Cordycepts Incorporated

Workshopping.

[michaelmoonsbookshop]

attractive hand coloured plates 

The Four Seasons; a short account of the structure of Plants being four lectures written for the Working Men’s Institute in Paris

1865

[michaelmoonsbookshop]

[Sold]

[amnhnyc]

Take a look at these glowing Copepods! German zoologist Wilhelm Giesbrecht illustrated these copepods—tiny crustaceans related to crabs and lobsters–glowing against a background that is dark like their daytime ocean environment for his Systematik und Faunistik der pelagischen Copepoden des Golfes von Neapel…(Systematics and geographical distribution of the pelagic copepods of the Gulf of Naples…) published in 1892.

See this and 45 other exquisite reproductions from 33 rare and beautifully illustrated scientific works in the new exhibition, Opulent Oceans: Extraordinary Rare Book Selections from the American Museum of Natural History, now open.

[ohsoromanov]

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built in 2008 by the Norwegian government as the world’s largest secure seed storage, is intended to protect thousands of varieties of essential food crops against things like nuclear disaster, disease and climate change.

Now, the devastation brought on by the war in Syria, which has raged on for four years and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, has prompted researchers to request some of the samples they gave to the vault, as their collection of crops in Aleppo was destroyed in the fighting.

Among the samples requested by the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) crops resistant to drought that could help scientists develop and secure food supplies in the face of climate change in dry areas worldwide.

It’s nested 130 meters into the rock and 130 meters above sea level, and is robustly secured to keep samples frozen, even in the event of a power outage, for 200 years.

In total, the vault now holds 860,000 samples, from almost all nations, according to Reuters. (X)

[beckerrarebooks]

The brain three ways.  From the top:

Thomas Willis.  The anatomy of the brain and nerves.  Birmingham, Ala. : Classics of Neurology and Neurosurgery Library, 1983; 1664.

Charles Bell.  The anatomy of the brain, explained in a series of engravings.  London: Printed by C. Whittingham, 1802.

Jean Marc Bourgery.  Atlas of human anatomy.  Los Angeles: Taschen, [2005].  Originals published between 1831-1854.

[biomedicalephemera]

Dermatomes of the Adult Male

A dermatome is an area of the body supplied by a single spinal nerve ganglion. Physical sensations (and as such, autonomic/spinal reactions) are controlled by these nerves.

Technically “dermatome” only refers to the skin supplied by that nerve (derma - “skin”, -tome “single section”), but as the lower graphics show, we’ve also determined what nerves control the sensations of our muscles.

As you can see in the graphic of the trigeminal nerve innervation at the top, there’s a moderate amount of variation between individuals, but the basic layout is generally the same.

Because the basic layout of our nerves is known, when someone damages a nerve, which nerve has been damaged can sometimes be determined by what area of the skin has abnormal sensations. A few years ago, I damaged my elbow at work, and it was determined that my ulnar nerve had been affected, due to the lower third of my arm and hand being numb. Thankfully it’s since recovered, but in some situations, nerve damage can cause permanent altering of sensation in the parts of the body affected.

Atlas of Applied (Topographical) Human Anatomy for Students and Practitioners. J. Howell Evans, 1906.

[hotdamn5sos]

[nizzlekicks]

When you broke but you woke

[thresholdofzero-deactivated2018]

Wait… Guys what?

Is this what you guys think it means when GMO comes up in conversation?

Do you know what else is a GMO?

Dogs. Literally ALL dogs have had their genetics modified to make them more docile, loyal, trusting, energetic, obedient ect.

Ears of corn used to be the size of your thumb. Through selective ‘breeding’ we chose the strains of corn that were the biggest, fastest growing, most resilient ect. Ect.

THAT is a GMO. I don’t know where the idea that genetic modification meant they’re injecting your food stuffs with chemicals to change its DNA. That’s not how it works.

However, they ARE spraying your veggies with pesticides and that is something you should be worried about.

Companies like Monsanto are evil. But not because they are breeding crops to feed more people. But because they’re monopolizing the farming market, sueing farmers who share a geographic area and have some of the same strains of crops in their fields because of unavoidable cross pollination and lying about their business practices.

[pyronoid-d-deactivated20181217]

This is Normal Borlaug. In 1942 he received his Ph. D in plant pathology and genetics. In Mexico, he developed semi-dwarf, high-yield, disease resistant varieties of wheat. A genetically modified food. He introduced these to Mexico, Pakistan and India, resulting in double the wheat yields in a 5 year span. In 1970, Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for saving one billion lives from starvation, and contributing to world peace through increasing the world food supply.

Genetically modified food is great.

[fuckyeah-nerdery]

This, a thousand fucking times this. Privilege is spouting and spreading pseudo-science bullshit you saw on your Facebook feed or on Twitter because unlike people in drought and famine prone areas of the world, you have the option to do just that. Those other parts of the world that don’t have the benefit of a food surplus and can’t pick and choose what they eat depend on GMOs to not die of starvation or watch their children waste away. I despise Monsanto as much as the next person and if they ever go out of business, I’ll be the first to dance a jig, but condemning GMOs just because one megacorp is a pile of shitbags is beyond idiotic. If scientists can create new strains of seeds that can withstand disease, pests, all while yielding more foodstuff, then we should be throwing our support behind them.

[ischemgeek]

Also, “They are feeding us chemicals!” is a fundamentally ridiculous statement. 

Why? 

As a chemist, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret: 

Everything is chemicals.

