Finnish designer Jalmari Laihinen, aka byJalmari, explores the beauty of wood with all of its cracks, breaks, and defects, in a series of furniture called Broken. By allowing the true natural properties of wood to show through, wood becomes more than just the material that the pieces are made from.
Wood with defects is often discarded and not used in the furniture making process, but Laihinen embraces them and treats these unique features as accents.
In studying the parasitic protozoan Plasmodium ovale in 1954, English parasitologist William Cooper volunteered to receive the bites of about a thousand mosquitos, and nine days later underwent a laparotomy in which a piece of his liver was removed. On recovering, he stained the sections himself, located the malaria parasite stages in his own tissue, and painted these in watercolors to accompany the resulting article.
His coauthor, University of London protozoologist Cyril Garnham, wrote that Cooper “attained everlasting fame by this episode.”
(P.C.C. Garnham et al., “The Pre-Erythrocytic Stage of Plasmodium Ovale,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 49:2 [March 1955], 158-167)
(Thanks, Andrew.)
Mirrors typically represent a way of facing reality, but depending on where they’re placed, they can bend it to the point of surreality instead. Take, for example, this invisible fence, a striking illusion installed at the Storm King Arts Center by artist Alyson Shotz. Driving past it, you likely wouldn’t even notice it was there, though your eye might be caught by unusual glimmers – tricks of the light.
‘Mirror Fence’ is exactly as the title suggests; a reflective barrier in the shape of a picket fence that’s almost perfectly camouflaged in its environment. The illusion is so effective that you could probably walk right up to it, only realizing that the barrier exists when the reflection of your own legs comes into view.
Though her portfolio reflects a diverse range of shapes and media, Shotz unifies her work with a common aim to “give form to the invisible forces of nature.” Many focus on light itself, such as a sculptural examination of the dual nature of light (as it bears characteristics of both a particle and a wave) entitled Geometry of Light, and a digital animation called ‘Fluid State’ that captures an ocean of reflective spheres over a dawn-to-dusk cycle.
The installation calls to mind another recent project, ‘Lucid Stead’ by Phillip K Smith III, wherein an abandoned home in the desert was fitted with mirrors that make up doors, windows and long horizontal siding to create the illusion of ghostly floating wood.
This is why facebook is the devil.
I had banana bread.
I wanted chocolate.
A day doesn’t go by where I don’t desire cheese.
Frankly, my banana bread was a bit stale. Which is a feat in itself because that means we didn’t eat an entire loaf in 34 seconds.
Why aren’t loaf pans made much larger? Like, instead of 9×5 inches, it should probably be 2×4 feet. THEN no one would have the problem of eating the entire loaf of banana bread the same day it’s made.
I know it isn’t just me.
Anyhoo. Even I thought that banana bread grilled cheese was a bit out there. I asked on facebook & twitter if I should do such a horrid thing. And you thought that I should.
I relish in the fact that you are weird too. We SO like all the same things.
I’m such a grilled cheese freak. Grill all the bread, all the cheese. I want it 24/7. I’m even teaching a class on it in two weeks!
Um, also, how cute are my metallic rose goldy mugs? My friend Laura sent me one of them and I, of course, had to buy one from Starbucks during the holiday season and they pretty much make my day. Pretty things.
Life is so much better when things are pretty.
If you love sweets and cheeses, you’ll die. Melty brie, dark chocolate. I used a banana bread recipe that you can find in my cookbook later this year, but I have lots of others here. Perhaps we should try the bacon one…
Since banana bread is soft yet dense, the entire slice doesn’t crisp up like regular crusty bread. You need a thick slice, after all, for this to work. You can make the sandwich like a regular old grilled cheese OR you can butter both sides, fry both sides, then stick the cheese and chocolate in the middle and keep it over low heat until the insides melt.
The insides melt. Now that sounds delicious. Hmmpf.
Except it so is.
Yield: serves 2 appropriately, 1 obnoxiously
Total Time: 20 minutes
4 slices banana bread (if it's slightly stale, even better!)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened for spreading
6 ounces brie cheese
4 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
Heat a large skillet or griddle over medium heat. Butter the outsides of the banana bread, and place one slice butter-side down in the skillet. Immediately top the slice with some cheese, a bit of chocolate, and a little more cheese. I like to always have cheese on both sides to act like "glue" - it helps hold the sandwich together when flipping. Cook until both sides are golden and the cheese and chocolate is barely melted, about 4 minutes per side. If the cheese is melting slowly, I like to reduce the heat to medium-low and cover the skillet - just make sure to watch the sandwich because the sides cook more quickly.
Yep. I did that.
Qiandao Lake est un lac artificiel localisé à Chun’an County, en Chine, dans lequel des archéologues ont découvert en 2001 les ruines d’une ville enfouie sous l’eau. La ville, nommée « Lion City », se situe entre 26 et 40 mètres de profondeur. Il y aurait eu 290 000 habitants pendant plus de 1300 ans.
