Note that the original graphic lives at http://www.clinicalpsychology.net/bad-science/

Sean Connery
Her Man Pain
Michele Bachward
Katy Perry’s Dad
Moot Romney
Newt Vader
Santa

HOST

Hello, Hello Everyone, and welcome to the Special Christmas Edition of The Sean Connery Show.  I’m your host.  You know, of course, me as the star of Zardoz and Dragonheart, but my friends just call me Sir Sean Connery.  Thank you, thank you – please hold your applause.

On today’s Special Christmas Edition of The Sean Connery Show we have a real treat for you Yanks…it’s the First Ever U.S. Public Debate Among Candidates for the Next Director of the National Institutes of Health.  Please hold your applause.

Now many of you might be thinking: Hey, wait a minute Sean, the NIH Director is an appointed position, not an elected one.  But that’s what makes our field of candidates so special: these driven and committed men and women don’t let little facts like this get in their way, no, they drive around them – and that’s what makes America the great nation that it is – and that’s why I love America.  Now, without any further ado, let’s meet your candidates for the next Director of the NIH.

First up:  you know him, you love him, from former pizza delivery-man to former Presidential candidate:  please welcome Herman Pain!

Pain approaches his podium, and places his name-plate on the podium, which reads:  “Her Man Pain”.

Next up:  she may still be campaigning for President, but reality won’t this powerhouse of a woman: say hello to Michele Bachward!

She approaches her podium, and reveals her name-plate, which reads:  “Michelle Bachward”

Next, but not last:  We know he can govern, but can he sing?  Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Katy Perry’s Father!

He approaches podium, where his name-plate reads: “Katy Perry’s Dad”.

And last but not least: fresh from helping Steve Hand collect shrimp from the Great Salt Lake:  it’s Moot Romney.

A stuffed toy or puppet is used for Romney. It is placed on the table, it’s name-plate reads: “Moot Romney”.  It is suggested that a stuffed space alien toy be used.

Welcome, welcome, all of you.  Now you will each have an opening statement, and then we’ll be asking you carefully screened questions sent into the Sean Connery Facebook page.  And so ladies and gentlemen:  let the debates begin!

PAIN

Hello Everybody!  We’ve changed destinations, but we’re still going just as fast:  it’s time to get back on the Pain Train!  I want to introduce you today to my master plan for getting the NIH back on track – because, as you know, ever since Mr. Francis Collins has been in charge over there, things have been kind of stagnant.  In fact, the only real progress this Obama appointee seems to have made is starting his little “Translational Medicine Institute”.

Well I say: This is American, and in America, we speak American, and if your doctor needs a translator, then they either need to learn to speak American, or they need to go back and practice medicine in whatever socialist country they came from.  Translational medicine is just a waste of taxpayer money.  Under my new plan, you’ll get good old-fashioned American-speaking medicine!

Now my new plan for the NIH is called the six, sixty-six plan (he turns over a sign next to his name that has three sixes on it).  Under my new plan, six percent of all submitted grants will be funded every six months, and grant durations will be increased to six years.  My motto is: K.I.S.S.  Keep it simple, stupid.  Why mess with all these scores and pay lines and who knows what all, when all you need are three simple numbers to keep America’s labs running.  So vote for me for the next NIH Director, and I promise to make a mark on the forehead of American science.  Thank you.

BACHWARD

Well Herman, a very interesting, but simple plan.  Ladies and gentlemen, I am Michele Bachward, and I want to be YOUR next Director of the National Institbles of Health.  And my plan for the NHI, unlike Mr. Pain’s, is not a simplistic numbering system that you need a calculator to figure out.  No, no, no, my plan is a precise and strategic carpet-bombing of everything that needs fixing in our nation’s research plan.

First and foremost, we need to fix the gender inequity in science: and we need to start with the NHH.  Now as many of you know, many current lab technicians are male – and I ask you:  is it fair that these male lab technicians are taking jobs away from women?  Everyone knows that lab technicians are supposed to be women, and that a woman’s rightful place in the lab is as a technical assistant.  My first act as the new NHN Director would be to fix this gender imbalance and restore the role of lab technician to its rightful place in American science.

