When I was about 13 or so, I was blown away when I learned that ancient Greek and Roman statues used to be painted (paywalled; cached PDF) and were not commissioned to be ghostly-white. An all-time favorite is this Greek sculpture of a Persian archer. Source: “We know Greek statues weren’t white.…
These are fossilized crinoids found in Western Australia by Tom Kapitany. Crinoids are animals and belong to the phylum Eichinodermata which includes starfish and sea urchins (and they all have “pentameral symmetry”). This is all well and good but these things, in their fossilized state, look like s…
Macula is an absolutely lovely typeface by Jacques Le Bailly. It reminded me of Impossible Type by Fleta Selmani. I also found out that Eric Demaine has an “Impossible Folding Font”.…
I can stare at photographs of the Nefertiti Bust all day. It’s just so alive. It was carved out of limestone and covered in stucco/plaster. The eyes were made out of quartz and affixed with beeswax. Just so beautiful. Wikipedia has a 3D model you can look at.…
This is Zephyr, a “captive-born gray wolf” at the Wolf Conservation Center in NY. Below, you can hear him and his friends orchestrate some of the most beautiful sounds you will hear today. I’ve watched this five times and it was somehow even better with my eyes closed. /misc/w/wolf-howling.mp4 Here’…
Summary of Wikipedia article: Japanese kimono didn’t have pockets. They needed something to store their stuff in. So they made containers that they hung from their kimonos’ sashes1. The part that secured the container to the sash at the top was called a netsuke (“root attached”.) Here’s a really cut…
I mean just look at it 🥰…
Unknown artist, circa 1800 The terrifying goddess Kali, wearing a necklace of skulls and holding a severed head in one of her hands, is worshiped here by other gods. From the left, we see Indra, Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). Kali is associated with viole…
The Steller’s sea eagle is one of the world’s rarest eagles. There are only around 4,000 left. It’s native to Russia and Japan. One was spotted in Maine and got bird watchers very excited. “It would be like an elephant walking up out of Africa into Scandinavia,” Mr. Lund said. “Like getting a call…
Henry Lin has a degree in Architectural Design is a “a lover of all things transportative”. He draws really lovely Car Silhouettes 😍 Here are a few. Chevy Corvette C3 (1968-1972) Jaguar E-Type (1961-1968) Lagonda Rapide (1961 - 1964) Mercedes-Benz S-Class (W221) Mercedes-Benz CLS400 (C218) Bu…
“Fear can be a funny thing; it doesn’t always shine a flattering light. It can make us forget that others are scared too.” The author tells a short and lovely story about the pandemic, isolation, hope, the value of community, nature, and so many other things for such a short book. It is told through…
The Chess Sets used at the World Chess Championships cost $350 (plus $700 if you want the electronic piece tracking), are likely out of stock if you’d like one, take a lot of training and practice to make, are woodworked in Amritsar, India, and were designed by Daniel Weil, a former partner at Penta…
Glass Octopus (Vitreledonella richardi) Longarm Octopus larva (Macrotritopus defilippi) Marine Snail (Atlanta inclinata) Sea Butterfly (Clio chaptali) Eye-flash Squid (Abralia veranyi) Deep sea eel Male copepods Larval Prawn (Plesiopenaeus armatus) Glass Squid (Bathothauma lyromma) More her…
This beautiful piece was sculpted in Japan around the 13th century and is about three feet tall. The subject is a Zen Buddhist monk Shinchi Kakushin, who lived till the ripe old age of 95. After his death, he was given the title “perfectly awakened national teacher of the Dharma lamp” which is what…
>>> n = 0 >>> print "%d item%s" % (n, "s"[n==1:]) 0 items >>> n = 1 >>> print "%d item%s" % (n, "s"[n==1:]) 1 item >>> n = 2 >>> print "%d item%s" % (n, "s"[n==1:]) 2 items # If you might want to print negative items, add abs to the test: >&g…
In college, I remember being blown away by a huge, physical map of metabolic pathways our Biochemistry professor once brought into class. It looked like this: Here it is online. Kinda like a Google Maps of cellular reactions. It was impressed upon us that the interior of a cell (especially a eukary…
This is just indescribably beautiful. /misc/b/blanket-octopus.mp4…
This is around Rovaniemi, Finland. By Jani Ylinampa, whose Instagram account is just magical. Here’s another picture. Looks like a highly detailed miniature.…
Kiawak Ashoona, Musk Ox, 1963…
Also known as Pesquet’s parrot or the vulturine parrot. The Dracula parrot is a large, heavy bird, stretching to almost half a metre from beak to tail and weighing in at almost a kilogram. It maintains all that bulk by feeding almost exclusively on figs, which researchers suspect is why it ended…
A devoted dog has spent days waiting outside a hospital in Turkey where her sick owner was being treated. The pet, Boncuk, which means bead, followed the ambulance that transported her owner, Cemal Senturk, to hospital in the Black Sea city of Trabzon on 14 January. She then made daily visits to…
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reachin…
This is indescribably beautiful. Source: tirthayatra.org by @renji_snapshot. Here’s more information and history.…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK5v0KZ3MxQ…
Sánchez infuses his landscape scenes with what the Cuban art critic, Geraldo Mosquera, called “an almost metaphys- ical vision.” This is not surprising considering that Sánchez is ardently devoted to yoga and to meditation which he practices several hours daily. He also goes regularly to a Siddha…
You could almost just narrate the body changes and narrate the dream. So here she’s asleep. She sees a crab and her color starts to change a little bit then she turns all dark. Octopuses will do that when they leave the bottom. This is a camouflage like she’s just subdued a crab and now she’s going…
(Source Unknown)…
Developer site. A beautiful meditation that’s just the right length. Reminded me of “Osmos”, an all-time favorite. Won an Apple Design Award on 2018 (with “Florence”.)…
Some absolutely marvelous photos of a Southen Blue-Ringed Octopus by @SammyGlennDives Like she’s dancing! Would love to find out what kind of protective gear the photographer had on. But it seems like the octopuses are very shy and will attack only when provoked, which is when their rings become…
Loving these Moebius-like works by Ali Hoff (prints are available.) Imagined it being a short animated series like Aeon Flux 😍…
This is just wonderful stuff. More on his website and on Instagram. /misc/g/gavin_shapiro/1.mp4 /misc/g/gavin_shapiro/2.mp4…
When I was little — and by the way, I was little once — my father told me a story about an 18th century watchmaker. And what this guy had done: he used to produce these fabulously beautiful watches. And one day, one of his customers came into his workshop and asked him to clean the watch that he’d…
Behold Ray Cicin’s yuge version of Ernst Haeckel’s octopus illustration drawn with discarded ballpoint pens. Prints are available.…
Behold the beautiful Secretarybird 🙌 – Source Unknown Way out of other birds’ leagues, eats venomous snakes, and “appears on the coats of arms of Sudan and South Africa” 🔥…
Designed by Pininfarina all the way back in 1970 (!) 😍 🤤…