Odditities and Insight

darksilenceinsuburbia: Jan Mankes. Row of Trees,...

Sun, 05 May 2013 01:23:01 -0400

darksilenceinsuburbia:

Jan Mankes. Row of Trees, 1915.

Wikipedia

Photo

Sat, 04 May 2013 21:56:13 -0400

bronsonalpha: Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis...

Sat, 04 May 2013 21:37:09 -0400

bronsonalpha:

Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis bacteria.

mucholderthen: SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATION: NucleosomeThe...

Sat, 04 May 2013 21:31:23 -0400

mucholderthen:

SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATION: Nucleosome
The Mediterranean Institute for Life Sciences
Split, Croatia

High resolution ray-traced model of a nucleosome, isolated on black.

A nucleosome is the basic unit of DNA packaging in eukaryotes, consisting of a segment of DNA wound in sequence around four histone protein cores. This structure is often compared to thread wrapped around a spool.

Nucleosomes form the fundamental repeating units of eukaryotic chromatin, which is used to pack the large eukaryotic genomes into the nucleus while still ensuring appropriate access to it. In mammalian cells approximately 2 m of linear DNA have to be packed into a nucleus of roughly 10 µm diameter.

Nucleosomes are folded through a series of successively higher order structures to eventually form a chromosome; this both compacts DNA and creates an added layer of regulatory control, which ensures correct gene expression.

(Nucleosome - Wikipedia)

whiteboxfauna: Long-Horned Bee on Flickr. Svastra obliqua...

Sat, 04 May 2013 21:26:37 -0400

whiteboxfauna:

Long-Horned Bee on Flickr.

Svastra obliqua

Arlington, TX, USA

lydiarts: Muscle studies from the zoo today.

Sat, 04 May 2013 20:47:16 -0400

lydiarts:

Muscle studies from the zoo today.

One Mans Trash… by ~LadyDarkwolf

Sat, 04 May 2013 20:46:26 -0400

One Mans Trash… by ~LadyDarkwolf

Photo

Sat, 04 May 2013 20:44:21 -0400

goetia: Lion Monument, Lacerne, Switzerland The Lion lies in...

Sat, 04 May 2013 20:44:00 -0400

goetia:

Lion Monument, Lacerne, Switzerland

The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff — for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the smooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.

Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion — and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is.

— Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, 1880

Corvus corax by *Naa-

Sat, 04 May 2013 20:41:33 -0400

Corvus corax by *Naa-

Photo

Sat, 04 May 2013 20:40:04 -0400

Photo

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:42:10 -0400

Photo

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:42:00 -0400

science111: 1. dip a spoon of gallium in a glass of hot...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:41:38 -0400

science111:

1. dip a spoon of gallium in a glass of hot water

2. make a bubble with smoke instead of air

3. dissolve the tablet in weightlessness

4. set fire to the energy-saving lamp

5. push two identical clouds of smoke

6. create a vacuum in the empty tank

7. set fire to the smoke from the candles

8. overturn the glass with smoke

9. pour the hot solution in a plastic cup [x]

Photo

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:41:01 -0400

approachingsignificance: Album of Paris Crime Scenes Alphonse...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:40:47 -0400

approachingsignificance:

Album of Paris Crime Scenes

Alphonse Bertillon, the chief of criminal identification for the Paris police department, developed the mug shot format and other photographic procedures used by police to register criminals. Although the images in this extraordinary album of forensic photographs were made by or under the direction of Bertillon, it was probably assembled by a private investigator or secretary who worked at the Paris prefecture. Photographs of the pale bodies of murder victims are assembled with views of the rooms where the murders took place, close-ups of objects that served as clues, and mug shots of criminals and suspects. Made as part of an archive rather than as art, these postmortem portraits, recorded in the deadpan style of a police report, nonetheless retain an unsettling potency.

via The Metropolitan Mus eum of Art

todaysdocument: Photograph of Julian Hawthorne Affixed to...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:40:12 -0400

todaysdocument:

Photograph of Julian Hawthorne Affixed to Bertillon Measurement Card

From the Inmate Case file of Julian Hawthorne, Inmate No. 4435

Dated March 26, 1913, this is the Bertillon Measurement Card for Julian Hawthorne, son of American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne. Also an author and journalist himself, Hawthorne was sentenced to 1 year in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary for his involvement in a stock fraud scheme. Hawthorne maintained his innocence and later wrote about his experience in prison in his work The Subterranean Brotherhood.