My next act will be to take science away from the terrorists, and so I would immediately close the Institute for Iraqi Science.  Why should hard-earned American tax dollars be spent on the Institute for Iraqi Science when there are so many American Institutes in the NNH that need money?

The Host goes over and whispers into Bachward’s ear.

I’ve just been informed that there may not actually be an Institute for Iraqi Science.  I have no verification of this information yet, but if it is true, I say:  Huzzah, huzzah!  Good for you NHI!  Good job in preemptively getting rid of the Institute for Iraqi Science!  It makes my job easier, and allows for me to concentrate on newer and bolder initiatives to help America’s crumbling research infrastructure.  Thank you.

KATY PERRY’S DAD

Hello.  I’m Katy Perry’s father, and I want to be the next Director of YOUR National Institutional Health.  Now, I want to tell you something.  I believe in freedom.  I believe that our great country was founded on the principles of freedom and capitalism.  And that freedom stretches from sea to shining sea and all the way into our own bodies and our own organs and cellular things and sub-cellular stuff.  And to this end, I believe that each and every American has a right to the diseases of their choice – the diseases that they themselves want – as individuals and as Americans.  Big government has no right to treat your disease, and it certainly has no right to do research on how to cure your disease unless individual Americans want that disease to be cured.  Diseased Americans are also free Americans.  To help insure this basic American freedom, I plan to open the Institute for Discovery of Incredibly Optional Treatments, or I.D.I.O.T. (he flips over a sign with the abbreviation on it).  The Institute for Discovery of Incredibly Optional Treatments will, as the name says, be completely optional.  No American will be forced to have their disease researched or treated by a bloated government research machine.  And so if you vote for me for the next Director of the Natural Institutes of Health, you’ll be able to rest assured, knowing that the new I.D.I.O.T. is watching over our nation’s diseased population.  Oh yeah: and I would eliminate the Department of Energy.  No particular reason, I just don’t like it.  Thank you for your attention.

HOST

Well, thank you, thank you everyone.  We’ll skip Moot Romney, of course, since he is only a stuffed toy.  Those were some great campaign speeches, some wonderful plans and approaches – I think our audience will agree: let’s give our candidates a round of applause.  Now, for the second part of our candidate’s debate, we’ll be asking you each some carefully chosen questions that have been posted on our Facebook page.  Let’s start with this question for Ms. Bachward:  Wendy S. from Iowa City writes:  Given Ms. Bachward’s well known stance on the non-existence of evolution, and given the well known fact that all of biology is based in evolution, how will this effect her ability to run the NIH.”  Michele?

BACHWARD

Well Sean, that’s a very good question, and one that my staff and I discussed after church just this past Sunday.  I know that many of the sciencers who work at or with the NNH are quite enamored with their little theory of evolution, even though most Americans know that it is not in the Bible.  So to make it possible to keep the peace, I would institute a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy about evolution in science.

HOST

(Long pause:) Okay.  Is that your final answer?

BACHWARD

Yes, Sean, that’s my final answer.

HOST

Okay then, the next question is for Mr. Pain from a Ms. Sally Winchell who says that she worked closely with Her Man over the past 13 years.  Quote:  “We would often work side by side at the bench, and sometimes we would even pipette each other’s solutions.  On many evenings I would put his tubes in the centrifuge for him, and sometimes I even had to take his tubes back out of the centrifuge for him.”  Ms. Winchell doesn’t really ask a question, but I believe that America would like to know your response to her allegations.

PAIN

Well Sean, I didn’t know this debate was going to be so personal, but what I can say is that I believe that this Sally Winchell may be somewhat unclear on the mechanics of pipetting and centrifugation.  I don’t want to call anyone a liar, except my colleague Ms. Bachward of course, but I feel that this allegation from this Sally Winchell person may simply be a miscommunication.