Lonely male architects star in The Lake House (Keanu Reeves), The Last Kiss (Zach Braff), Three To Tango (Matthew Perry), Sleepless In Seattle (Tom Hanks), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (Luke Wilson), Love Actually (Liam Neeson), Just Like Heaven (Mark Ruffalo), and It’s Complicated (Steve Martin)—apparently, architecture is a good cipher for “sensitive, but not girly.” Few of those men ever worry about the job market...
I was studying in my room, turned around to grab something and saw this…
So, basically, this is not my cat.
But she’s all like chillin’ in my bed like she pays rent.
How the did she even got into the freaking house. WHO ARE YOU CAT?
In composing a state map of New York in the 1930s, the General Drafting Company wanted to be sure that competing mapmakers would not simply copy its work. So the company’s founder, Otto G. Lindberg, and his assistant, Ernest Alpers, scrambled their initials and placed the fictional town of Agloe at the intersection of two dirt roads in the Catskills north of Roscoe.
Several years later, they discovered Agloe on a Rand McNally map and confronted their competitor. But Rand was innocent: It had got the name from the county government, which had taken it from the Agloe General Store, which now occupied the intersection. The store had taken the name from a map by Esso, which had (apparently) copied it from Lindberg’s map. Agloe had somehow clambered from imagination into reality.
Similarly, in 2001 editors placed a fake word in the New Oxford American Dictionary as a trap for other lexicographers who might steal their material. Fittingly, the word was esquivalience, “the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities; the shirking of duties.”
Sure enough, the word turned up at Dictionary.com (it’s since been taken down), citing Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary.
And as with Agloe, the invention has taken on a life of its own. NOAD editor Christine Lindberg, who coined esquivalience, told the Chicago Tribune that she finds herself using it regularly. “I especially like the critical, judgmental tone I can get out of it: ‘Those esquivalient little wretches.’ Sounds literate and nasty all in one breath. I like that.”
This may be the last thing you'd want to bump into on a walk home from the campus library.
A sculpture of an underwear-clad sleepwalking man was recently installed at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and has left students seriously creeped out with its lifelike appearance. Sculptor Tony Matelli created the nearly-nude statue, titled "Sleepwalker," as part of an ongoing exhibition at the school's Davis Museum, according to The Boston Globe.
Image: AP Photo/Steven Senne/Associated Press
Not long after the sculpture's installation on Feb. 3, hundreds of students on the all-women's campus signed a petition to remove the art piece. Read more...
More about Art, Wtf, Weird, Us, and Watercooler 
Read the rest of Doolittle Home that Looks Like a Bond Villain’s Lair On Sale in Joshua Tree
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Post tags: Bond villain homes, california architecture, concrete homes California, desert houses, Doolittle house Joshua Tree, James Bond houses, John Vugrin, Joshua Tree luxury homes, Kendrick Bangs Kellogg, Mojave desert homes, organic architecture
Have you ever heard about the Thatcher Effect? I just learned about it after seeing it in action—and it freaked me out. First watch the video, then read the explanation.
    
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Mixing elements of Gothic horror and Film Noir with a healthy dose of face-melting psychedelics, Conduit will have you questioning your faith in a higher power and your own ability to sleep tonight.
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(Photos: Rajani Kurup et al.)
Many carnivorous plants use tasty nectars, appealing scents and bright colors to attract insects into their traps. Scientists at the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute in India have discovered another method: tantalizing ultraviolet light.
Rajani Kurup, Anil John Johnson, Sreethu Sankar and Sabulal Baby discovered that the mouth of the Nepenthes khasiana plant glows under UV light. Ants find this color, which is almost invisible to humans under normal conditions, very attractive.
The researchers exposed these pitcher plants to ants in a field. Some of the plant mouths were painted with an acetone coating that blocks UV light. These painted plants attracted few ants, indicating that the UV emissions are essential to luring prey.
-via TYWKIWDBI
This is one of the most arresting compilations of landscape and astrovideography we've seen in ages. Titled "Huelux," created by photographer Randy Halverson, the video plays like a greatest-hits reel of natural phenomena in South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah.
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Green roofs offer a lot of environmental benefits – they provide additional insulation, reduce rainwater runoff, and can lower your electricity bill. However a new study suggests that roofs painted white might actually be more effective at fighting climate change. A study published in the Energy and Buildings Journal compared three types of roofs – green, black and white – and came to the conclusion that white roofs have great economic benefits, and they are also three times more effective than the other two at fighting climate change.
Read the rest of New Study Shows White Roofs are Three Times More Effective than Green Roofs at Fighting Climate Change
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Post tags: Climate Change, eco-friendly roofs, environmental study, green roofs, heat island effect, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, reflective roofs, roof gardens, scientific study, Stanford University study, sustainable white roofs, white roofs, white roofs climate change
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For the cycling nomad, this design uses space you never knew you had, and helps free up room in front-of-handlebar baskets or on above-back-tire racks for other uses in the process.
