– FROM THE ARCHIVES – 1 Went to the mall today. Bought some boxer briefs and an Icee. Stopped into the arcade and lost to some punk kid at Street Fighter II. It’s hard for me to push the buttons at the right time. Shuttle Remote Manipulator Prostheses (SRMP) destroyed Street Fighter machine. 2 Saw a friend’s band play, alone. I wish someone else would have come with me. People don’t always want to talk to the guy with nine hundred pounds of space steel strapped to his body. Broke the arm of the lead singer when I gave him…
The Science Creative Quarterly
The Science Creative Quarterly (SCQ) is not a quarterly, but instead publishes new material at a non-linear rate. Currently, it is sleeping and in a sort of stasis (turpor?) It used to seek science writing of any genre, and your contribution would have involved checking out our submissions guidelines.
The Science Creative Quarterly (SCQ) has a single print edition so far (half SCQ pieces, and half fake science journal – see here for more details). Also, badges?
Stay safe everyone!
A BRIEF HISTORY OF MY ON-GOING LOVE AFFAIR WITH SCIENCE
– FROM THE ARCHIVES – May 8th, 1988 I encounter science for the first time during recess. As my friends and I are busy using the magnifying lens that Billy Stewart had gotten for his eighth birthday to burn some sticks, she breaks off from the pack of girls she usually travels around the schoolyard with to tell me that she likes my shoes. I don’t understand how anyone could possibly dislike my shoes as they are brand new and have little zippered compartments where I have carefully secreted away the coins I will later use to buy myself some…
BUTTERFLY
This piece is copyrighted (2004), Chris Ware, and reprinted with permission from McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern Issue 13
SHOULD EVERYONE HAVE ACCESS TO LIFE SAVING MEDICINES?
If you’re a reader from Canada, don’t forget to check out aidsaction.ca. Here, you can look up your candidates and send off an email to support the Call to Action to reform Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime and help save lives! – – – 30 MINUTES, 70 FATES. You don’t know it, but as I write this piece, there is some serious procrastination going on. My attention span is weak and sidetracked constantly by a variety of diversions, and if you must know, it’s taken me close to half an hour to write these first two sentences. Still, one could…
FACT OR FICTION: TARDIGRADES
1. Tardigrades feed on plants and bacteria. Fact. The majority of tardigrades subsist on plant matter and bacteria, although some species will occasionally eat entire organisms, such as rotifers. 2. Tardigrades are cute. Fiction. Tardigrades are not cute; they’re short and overweight, with poorly articulated limbs and claws on their feet. Their bodies are covered in cuticles of proteins, chitin and lipids (gross), and the males only have one gonad. 3. Tardigrades can survive extreme conditions that would kill any other animal known to man. Fact. Tardigrades are able to withstand 5,000 gamma rays of radiation, temperatures from 304 °F…
WRITE EN MASSE TO CANADA’S MEMBERS OF SENATE AND TELL THEM TO PASS BILL C-393
To help in reaching our honourable Senators, please find their email addresses, in alphabetical order, comma separated (for copy+pasting in the To: box) below: andrer@sen.parl.gc.ca, anguswd@sen.parl.gc.ca, bakerg@sen.parl.gc.ca, gautht@sen.parl.gc.ca, boisvp@sen.parl.gc.ca, braled@sen.parl.gc.ca, brazep@sen.parl.gc.ca, brownb@sen.parl.gc.ca, callbc@sen.parl.gc.ca, campbel@sen.parl.gc.ca, carigc@sen.parl.gc.ca, carsts@sen.parl.gc.ca, champa@sen.parl.gc.ca, chapum@sen.parl.gc.ca, cochre@sen.parl.gc.ca, comeag@sen.parl.gc.ca, coolsa@sen.parl.gc.ca, cordyj@sen.parl.gc.ca, cowanj@sen.parl.gc.ca, dallar@sen.parl.gc.ca, dawsod@sen.parl.gc.ca, dayja@sen.parl.gc.ca, debanp@sen.parl.gc.ca, tessil@sen.parl.gc.ca, dininc@sen.parl.gc.ca, johnse@sen.parl.gc.ca, pdowne@sen.parl.gc.ca, mikeduffy@sen.parl.gc.ca, dyckli@sen.parl.gc.ca, eatonn@sen.parl.gc.ca, egglea@sen.parl.gc.ca, fairbj@sen.parl.gc.ca, finled@sen.parl.gc.ca, fortis@sen.parl.gc.ca, foxf@sen.parl.gc.ca, frasej@sen.parl.gc.ca, fruml@sen.parl.gc.ca, fureyg@sen.parl.gc.ca, greens@sen.parl.gc.ca, harbm@sen.parl.gc.ca, hervic@sen.parl.gc.ca, lacomd@sen.parl.gc.ca, hublee@sen.parl.gc.ca, jaffem@sen.parl.gc.ca, johnsj@sen.parl.gc.ca, joyals@sen.parl.gc.ca, kennyco@sen.parl.gc.ca, kinsen@sen.parl.gc.ca, kochhv@sen.parl.gc.ca, langd@sen.parl.gc.ca, lavigr@sen.parl.gc.ca, lebrem@sen.parl.gc.ca, losier@sen.parl.gc.ca, smithc@sen.parl.gc.ca, mahovf@sen.parl.gc.ca, mannif@sen.parl.gc.ca, marshe@sen.parl.gc.ca, martin@sen.parl.gc.ca, massip@sen.parl.gc.ca, mccoye@sen.parl.gc.ca, meighen@sen.parl.gc.ca, mercet@sen.parl.gc.ca, merchp@sen.parl.gc.ca, mitchg@sen.parl.gc.ca, mocklp@sen.parl.gc.ca, moorew@sen.parl.gc.ca, munsoj@sen.parl.gc.ca, murral@sen.parl.gc.ca, mcgeed@sen.parl.gc.ca, neufer@sen.parl.gc.ca, nolinp@sen.parl.gc.ca, ogilvk@sen.parl.gc.ca, olived@sen.parl.gc.ca, patted@sen.parl.gc.ca, pepinl@sen.parl.gc.ca, russem@sen.parl.gc.ca,…
POLLOCK’S LAST SNOWFLAKE
The question posed a voluptuous riddle. Were these frenzied silhouettes pole-dancing in black and blue drooling the white slip the sinewy gestures of Jackson Pollock’s dribble? 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.
SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
(Re: In the continued debate over high school science textbooks in Louisiana, whereby a local opponent of evolution, Judge Darrell White, insisted on connecting the Columbine High School massacre to the teaching of evolution through the phrase “survival of the fittest.”) – – – When we summarize things we have to be careful that we don’t lose meaning or invite misinterpretation, for instance the phrase “survival of the fittest.” This was first used as a summary of natural selection, which is one of the mechanisms of evolution, but today it is mistakenly and inaccurately used to summarize the entire theory…
LOVE AND DEATH AT THE NIH
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…