HOST

I see.  And you’re going to stick with that answer?

PAIN

Until concrete evidence surfaces.

HOST

Very well then.  Our next Facebook question is for Katy Perry’s Dad.  A young fan from Idaho writes:  “Dear Sir, I am a big fan of Katy Perry and have all of her albums.  I know for a fact that you are not her father.  Are you just using the name recognition to try to get elected?”

KATY PERRY’S DAD

Well, it worked for Bush Junior.

HOST

But surely that’s not your primary campaign strategy?

KATY PERRY’S DAD

Oh, of course not Sean.  As you probably know, I’ve also got the endorsement of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal – and between the two of us we almost have one brain.

HOST

So, you’re admitting you only have half-a-brain?  Do you think that’s a wise revelation?

KATY PERRY’S DAD

It worked for Bush Junior.

HOST

Hard to argue with that.  Oh, I’m sorry, did you actually say something Mr. Romney.  (He goes in close to allow Romney to whisper in his ear).  What’s that?  You say Ms. Bachward is actually a witch?  (the Host leans in and listens to Romney again) You say you would bet $10,000 that she is a witch?  Well, how do you know she is a witch?  (He listens to Romney again).  She’s called you Newt Romney so many times that she turned you into a newt?  But you’re not a newt now.

NEWT

(Darth Vader enters wearing a Newt Gingrich mask over his helmet.)  No, but I am a Newt.  (He grabs the Mitt Romney puppet and throws it aside).  Sorry Moot, the real Newt is here now.

HOST

Well, what a surprise – everyone please welcome: Newt the Grinch!

NEWT

Thank you, thank you.  I’m sorry I’m late, I had to finish destroying a small planet – er, I mean I had to finish with some important discussions with my graduate students.  That was just a joke about destroying small planets, heh, heh, heh.  (He waves his hand out over the audience as he says:) You will forget the remark about destroying small planets.  Now I want to tell you about my plan for a new, fully operational National Institute.  But before we get to that, I want to get one little piece of business out of the way:  HerMan…HerMan…for the last time, I am not your father!  Okay, back to my new fully operational Institute.  As you know, I have always been concerned with the ethics and morals of the American people, so I am proposing a new Ethical Vigilance Institute and Laboratory.  (He flips over a sign that says:  E.V.I.L).  My new Ethical Vigilance Institute and Laboratory will foster research that will bring ethics and morality back to the American people.

SANTA

(Entering unexpectedly:) Ho, ho, ho!  Merry Christmas!

HOST

Hey everyone, it’s Santa!

SANTA

Ho, ho, ho.  (Going over to Newt:) Now you just wait one minute there Mr. Grinch.  The American people have fine ethics and morals right now – aside from a few, select exceptions (he waves his finger at all of them). Now, I’m very disappointed in all of you.  None of you are setting a very good example for the American children.  Well?  What do you have to say for yourselves?

NEWT, PAIN, BACHWARD, KATY PERRY’S DAD

All gather together and sing (to the tune of Little Drummer Boy):

Come, they told us,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum,
Come lead the NIH,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum,
Our lack of skills we bring,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum,
To gut this science thing,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum,
Rum, pa, pum, pum,
Rum, pa, pum, pum,
We’ll shut down your lab,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum,
When we come.

Little scientists,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
We all are richer than you,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
We have no funds to give
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
No funds to give your lab
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
Rum, pum, pum, pum
Rum, pum, pum, pum
Shall we twiddle for you,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
On our thumbs.

They all twiddle their thumbs.

Tea bags nodded,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
The elephants kept time
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
We twirled out thumbs for you,  (they twiddle their thumbs again.)
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
We twirled our best for you,
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
Rum, pum, pum, pum
Rum, pum, pum, pum (they stop twiddling thumbs)
No one smiled at us
Pa, rum, pum, pum, pum
We and our thumbs.