Designed by Chung-Jung Wu, Pei-Chun Chen & Li-Fu Chen, a specially-reinforced tire creates a void into which a biker can clip their travel tent for extended rides.
The easy-to-access clasps make it simpler and speedier to deploy the tent when you reach your temporary destination, rather than unwrapping it from a pack or unstrapping it from a fender platform.
Of even greater value to long-distance travelers: precious cargo space on your back and elsewhere on your bicycle is freed up for clothes and other essential gear.
We design buildings to make human lives better—but should we also design them to make bacteria healthier? A new study posits just that, suggesting that the microbial communities that live amongst us are deeply influenced by the design of our buildings. Wait—but aren't microbes bad? Not exactly.
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Questionable data collection isn't just for the US and Britain -- according to CBC News, Canada's own spy agency may have been tracking its citizens illegally too. Documents allegedly provided by Edward Snowden show that Communications Security ...
Sad and Useless has gathered a cute collection of 18 fluffy hamster butts. More photos of fuzzy rodent behinds can be found at Sad and Useless.
images via Sad and Useless
via Sad and Useless, Pleated-Jeans
Every state in the U.S. has its own flag, its own flower, its own animal and its own motto, so why not its own cocktail? Hannah C Gregg of BuzzFeed has compiled a delicious menu of suggested cocktails delineated by state.
America boasts an almost endless array of liquor, making the choice of one signature cocktail for each state a tricky task. But every state gets tipsy in its own special way, and we chose these cocktails with some semblance of logic: a combination of state of origin, popularity, and exclusivity.
Here are just a few:
New York – The Moscow Mule
Florida – Rum Runner
California – Mai Tai
Ohio – Velvet Elvis
Michigan – Golden Cadillac
images via BuzzFeed
Procter & Gamble revealed Friday afternoon that one of their biggest financial challenges this year will be your disgusting, dirty face. Reanimating the lifeless corpse that is the word "hipster," the consumer company in charge of Colgate, Johnson & Johnson, and Gillette (among others), reported stagnating sales in their typically thriving "grooming market."
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Netherlands-based physicist and photographer Arie van’t Riet applies his background in radiation physics to create colorized X-ray photographs of plants and animals. His prints are available for purchase.
via Lost At E Minor, Feature Shoot
City Cube 2 © André Rocha
André Rocha es un arquitecto e ilustrador portugués que se graduó en arquitectura en la Universidad de Coimbra (Darq). Como estudiante, crea en el año 2004 un blog de dibujo titulado “La Persistencia del Trazo”, donde explora el diseño urbano evocando frecuentemente una cierta imaginación surrealista y e infantil.
City of Stakes © André Rocha
Vacilando entre lo real y lo irreal, la obra de André Rocha armoniza texturas y entornos urbanos, creando un mundo que quiere ser vivo. A través de la investigación de la morfología de las ciudades y sus texturas arquitectónicas, el artista construye tensiones entre espacios ultra compactos y espacios vacíos. El equilibrio entre estas dos características ha sido la base de su último trabajo.
Ponte Habitável © André Rocha
Desde temprana edad mostró interés por el miniaturismo. Sus ilustraciones se proponen tal como el propio diseño de la ciudad, que tiene una forma general de fácil apropiación. Sin embargo, para el deseo de convertir en “vivo” este imaginario urbano, André Rocha se detiene en el detalle para ilustrar universos arquitectónicos que le son familiares. El barroco portugués, iglesias góticas europeas, los barrios marginales de Brasil o el urbanismo medieval son algunos de los elementos de sus ciudades imaginarias.
Walking Favelas © André Rocha
Son ciudades apiladas, que se protegen o quieren vencer la gravedad en una imposibilidad física. Ilustraciones que apelan a su experiencia, pero que reflejan algún sentimiento de soledad en un universo de contrastes.
Gothic Gravitation © André Rocha
Ciudades imposibles que se elevan desde el suelo convirtiéndose en inmunes a la especie humana; ciudades que quieren ser adoradas como un objeto escultórico en cualquier espacio del museo.
City Cube © André Rocha
Siga el trabajo de André Rocha aqui.
Arte y Arquitectura: "La Persistencia del Trazo" por André Rocha originalmente publicado en Plataforma Arquitectura el 26 Jan 2014.
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Sure, the Amazon Kindle might have dynamic font adjustments, and it can hold thousands of books, but can it do this? Printed in the late 16th century this small book from the National Library of Sweden is an example of sixfold dos-à-dos binding, where six books are conjoined into a single publication but can be read individually with the help of six perfectly placed clasps. This particular book was printed in Germany and like almost all books at the time is a religious devotional text. The National Library of Sweden has a fantastic photo collection of historical and rare books where you can find many more gems like this, and this, and this.
Update: And if you really like amazing old book discoveries, you should be following Erik Kwakkel, the Medieval book historian at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who originally unearthed this story. (via Neatorama)
