Ready For the Closeup

My friend, a biology teacher, and self-proclaimed biology geek, sent me this picture of bugs at a tea party. While it looks like something out of a Pixar movie, it's actually a collage of colorized electron micrographs (click here for all of the crazy detail). She knows I love a good electron micrograph. The picture was a winner in the National Science Foundation's International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. Some are colorized electron micrographs, some are actual photos, some are illustrations. Science or art? You be the judge. All of the entries are amazing, but this is my favorite.

I really do love electron micrographs. They have the coolest textures, and it's crazy how different ordinary things look if you get close enough. Although it's just straight up photography, the work of Karl Blossfeldt reminds me of electron micrographs, and I think that's why I like it so much. This guy's snowflake photos are in the same vein, and are really beautiful. They're like little mugshots of the culprits that caused all that ruckus yesterday.

Posh Squat

Right now, in a part of London akin to New York's Park Avenue, about forty squatters, mostly artists and students, have moved into two abandoned mansions, each worth about 15 million pounds. They say that it's all very civilized, and not at all a crack house. The funny thing is that they are totally within the law unless they start trashing the place.

While the locals seem to have mixed feelings about the squatters (this article makes no bones about their disapproval), I'm sure that if this happened in New York, the neighbors would head over to Gracious Home to buy jewel-encrusted pitchforks and mahogany torches before heading over to drive them out.

It reminds me of punk houses, although I don't think any of those were ever located in multi-million dollar mansions.