NASA-Commissioned Posters by Invisible Creature

So. Cool. They were commissioned for NASA staff and insiders, but you can buy them from the designers as well. 

When our buddy Joby Harris, a visual strategist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, asked us if we were interested in creating ‘travel posters’ for NASA last Fall, well … given our family history, you can only imagine how we responded. We are very honored and lucky to have worked on such an amazing project.

These 3 commissioned pieces are part of JPL’s Visions Of The Future 2016 Calendar – an internal gift to JPL and NASA staff, as well as scientists, engineers, government and university staff. 

Invisible Creature NASA Posters 

More here: New Work: Visions of the Future for NASA

Celebrity Gene.

Everything about this disturbs me and/or freaks me out. I'm hoping it's a spoof, but I fear it's not.

Buying a limited edition product that has the DNA of a famous person
alive or dead is the ultimate in celebrity memorabilia and provides an
undeniable personal connection to that individual. It not only helps
raise money and awareness for the celebrity’s cause, it also brings
attention to how important DNA is to everyone.

Celebrity Gene | About Celebrity Gene

Storing sonnets on a double helix.

All it took was a couple of guys having a few pints and figuring out that you can use DNA as a hard drive.

They started with a text file of one of Shakespeare's sonnets. In the computer's most basic language, it existed as a series of zeroes and ones. With a simple cipher, the scientists translated these zeroes and ones into the letters of DNA.

And then they did the same for the rest of Shakespeare's sonnets, an audio clip of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, and a picture of their office. They sent that code off to Agilent Technologies, a biotech company...

The idea of storing data – text, audio and images – in DNA to save space is beyond mind-bending.This statement alone gives me vertigo.

If you took everything human beings have ever written — an estimated 50 billion megabytes of text — and stored it in DNA, that DNA would still weigh less than a granola bar.

 
NPR: Shall I Encode Thee In DNA? Sonnets Stored On Double Helix : NPR

 (image)

BBC News - Science meets art in annual contest

These images are amazing. Like this one of a cucumber skin.

BBC News - In pictures: Science meets art in annual contest

New Scientist: Win a piece of Mars.

This is cool.



One lucky winner will win their very own piece of Mars!
All you have to do is tell us in no more than 140 characters what you think the first person to set foot on Mars should say.

What would you say if you landed on Mars?
Everyone is familiar with the words relayed by Neil Armstrong when he stepped off Apollo 11’s lunar module and onto the moon itself: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." We are looking for something even more memorable or funnier that you think the first man or woman to set foot on Mars should say.

Enter the Mars rock competition - New Scientist

Fake Science

Fake Science

Vincent Fournier.

Geeky, spooky, minimal, fantastic... I couldn't stop clicking through his site. Amazing work.









Vincent Fournier

(via io9)

International Year of Astronomy prints.

By Simon Page. Gorgeous.




"Intl. Year of Astronomy - Giclee Print by Simon Page

(via @blogofinnocence / Reckon)

LIFE Photo Gallery: 30 Dumb Inventions.

Sometimes "dumb" actually means "terrifying."


Baby Cage, 1937

A nanny supervising a baby suspended in a wire cage attached to the outside of a high tenement block window. The cages were distributed to members of the Chelsea Baby Club in London who have no gardens, or qualms about putting a child in a box dangling over a busy street.

Photo: Reg Speller/Getty Images
Jun 23, 1937

30 Dumb Inventions - Photo Gallery, 30 Pictures - LIFE

(via our ol' chum, Tim)

Because The Onion says it better than anyone else.

Let's all take a second to reflect on this historic 40th anniversary.


HOLY SHIT, MAN WALKS ON FUCKING MOON

Bonus:
Apollo 11 moon landing: Moon music - Telegraph

tweenbots.

I'm late to the game on this one, but I really, really do love both the concept and the bots. I have to post it just to show my support.


Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal.

tweenbots | kacie kinzer

(via Timbot & Czeltbot)

Lunasaurus.

I'm glad to see that Aesthetic Apparatus reprinted their glow-in-the-dark Lunasaurus poster.


We decided to revisit our old friend "Lunasaurus." This time it's a bit larger and twice as likely to satisfy! Here's the old story we like to tell:
You see, this dinosaur has been exiled to the moon for reasons we won't get into. But the big guy wants to get back to ol' momma Earth so badly. So, each night he offers a teary good night to her. (in case you can't see it in our crappy image here it says "good night" in the little talk bubble coming outta his mouth) Anyway, he needs a home! IT GLOWS IN THE DARK! You know for kids...or extremely grown up adult types. Oh, and the blue is sparkly metallic.

Aesthetic Apparatus

The Seven Rules of Astronomy

This made me laugh.


I Am Still Alive / The Seven Rules of Astronomy

What's hiding in Van Gogh's "Patch of Grass."

I love arty science stories.


(AMSTERDAM, Netherlands) — A team of European scientists unveiled on Wednesday a new method for extracting images hidden under old masters' paintings, recreating a color portrait of a woman's face unseen since Vincent van Gogh painted over it in 1887.

[...] While not exact in every detail, the image produced is a woman's head that may be the same model Van Gogh painted in a series of portraits leading up to the 1885 masterpiece "The Potato Eaters."

Scientists Recreate Van Gogh Portrait - TIME

(via Truemors)

Send Your Name to the Moon.

Hopefully, this won't bite me in the butt later. You'd better act responsibly, NASA. No pillaging resources (moon cows, moon ferns, moon cheese, etc.). No fast food restaurants. Put everything back where you found it. Thank you.


Sign up to send your name to the moon. Names will be collected and placed onboard the LRO spacecraft for its historic mission bringing NASA back to the moon. You will also receive a certificate showcasing your support of the mission.

The deadline is June 27, 2008 for the submission of names.

LRO :: Send Your Name to the Moon

More about NASA's Lunar Reconaissance Orbiterhere.

(via Coudal)

FYI - The future is now.

I ran across these today. I'm kinda freaked out.

DOG CLONING
Best Friends Again



PLAN YOUR OWN FUNERAL ONLINE
MyWonderfulLife :: Your Own Funeral Planning Website

The Ig Noble Awards.

Love this graphic from the keynote.


The keynote lecture, "Chicken Chicken Chicken Chicken Chicken," was delivered by Doug Zongker, based on his paper Chicken Chicken Chicken: Chicken Chicken (PDF). I would imagine the keynote would give Doug more time to expound upon the topic than the short lecture available on YouTube, but I think the video captures the basic gist of his arguments.

Ars Technica :: Ig Nobels go to sword swallowing, gay bomb

An amazing collection of behind-the-scenes museum photos.

Beautiful.





Over the course of a year Justine Cooper captured the behind the scenes storage areas of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Using a vintage wood 4x5 camera, Cooper shares rare glimpses into their massive housed collections and reveals a trail of scientific desire that reaches back into the 19th century and across the 4 corners of the earth. Cooper deftly wended her way from basement to attic, peering into thousands of vats, drawers, corners and cupboards along the way to produce this vivid series of photographs. Her access was unprecedented as the first and only artist-in-residence at the Museum in its almost 150 year history.

DANEYAL MAHMOOD GALLERY - Justine Cooper

(via we make money not art)

A bit of arts & science news.

Forensic scientist uses DNA to explore Dali's bizarre genius

Samples taken from nasal feeding tubes could also help to authenticate works

Read The Guardian story here.