A system of physical identification pre-dating the use of fingerprints, Bertillon Measurements used anthropometrics, such as the length and width of the head and the degree of forehead slope to create an individual’s unique profile.

hoppington: In 1893, Leonarda Cianciulli was born in Montella,...

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:40:04 -0400

hoppington:

In 1893, Leonarda Cianciulli was born in Montella, Italy. As a child, she attempted suicide on two separate occasions and was greatly disturbed. Cianciulli had seventeen pregnancies during her marriage, but lost three of the children to miscarriage, and ten more died in their youth. In 1939, Cianciulli heard that her eldest son, Giuseppe, was to join the Italian army in preparation for World War II. She came to the conclusion that his safety required human sacrifices. Cianciulli then planned the murder of three middle-aged women. After the victims were comfortable, she killed them with an axe and cut their bodies into nine parts. She also gathered the blood into a basin.

In her memorial (titled “An embittered soul’s confessions”) Cianciulli describes what happened next: “I threw the pieces into a pot, added seven kilos of caustic soda, which I had bought to make soap, and stirred the whole mixture until the pieces dissolved in a thick, dark mush that I poured into several buckets and emptied in a nearby septic tank. As for the blood in the basin, I waited until it had coagulated, dried it in the oven, ground it and mixed it with flour, sugar, chocolate, milk and eggs, as well as a bit of margarine, kneading all the ingredients together. I made lots of crunchy tea cakes and served them to the ladies who came to visit, though Giuseppe and I also ate them.”
In regard to her third murder, Cianciulli said: “She ended up in the pot, like the other two…her flesh was fat and white, when it had melted I added a bottle of cologne, and after a long time on the boil I was able to make some most acceptable creamy soap. I gave bars to neighbors and acquaintances. The cakes, too, were better, that woman was really sweet.” Leonarda Cianciulli has become known as the “Soap-Maker of Correggio,” because she turned the remains of her victims into soap and food.

After a neighbor became suspicious of Cianciulli, the police were called, and she immediately confessed to the murders, providing detailed accounts of what she had done. Cianciulli was found guilty of her crimes and sentenced to thirty years in prison and three years in a criminal asylum. Leonarda Cianciulli died of cerebral apoplexy in the women’s criminal asylum in Pozzuoli on October 15, 1970. A number of artifacts from the case, including the pot in which the victims were boiled, are on display at the Criminological Museum in Rome.

"The fact is, it is not possible to identify any characteristic features of either the symptomatology..."

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:39:27 -0400

“The fact is, it is not possible to identify any characteristic features of either the symptomatology or the aetiology of so-called mental illnesses that consistently distinguish them from physical illnesses. Nor do so-called physical illnesses have any characteristics that distinguish them reliably from mental illnesses. If pathological changes and dysfunctions are restricted to organs other than the brain, as is often the case, effects on mentation and behaviour are relatively restricted, but this is an inconstant and purely quantitative difference, and in any case does not apply to diseases of the brain or situations in which there is a secondary disturbance of cerebral function.”

Not only is the distinction between mental and physical illness ill-founded and incompatible with contemporary understanding of disease, it is also damaging to the long-term interests of patients themselves. It invites both them and their doctors to ignore what may be important causal factors and potentially effective therapies; and by implying that illnesses so described are fundamentally different from all other types of ill-health, it helps to perpetuate the stigma associated with ‘mental’ illness.”

- R. E. Kendell - “The Distinction between mental and physical illness” (via girlwiththegreyhound)

meanassmoses: Scanned from something, can’t recall the title....

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 17:39:18 -0400

meanassmoses:

Scanned from something, can’t recall the title. Wish I knew. Getcher enormous .tiff here.