SANTA

Ho, ho, ho…And that’s your final answer?  Well, all I have to say to you is:

Sings (to the tune of Santa Claus is coming to town):

(To Pain:) Oh, you better shape up,
(To Bachward:) You better not lie,
(To Katy Perry’s Dad:) You better wise up,
I’m telling you why,
Santa Claus is coming to town.

I’m making a list
I’m checking it twice.
I’m gonna find out
Who’s naughty or nice (he starts to take Newt’s mask off to reveal Vader, but Vader stops him).
Santa Claus is coming to town.

(To Bachward:) I know when you’ve been hating,
(To Pain:) I know when you’re a lout,
(To Newt:) I know if you have flipped or flopped,
And it makes me have to shout:

Oh, you better shape up,
You better not lie,
You better wise up,
I’m telling you why,

Santa Claus is coming to town!

HOST

Thank you everyone, that’s our show for today, goodnight and Happy Holidays.

EVERYONE

(Each waving and yelling separately:)  Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and so on…

The End.

These cards at the Phylogame website rock! And in case, you’re new to the Phylomon idea, it’s basically a crowdsourced art, science and gaming project that revolves around the reality of children knowing WAY more about Pokemon than they do about the flora and fauna around them. This, of course, is problematic since one might suggest that it’s not a bad thing for children to also know a little more about the real environment around them (a more detailed description of the project can be found here).

This is also a post to say that I’m on the lookout for artists to contribute to special Phylomon “decks.” In particular, we’ve got funding to seek out art contributions at about $200 per image, with a preference of hiring each artist to contribute at least 5 or so images at a time. Image copyright would remain with the artist, but we ask that the phylo project is allowed to showcase them online in card format in a non-derivative, attribution, non-commercial manner; as well as allow non-profits, museums, educational institutions to use the image (but only in the form of phylo cards) in physical decks that may be sold only for agreed upon outreach project fund raising purposes.

Anyway, if you’re a freelance artist and the project (and the pay) sounds interesting to you, then please do leave your portfolio website in the comments below this popperfont post (we’re also going to contact a few artists who have already so nicely allowed us to use existing art). As well, just so you know, we’re actually looking for art that veers a bit away from the usual conservative realistic type of animal art (i.e. character design buffs are welcome!). Ultimately, we’re looking for art that might actually be considered a bit Pokemon-ish but with details that reflect the real-life organisms.

Oh… And if you want to see more of our existing catalog of cards, then just go to http://phylogame.org/cards. You can also print more, by just hitting “select” on any cards you like – there’s about 300 to choose from, as well as about 500 DIY cards that kids have drawn. When you do this, the card should appear in the “selected cards” shopping basket. When you’re finished, just click on the “Selected Cards” link and it’ll just show you just the ones you’ve picked (6 at a time).

The best part is that you can just print that webpage (i.e. what you see there), and it’ll automatically produce a printout of just the cards (6 at a time) and at print quality resolution.

Game on!
Dave Ng

“It’s hard to explain,” she says, “Ironic. …Isn’t it?” Her voice is hollow, like she’s swallowed a boy your age, and he’s speaking from inside her. “I never know if things are ironic or just ‘appropriate.’ Or ‘coincidental.’ Or ‘funny.’ Muscular Hydrostat,” she says, like that’s supposed to help, “I think that’s what you call it.”

You want badly for her mouth to open and send laughter skipping across the waves, for her hair just to pick up and billow like a sail in the sun, but she hums from her chest while she thinks, and her hair sticks slickly to her neck. You are about to make a joke, but she says, “The idea starts this way: water, in a given space, it stays the same.” She cups her white hands full of seawater; you want to touch it to your lips and drink. You cup your hand against your face and exhale to smell it. Vinegar. “There,” she nods, she holds the water like a ball, her webbed fingers spread comfortably. “No matter where it goes, it’s no less dense, or more. It can only move.” She claps and water sprays you both; you lick your lips. Salt. She lays her hands in the water, flat, like an offering; you want to drink it all until it becomes you, and you can go with her where she’s going. She curls her fists and squeezes and water shoots out both sides, like a hose with no spigot, quickly spent.

