The Book of Barely Imagined Beings takes its cue from medieval bestiaries. Author and playful intellectual Caspar Henderson sets out to write a modern compendium of beasts, and show, in the process, that truth is a lot weirder than fiction. Forget about dragons, cyclops and faeries, the world of extant species such as the thorny devil, nautilus and puffer fish are enough to inspire wonder.
The last gasp of Victorian spirituality infused cutting-edge science with old-school mysticism. Theosophy was all the rage; Many weird and and wonderful ideas being developed at the turn of the century around death, ghosts, the fourth dimension filled the Victorians with a palpable sense of possibility.
Ant-lover and Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, Edward O. Wilson has been arguing for the unity and connectedness of all human knowledge for many decades. In his latest book The Origins of Creativity, Wilson singles out creativity as humanity’s most important legacy which has allowed us to evolve and dominate other organisms on…
Continue reading ➞ Book Review: The Origins of Creativity by Edward O. Wilson
When it comes to design - the Victorians did it better. Nothing quite matches these 19th Century comparative river and mountain maps for exquisite hand-drawn detail, meticulous scale and luminous beauty. It makes me wonder, how can anyone not love old maps? A New Cartographic Convention One of the forerunners for this kind of map…
Continue reading ➞ Five rare and awe-inspiring mountain and river maps
Following on from my previous post about Tyabb Packing Centre, here is another little known wonder from the Mornington Peninsula in Melbourne where I return to whenever I get the chance. The Mushroom Reef Sanctuary is home to a gigantic mushroom shaped basalt reef near Flinders in Westernport Bay. Located 86 km from central Melbourne,…
Continue reading ➞ Travel: Mushroom Reef Sanctuary, Flinders, Mornington Peninsula
Where Art Meets Science Scientific visualisations often can look just like objects of visual art. A few weeks ago in Part 1, we looked at how topographical surveys are visualised on both our moon and Jupiter's moon. This time, we are focusing on our own Pale Blue Dot. Both as art and scientific visualisation these…
Continue reading ➞ Map Porn Part 2: The Most Beautiful Geological Maps on Earth
In this blog in previous years, I've talked about how humans and cephalopods are oddly similar, explored the underwater realm of Sydney Harbour in great detail, and the invisible realm of microscopic creatures rendered by Ernest Haeckel. But in terms of delicate creatures, the Blaschkas were the 19th Century heavy-weights. I originally posted this post…
Continue reading ➞ Exquisite Marine Invertebrates of the 19th Century
Bowie needs no introduction in his ability to induce wonder, awe and beauty in anyone he touches. And now even after death, his legacy lives on in the form of a mannequin Star Man set to take a silence-filled orbit around our dark solar system and towards its final destination of Mars. The poetry and…
Continue reading ➞ Starman, Bowie and the symbolism of SpaceX’s new world
This is a riveting read from one of the leading lights of modern psychology, Bruce Hood of the University of Bristol. The book’s main premise is that 20,000 years ago our brains were 10% larger than what they are today. And that the reason for this is primarily the influence of social practices, culture and…
Continue reading ➞ Book Review: The Domesticated Brain by Bruce Hood
The Lichenologist from Matthew Killip on Vimeo. Hidden within this remarkable short film The Lichenologist is the slowly-growing story of the unassuming and vividly beautiful botanical wonder of lichen. Kerry Knudsen has the auspicious title of Curator of Lichens at the University of California. He dispels common misconception between lichens and mosses. The latter being…
Continue reading ➞ How slow-growing lichen opens up the vast universe
eSkeletons is an ingenious online resource that compares the skeletons of primates and including the most notorious of the bipeds homo sapiens. Created by the Department of Anthropology at the Univrsity of Texas in Austin, eSkeletons provides an interactive environment where visitors can examine skeletal anatomy through an osteology database. It's a very engaging and…
Continue reading ➞ <3 The Internet: eSkeletons of primates, monkeys and homo sapiens
Sometimes the most unimaginable beauty comes from the world cannot be seen with the human eye, but yet still exists in the invisible netherworld of the microscope. Here are some artistic treasures, spied on the Reddit Microporn page, have a look and you will become hooked. Crystalline acetylsalicylic acid viewed under polarised light at 10X…
Continue reading ➞ Microscopic treasures: Abstract art discovered under the microscope
Nowadays, it's possible to become not just a participant in scientific studies, but one of the researchers. The internet and crowd-sharing knowledge has made this possible. We are now swimming in data, so rather than wade through everything themselves, scientists are asking the ''hive mind'' of the internet to help them to resolve challenges, and…
Continue reading ➞ Explore and classify galaxies and planets for real scientific studies
If you haven't already followed Imaginary Cities on Twitter @Oniropolis then you should right away! This is a curated treasure trove of architectural meanderings and inspiring cityscapes which have never existed other than in creative people's minds. Imaginary Cities are where the imagined possibilities of tech, science fiction, futurism and 80's pop culture are smashed…
They could be a collection of post-apocalyptic planets viewed from space. However these pieces of enchanting art were not made by humans but by natural phenomena. Science is beautiful. The excellent Reddit page MicroPorn features close up microscopic images of materials. This collection of oxidised metal films were photographed using a microscope and an Amazon Fire…
These true-to-life, anatomical cross-sections are entitled the Tissue Series by artist Lisa Nilsson. She uses a technique called paper 'quilling' that turns MRI and CT scans into something altogether more artistic and strangely pleasing to the eye. Nilsson painstakingly quills using narrow pieces of paper that are coiled together to fill up space. Quilling has…
Continue reading ➞ Intricate paper cross sections of human bodies by Lisa Nillson
So...the Blood Moon last night: I'm sure that this is the perfect time to segway into The Moon from the Mighty Boosh. This white and marshmallowy looking bastard did annoy me last night during the biggest harvest/blood moon in the past few decades. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWTd3oW-HOE I swear it would have been far more enjoyable to…
If you're like me and tend to gaze up at the night sky and wonder about life and the meaning of it all then you can't help but be swept up in the events of the past few weeks. NASA estimates that 1 billion earth-like planets in our galaxy alone NASA New Horizons Crew find…
Continue reading ➞ Join me for an operatic journey at the speed of light
So basically, the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) in Australia have invented a truckload of good things. Insect repellent was one - out of necessity in Australia no doubt. Polymer banknotes was another, and so was WiFi. But probably their most esoteric and weird invention was a word to describe a smell. Petrichor.…
Continue reading ➞ What’s Your Favourite Smell? Mine Is Petrichor
San Fran based artist Alexis Arnold has managed to reimagine National Geographic magazines with the use of Borax crystals for a strange geological marvel of colourful striations. Glittering crystals are alive and growing on the gradients of colour, turning them from mere functional books to something akin to living art and also uncannily like a…
