Nabokov's Notebook

staceythinx: MicroB Inc. by Mahendra Nazar

dontcallmeishmael — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:16:51 -0500

MicroB Inc. by Mahendra Nazar

aycarambas: Geological Cross Sections of the Earth, Rivers and...

dontcallmeishmael — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 12:44:34 -0500

Geological Cross Sections of the Earth, Rivers and Mountains Antique Print 1899 at CarambasVintage http://etsy.me/Xjs5ND

Dean Potter crossing the highline at dusk at Cathedral Peak,...

dontcallmeishmael — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:58:00 -0500

Dean Potter crossing the highline at dusk at Cathedral Peak, Yosemite National Park.

Video by Bryan Smith

The world’s tallest artificial tornado spins at 34 meters...

dontcallmeishmael — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:29:00 -0500

The world’s tallest artificial tornado spins at 34 meters (111 feet) from floor to ceiling. It was originally constructed as a device to eliminate smoke in the event of a fire in the Mercedes-Benz Museum, but it has also drawn spectators in the time since its installation.

Wrote a post about light pollution last year; it’s always...

dontcallmeishmael — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 14:14:58 -0500

Wrote a post about light pollution last year; it’s always been one of my pet causes.

staceythinx:

Darkened Cities by Thierry Cohen imagines the starry skies we’d see in urban areas if we turned off all the lights.

About the project:

Before these pictures can exist, the sky from one place has to be superimposed upon cityscape from another. It is impossible to see this detail in the night sky above a city. Atmospheric and light pollution combine to make looking into the urban sky like looking past bright headlights while driving.

By travelling to places free from light pollution but situated on precisely the same latitude as his cities, Cohen obtains skies which, as the world rotates about its axis, are the very ones visible above the cities a few hours earlier or later. To find the right level of atmospheric clarity, Cohen has to go into the wild places of the earth, the Atacama, the Mojave, the western Sahara.

In case you haven’t heard yet, they’ve finally...

dontcallmeishmael — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:31:00 -0500

In case you haven’t heard yet, they’ve finally caught the giant squid on video. AND IT HAS CRAZY EYES.

You’ll be able to see the full video on January 27, when the Discovery Channel runs its special, “Monster Squid: The Giant is Real.”

Already on my DVR…

Claire Brewster takes maps and puts birds on them.

dontcallmeishmael — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 23:17:00 -0500

Claire Brewster takes maps and puts birds on them.

nybg: Do you love old botanical prints? The digital collections...

dontcallmeishmael — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 18:35:01 -0500

Primula auricula (Primroses), After Pierre-Joseph Redouté Victor, Color stipple engraving with hand-coloring

Bezi de Chaumontel (Pears), Antoine Poiteau, Hand-colored stipple engraving

Narcissus gouani (Double Daffodil), after Pierre-Joseph Redouté Bessin, Color stipple engraving with hand-coloring

Study of Three Types of Poppies, After Jean Louis Prevost L. C. Ruotte, Color stipple engraving

Pelargonium acerifolium, after Pierre-Joseph Redouté Milsan, Hand-colored engraving

a-e Malus Aurantia etc., Attributed to Johann Jakob Haid, Line engraving, mock mezzotint, printed in color, additional color by hand

Amaryllis fulgida, Robert Havell, Aquatint with engraving, printed in color and hand-colored

Pavot cultive, after Gerard van Spaendonck, Hand-colored stipple engraving

Spring Crocuses, Charles John Robertson (after), Hand-colored engraving

nybg:

Do you love old botanical prints? The digital collections of NYBG’s Mertz Library has thousands that you can browse online. The grandaddy resource for prints of this sort is the BHL or Biodiversity Heritage Library and their excellent Flickr sets. The BHL is an official digital partner of ours and you will find tons of images from our collections amongst theirs. These prints are perfect for the short days of winter when all you can do is daydream about next spring’s beautiful blooms. ~AR

fablehill:

Hand-colored prints from the Minneapolis Institute of Art, 18th-20th century.

escapekit: Nuvem (Cloud) Take a walk through the clouds in this...

dontcallmeishmael — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:02:43 -0500

escapekit:

Nuvem (Cloud)

Take a walk through the clouds in this installation by multimedia artist Eduardo Coimbra. Based in Rio de Janeiro, Coimbra studied engineering and architecture, which are both reflected in the majority of his creative projects. Many of his site-specific pieces are large-scale works that explore the idea of landscapes as synthetic constructions that represent reality.

A tribute to Nabokov today: Eiji Watanabe cut butterflies from...

dontcallmeishmael — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 10:01:20 -0500

A tribute to Nabokov today:

Eiji Watanabe cut butterflies from the pages of field guides and pinned them to the walls of a room for his piece A Butterfly’s Eye View.