“So it is with the tongue,” she says, “Being mostly made of water.” She lets her mouth hang open. “Fluid, yeah?” She pushes out her tongue, all the way, long and thick and deeply violet, then flares it flat like an eagle ray. “Eh?” She says, “Always the same size, no matter what, moving around inside your throat.”

She laughs, then, like rocks dropping into the shallows. You want to make a joke, but you shut your mouth tight, clench your teeth against the thing growing in your mouth, pushing frontways, sideways, writhing to come out.

Art is beautiful.

There is a schism in our cultural consciousness: the humanities and sciences have been separated, and you have to choose a side and then be intimidated by the other. I want to present science in a way that its visual beauty is apparent, I want to present art to science so the connection can be understood. Neither is above the other- art and science exist on the same plane, they are closer and more intertwined than many realize. They cannot exist independently of each other, no matter how hard they try to make it seem that they do.

My current project consists of two parts: first, images of the biological specimens used to as aids in the beginning biology lab and second, images of the animal skeletons and skulls used for anatomical instruction.

I am presenting biological specimens as both a still-life and as a portrait. These creatures occupy a strange limbo; they were once living animals, but, now dead, they teach the living about the living. Preserved in formaldehyde, sealed into jars and cabinets, they live in suspended animation as generations of students peer inside and gather knowledge about the world.

In the images I shoot of the specimens in jars, I am trying to convey their quiet dignity and elegance. I shoot in black and white instead of color in order to focus on the objects, the composition, the story inside of the image. In my opinion, color detracts more than it adds in this instance. What is intended for purely scientific and educational purposes also has its own aesthetic- and that is what I want viewers to take away with them.

The skulls and skeletons are shot in color. The ‘color’ images become almost monochromatic, consisting of the black of the cabinets and the yellowy-white of bone. These images also play into the still-life/portrait theme; although, with these, it is easier to see the portrait side. When a viewer looks at the bones of well-known animals it isn’t difficult to project an animal from the viewers’ experience onto that skeleton. Some of the images seem to have a personality of their own; I like to think maybe such things become so deeply ingrained that even our inanimate skeletons still contain a little bit of our essence.

My goal is to combine art and science into something that shows that even that which is unfamiliar can still be related to by almost anymore.

Number Six

Stars in a Jar

The Exhibitionist

Crocodile

Cat

Rabbit

Dog

I sit by him frozen. Like aimlessly taking courses at college. Then too, I feel as if I am going nowhere and desperately trying to maintain some hope for the future. Our future. Do we have one? Should I try, or simply give up? Like my education I’m trapped on a cold bus ride with no destination feeling like I don’t know who I am…

His laughing engulfs me. He jokes. He teases as I look down silently. He can be incredibly attractive when he likes. He laughingly taunts that “Arts students are lazier than science students.” I know I can be captured by his charm. And that I’m expected to relate to him. I’m supposed to be a science student after all, although I am so unlike him. I know he expects me to agree. I have been given this route to fitting into his world. Through my silence, we are suddenly aligned by this mutual superiority to others. I try to hold on to this moment. I hold my breath and try to grasp at its security.

Gradually I breath out. The fog starts to clear and I see something different. I see a kind of waste. He is like a tank. He has one goal in mind. To succeed. A PhD, important publications and talks, great discoveries and great fame. He runs down everything in his way to reach this ultimate end. He could take out half the life on the planet. He could destroy habitats, taint waters and further pollute the air. He will leave his tracks, but his creations could easily be… useless, dangerous, harmful.

Then I see myself more clearly. I have been calloused by past pains. I am now sturdier and stronger for it. There will be others for whom I will count. I am angry he has plough me down in his way, made my existence seem insignificant next to his own aims.

As I brood over my role in his aspirations, I become even angrier. Then I can no longer bear to stay silent. Finally I stand up next to him and shout, “I AM NOT A SCIENCE STUDENT.” I feel relieved and lighter. Then I gently add, “I am not like you.” I continue, more calm now, “What you do isn’t that important. And I don’t think Arts students are lazy.”

