation are murky. And of course, there’s the worry that instead of just being used for making stem cells, it could be used to clone an entire human. That’s completely illegal, but it’s worth considering, at least.

It’s a new step forward in our ability to understand and manipulate human biology, and the advancement of knowledge like this is always worthy of excitement. Look at what power we hold! But we are men and women, not gods … and that’s what makes this all the more remarkable.

"On its own, it is a wonder, but viewed in isolation its complexity and very existence is..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:03:44 +0800

“

On its own, it is a wonder, but viewed in isolation its complexity and very existence is inexplicable. Darwin’s genius was to see that the existence of something as magnificent as a blade of grass can be understood, but only in the context of its interaction with other living things and, crucially, its evolutionary history. A physicist might say it is a four-dimensional structure, with both spatial and temporal extent, and it is simply impossible to comprehend the existence of such a structure in a universe governed by the simple laws of physics if its history is ignored.

And whilst you are contemplating the humble majesty of a blade of grass, with a spatial extent of a few centimeters but stretching back in the temporal direction for almost a third of the age of the Universe, pause for a moment to consider the viewer, because what is true of the blade of grass is also true fro you. You share the same basic biochemistry, all the way down to the detail of proton waterfalls, and ATP, and much of the same genetic history, carefully documented in your DNA. This is because you share the same common ancestor. You are all related. You were once the same.

”

- Brian Cox channels Richard Feynman in this reminder that viewing science through any single lens is an incomplete view of its magnificence. In other words, physics is beautiful, but it’s a periscope view of life’s majesty.

From his new book to accompany the BBC series, Wonders of Life.

via Brain Pickings

(via jtotheizzoe)

stufftoblowyourmind: Gifs from Istanbul-based artist Erdal Inci...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:03:24 +0800

stufftoblowyourmind:

Gifs from Istanbul-based artist Erdal Inci who clones sections of video to create hypnotic animated loops.

howstuffworks: This Day in History - The Empire Strikes...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:02:34 +0800

howstuffworks:

This Day in History - The Empire Strikes Back

The Empire Strikes Back premiered in theaters on May 21, 1980. Josh & Chuck celebrate like the scruffy nerf herders they are.

jtotheizzoe: Early developmental stages of Xenopus laevis...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:01:53 +0800

jtotheizzoe:

Early developmental stages of Xenopus laevis embryos. This is a frog commonly used in biological labs, and the favorite amphibian of Nobel Prize winner John Gurdon, whose work on these embryos led to this week’s announcement of human embryonic stem cells made from somatic cell nuclear transfer.

Half a century apart, it’s all connected.

setfabulazerstomaximumcaptain: thepeoplesrecord: Prison Labor...

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:01:02 +0800

setfabulazerstomaximumcaptain:

thepeoplesrecord:

Prison Labor Exposed: From Starbucks to Microsoft - A sampling of what US prisoners make & for whom
May 21, 2013

Tens of thousands of US inmates are paid from pennies to minimum wage—minus fines and victim compensation—for everything from grunt work to firefighting to specialized labor.

The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour, not in a faraway country, but by a member of an invisible American workforce: prisoners. At the UnionCorrectional Facility, a maximum security prison in Florida, inmates from a nearby lower-security prison manufacture tons of processed beef, chicken and pork for Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises (PRIDE), a privately held non-profit corporation that operates the state’s forty-one work programs. In addition to processed food, PRIDE’s website reveals an array of products for sale through contracts with private companies, from eyeglasses to office furniture, to be shipped from a distribution center in Florida to businesses across the US. PRIDE boasts that its work programs are “designed to provide vocational training, to improve prison security, to reduce the cost of state government, and to promote the rehabilitation of the state inmates.”

And Each month, California inmates process more than 680,000 pounds of beef, 400,000 pounds of chicken products, 450,000 gallons of milk, 280,000 loaves of bread, and 2.9 million eggs (from 160,000 inmate-raised hens).Starbucks subcontractor Signature Packaging Solutions has hired Washington prisoners to package holiday coffees (as well as Nintendo Game Boys). Confronted by a reporter in 2001, a Starbucks rep called the setup “entirely consistent with our mission statement.”

Texas inmates produce brooms and brushes, bedding and mattresses, toilets, sinks, showers, and bullwhips.

In Texas, prisoners make officers’ duty belts, handcuff cases, and prison-cell accessories. California convicts make gun containers, creepers (to peek under vehicles), and human-silhouette targets.

A stitch in time: California inmates sew their own garb. In the 1990s, subcontractor Third Generation hired 35 female South Carolina inmates to sew lingerie and leisure wear for Victoria’s Secret and JCPenney. In 1997, a California prison put two men in solitary for telling journalists they were ordered to replace “Made in Honduras” labels on garments with “Made in the usa.”

Open wide: At California’s prison dental laboratory, inmates produce a complete prosthesis selection, including custom trays, try-ins, bite blocks, and dentures.

Constructive criticism: Prisoners in for burglary, battery, drug and gun charges, and escape helped build a Wal-Mart distribution center in Wisconsin in 2005, until community uproar halted the program. (Company policy says, “Forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart.”)

On call: Its inmate call centers are the “best kept secret in outsourcing,” Unicor boasts. In 1994, a contractor for gop congressional hopeful Jack Metcalf hired Washington state prisoners to call and remind voters he was pro-death penalty. Metcalf, who prevailed, said he never knew.

Federal Prison Industries, a.k.a. Unicor, says that in addition to soldiers’ uniforms, bedding, shoes, helmets, and flak vests, inmates have “produced missile cables (including those used on the Patriot missiles during the Gulf War)” and “wiring harnesses for jets and tanks.” In 1997, according to Prison Legal News, Boeing subcontractor MicroJet had prisoners cutting airplane components, paying $7 an hour for work that paid union wages of $30 on the outside.

Full article

AND THIS

IS WHY

THE WAR ON DRUGS

AND REAGAN

CAN FUCKING BURN FOREVER

FOR FUCKING EVER

garabating: onepunch man by...

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:59:49 +0800

garabating:

onepunch man by s-u-w-i

- Follow @garabatweet and Garabating on Facebook -

fyeah-history: Eye surgery in the Middle Ages, c. 1195

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:59:39 +0800

fyeah-history:

Eye surgery in the Middle Ages, c. 1195

Three mass graves with 1,000 corpses found in Iraq

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:59:20 +0800

Three mass graves with 1,000 corpses found in Iraq:

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

Iraqi officials have found three mass graves containing the bodies of about 1,000 people thought to have been executed by US soldiers during their occupation of the country.

The graves were uncovered in Iraq’s western province of al-Anbar. The remains are believed to be from victims killed by US forces during 2004 and 2005 in the city of Fallujah, located roughly 69 kilometers (43 miles) west of Baghdad.

f-featherbrain: li-an: Illustration s’il vous plaît: Alexander...

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:58:20 +0800

f-featherbrain:

li-an:

Illustration s’il vous plaît: Alexander Wilke

Karl Alexander Wilke (1879 Leipzig - 1954 Wien), illustration for “Die Muskete” magazine, 1906

garabating: catch the star by...

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:57:55 +0800

garabating:

catch the star by s-u-w-i

- Follow @garabatweet and Garabating on Facebook -

ohmightysmiter: FolksNeedHeroes drawing Sam and Lara as the...

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:43:35 +0800

ohmightysmiter:

FolksNeedHeroes drawing Sam and Lara as the adorably in love little shits that they are appreciation post.