James Nizam’s images depict a single beam of light...

dontcallmeishmael — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 00:13:26 -0500

James Nizam’s images depict a single beam of light reflected around a room.

myampgoesto11: Tatiana Plakhova: BIO Patterns Complexity...

dontcallmeishmael — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 03:14:53 -0500

myampgoesto11:

Tatiana Plakhova: BIO Patterns

Complexity Graphics illustrations combine the trends of multiple areas of design, such as information, math design and infographics, and brings elements from science, energetics, space, various kinds of “nets”, cultural patterns and biology.

Though the artist Gino De Dominicis passed away in 1998, his...

dontcallmeishmael — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:01:42 -0500

Though the artist Gino De Dominicis passed away in 1998, his larger-than-life surrealist sculpture Calamita Cosmica still travels the world for display. The skeleton is anatomically correct, save for the change to the nose bone that you can see above.

jtotheizzoe: The Mississippi River delta, as imaged by Japan’s...

dontcallmeishmael — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 15:36:29 -0500

jtotheizzoe:

The Mississippi River delta, as imaged by Japan’s Advanced Land Observing Satellite. As 17,000 cubic meters of water pump out every second, vegetation (here colored red) is fed by the rich sediment. The fractal nature of its branching is a natural property that emerges from finding the most efficient branch pattern to feed a large surface area.

Earth, you damn fine.

(via Unpopular Science)

nprradiopictures: [The] book, Why We Are Here, is a rich...

dontcallmeishmael — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:21:01 -0500

Roy Hyde, Fairhope.

Ben Davis, Cedar Point Pier, South Mobile County.

Rosa Barahona, Mobile.

UMS-Wright Bulldogs football practice, Mobile.

nprradiopictures:

[The] book, Why We Are Here, is a rich examination in text and photos of [evolutionary biologist E.O.] Wilson’s boyhood home of Mobile, Ala. The photos show a distinct people, nature and, most importantly, place — infused with Wilson’s unique scientific theories on human existence.

“I tried to photograph the people and places in a way that related to something bigger,” said [photographer Alex] Harris over the phone.

Harris, who also grew up in the South, made five trips to Mobile — the last with Wilson. He said stepping foot in Mobile felt like a homecoming of sorts. And once there, he set off to photograph a “cross-section of contemporary Mobilians, looking at their lives, families, institutions and natural environment.”

‘Why We Are Here’: Capturing The Spirit Of Mobile, Ala.

Photo Credit: Alex Harris

Christopher Marley’s Coleoptera mosaics (and also,...

dontcallmeishmael — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 12:11:00 -0500

Christopher Marley’s Coleoptera mosaics (and also, sometimes, Lepidoptera), from his Pheromone series.

Elyse Graham creates these pseudo-geodes from materials like...

dontcallmeishmael — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:01:05 -0500

Elyse Graham creates these pseudo-geodes from materials like resin, plaster, and sand.

What happens when you attach a colored light to a turntable, fix...

dontcallmeishmael — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:00:45 -0500

What happens when you attach a colored light to a turntable, fix your camera upon it, and wait? Photographer Johnny Christmas answers with his set of long-exposure images, shown above.

Where I live, the word ‘fracking’ is part of the...

dontcallmeishmael — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:00:59 -0500

Mark Thiessen

Mark Thiessen

Emmanuel Coupe

Darwin Wiggett

Mark Thiessen

Where I live, the word ‘fracking’ is part of the everyday lexicon. My small Pennsylvanian college lies over the Utica Shale formation, which means that the administration has just received an offer for gas exploration beneath the college-owned experimental forest. Fracking has reemerged as major debate on campus, so I’ve been reading up on the topic in the newsroom lately.

I really enjoyed this article —”Good Gas, Bad Gas“— written by Marianne Lavelle, from last month’s issue of National Geographic. Mark Thiessen contributed a phenomenal photo package as well (I expect nothing less from NatGeo).

The piece explores both natural and unnatural leakings of methane from spaces deep within the earth. Above, you can see what happens when large pockets of the flammable gas are freed into open spaces and, sometimes, into the homes of those who have agreed to allow gas exploration on their property. For example, methane regularly escapes from the arctic as the earth warms. The gas bubbles up to the surface of icy lakes and becomes frozen inside beautiful crystalline spheres.

Read the article, check out the photo packages, and educate yourself on where your energy comes from, the lengths we go to to get it, and how all of those things will come to the forefront of national debate in the near future.

Photo credits, as labelled above: Darwin Wiggett, Emmanuel Coupe, & Mark Thiessen

Somewhere in the Netherlands, the artist Tamar Frank hid 500 LED...

dontcallmeishmael — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 10:00:37 -0500

Somewhere in the Netherlands, the artist Tamar Frank hid 500 LED lights into the reeds around a pond, just in time for an art and music festival. The festival-goers then activated her faux firefly display as they passed through.

If they had only been in the Great Smoky Mountains, they might have seen the real thing—fireflies synchronizing their light patterns in a remarkable display.