He gets up, walks past me and makes his way to the front of the bus, then walks off. I feel a different kind of pain now. One that is duller and more transparent. I focus myself on the crowd of people rushing onto the bus. I tell myself there are others who will need me.

The answer
coveted in a cracked glass
where crystalline veins erupt
like snowflakes
fatally flirting with windowpanes.

The anonymous physicist found
relying on African fractals
and reflexive theories of self-similarity
(like the infinite peculiarity of the figure 8 )
that these calculated drips
were indeed, not authentic.

I first started experimenting with watercolor about 10 years ago, and from the beginning got into “wet in wet technique.”  To paint “wet in wet” you paint a base color and then add other colors to it while it’s still wet.  This allows the different colors to bleed into each other, making interesting patterns. People who saw my wet-in-wet work at shows kept mentioning how much it looked like cells under a microscope, so I found some images of cells in mitosis, or cell division, and discovered that they did indeed look a lot like what I was doing.  After looking at the images I began actually trying to paint cells, but I guess I’ve been painting them for about a decade.

Last winter, when DC was buried under several feet of snow, I decided to finally make a move into online art sales, opening up a shop on Makers Market, a juried online marketplace with a scientific bent.  The cell pieces were instantly my most popular, so I’ve been making more and more cell images.  I’ve been showing my work, mainly at art festivals around DC, for about 10 years.  Selling online connected me to a whole new audience and provided a creative shot in the arm. A bunch of biologists bought my work, and some of them suggested new subjects, like bacteria or blood cells.  One buyer pointed me toward “brainbows” – a series of images of mouse brain cells dyed in bright colors.  I loved them, and the images inspired me to begin painting brain cells.

I was talking about this new work with an artist friend, Sean Hennessey, who mentioned that he was having a show of his work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and suggested that my cell paintings would be a good fit. The curator at NIH agreed, so I started to conceptualize this show. I decided that a whole show of mitosis paintings would be a little boring, and I wanted the exhibit to have a stronger theme.

I got to thinking about how activity at the cellular level underlies major upheavals in our lives, like falling in love, giving birth and dying.  I decided to divide my paintings into two groups – love and death.  It’s a kind of ridiculously grandiose theme, but I’m a lover of opera and Russian literature, and heck, go big or go home, right?

I learned a whole lot of anatomy and biology while painting these pictures.  I looked up microscopic photographs in books and on the web and did many practice paintings, trying to get the balance right between accuracy and artistry.  The “love” paintings focus on the cells that are involved in attraction and desire – the skin, eyes, and ears, the brain and the circulatory system.  I’m very proud of my blood vessels, especially my abdominal aorta.  (That’s not technically a cell, but ok, too bad.)

For the “death” paintings, I depicted three microscopic killers – bacteria, viruses and cancer.  The cancer piece really hit home, because I lost both my parents to pancreatic cancer over the last decade, and I had never really approached it in my art before.  And I included two mitosis paintings, because cell division underlies the whole process of life and death.

I’m really happy with the work I’ve put together for this exhibit, and I feel like it’s opened new doors for me creatively. The exhibit opens January 14^th and will be up through March 5, 2011 at the NIH Clinical Center West Gallery (10 Center Drive, Bethesda MD 20892.) For more info about getting to NIH, see:http://www.nih.gov/about/visitor/index.htm

(Originally published in BourgeonOnline)

we have lost our ability
to add and multiply
desire sliding slowly
off the tail end of X

crossed paths in a cradle of
American comforts
so many plus signs
weighed us down

there is no magic in subtraction
a solitary horizontal bar
where nothing stays,
at least for very long

this foil between us
I lunged from the left
you two repelled, siblings
parrying behind Prospero

division is our only function
anemic lines squeezed
between fecund dots
expecting no friction

only a clean cut
which never heals
despite our common
denominators

heir apparents with no answers
still wanting some of it all