[intj-confessions]

Scientists have added extra nutrients to calorie-rich, but nutrient-poor foods that can be grown in countries with limited agriculture. And yet oftentimes they are blocked from getting these GMOs to the countries that desperately need them because of ignorant arguments like this. So yes, pat yourself on the back for stopping a technology that can help prevent starvation because you don’t know how chemicals work.

[cordyceptsinc]

Firstly, all of the commentary under the initial tweet is important!

Secondly, the first tweet of this thread might as well be from my invented Cordycepts world (my OCAD thesis project), so ta-da! It goes on the blog.

[amnhnyc]

Recently, a long-hidden treasure of natural history was released–The Butterflies of North America: Titian Peale’s Lost Manuscript. 

Based on a never-before-published manuscript preserved for nearly a century in the American Museum of Natural History’s Rare Book Collection, the book is packed with color plates bearing Peale’s beautiful illustrations of butterflies and caterpillars.

Now you can see these newly-published images in the Museum’s Digital Special Collections! Take a look. 

[itscolossal]

Exquisite Marine Life Specimens Imagined in Glass by Steffen Dam

[thebrainscoop]

I was at the American Museum of Natural History today and it occurred to me that while the museum is full of stuffed land mammals and birds, the hall of marine life seems more populated by plastic models of animals than by real specimens. Is it harder to preserve animals like dolphins, fish, octopus, etc without submerging them in water? And why might jarred specimens not be on display?

Hey there! 

In a nutshell, yes, it is more difficult/expensive/time-consuming to prepare cetaceans (whales, dolphins [let us not forget the Malm Whale, an ambitious if somewhat ridiculous undertaking]) in the same way you would, say, a bear, or large bird. 1. they’re huge, and 2. they’re super-duper fatty. It’s likely that, no matter how hard you tried to clean it, the blubber would just leech through the skin forever. It’s typically more effective to create a fiberglass model – and lighter, too.

Similarly, fish skin isn’t the same as mammal skin; it’s thin and oily, so most fish are just modeled plastic replicas of the real thing, perhaps with ‘real’ elements (like the fins) added on. There are exceptions - fish like alligator gar can be dehydrated after they’ve been preserved which mummifies them in a way. Invertebrates like octopuses tend to sort of deflate outside of the water, and would dry out and shrivel after some time. 

Sometimes jarred specimens make it on display, but the fire restrictions on having flammable alcohol of any great quantity in a room like an exhibit hall limits a lot of areas where you could display them. Plus, most of those jarred specimens - unlike the taxidermied animals and models specifically created for display in exhibits - aren’t meant for display, they’re in a collection so they may be used in research. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen… 

This ^^^ is in the Natural History Museum in Berlin. It’s a gorgeous display, but I do suspect that continuous light exposure can damage the specimens, or at least bleach out their coloration over time. Regardless, I think it does a great job of showing people what museum collections look like! 

Cheers,Emily

[nemfrog]

Plate XXXI. The development of a bird. _Le monde de la mer_ 1866

[wapiti3]

The animal kingdom, arranged according to its organization, serving as a foundation for the natural history of animals : By Cuvier, Georges, baron, 1769-1832 Via Flickr: Publication info Paris Pichard ,1821-1829. 

BHL Collections: New York Botanical Garden

[ucresearch]

Putting bioethics aside… is it possible to bring back an extinct species?

Using DNA extracted from dead tissues of well-preserved passenger pigeons, UC Santa Cruz biologists Beth Shapiro and Ben Novak are piecing together the entire genome sequence of the passenger pigeon, a species that went extinct 100 years ago.

By comparing the genome to that of their closest genetic relatives, the band-tailed pigeon, scientists will be able to distinguish the genes that give passenger pigeon its unique traits.

And once the particular genes are identified, they can recreate the DNA and then insert the synthesized passenger pigeon DNA into the embryo of the band-tailed pigeon. If the eggs hatch successfully, it will be the rebirth of the extinct bird.

The potential to resurrect extinct species also brings the possibility to restore biodiversity and preserve species on the verge of extinction. However, the ethics of the de-extinction effort is still debated among conservation scientists.

Shapiro recently wrote a book, “How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction,” that examines the scientific and ethical challenges involved with any effort to bring back extinct creatures.

GIF & image credit: KQED & Hemisphere magazine

[uispeccoll]

I love to browse the Q section of the stacks - growing up on Bill Nye the Science Guy, I have a healthy appreciation for the general sciences! This interesting book really caught my eye, as there are a wide variety of images made me want to learn more about it. Published in 1636, here is Delicia Physic-Mathematicae, a book about scientific recreations and ideas for inventions. Daniel Schwenter (Schwender) is the author of this book, and he was also a mathematician, inventor, poet, and librarian!

Want to read this entire book? Check it out on Google Books!

xQ155 S45 v.1

-Lindsay M.

[natbornrebel-deactivated2017052]

[99percentinvisible]

Wonderplants by Sarah Illenberger 

[smithsonianlibrariesarchives]

The “Sea Change” chapter of “Fantastic Worlds” continues to rock our socks with fun facts and great imagery. Pictured here is an model for an early home aquarium from the book “Ocean Gardens : the history of the marine aquarium…” (1857). ““Aqua-vivariums” or miniaturized versions of the ocean floor were a popular household fad in the mid 19th century, and first public aquarium opened in 1853 at the London Zoo.

[smithsonianlibrariesarchives]

In the early 1800s the discovery of the true age of our planet and the fossil remains of the remarkable species that inhabited it before us challenged long-held beliefs. These finds also inspired the creation of narratives about the past that focused on controversial ideas like extinction and the wonders of an Earth dominated by reptiles.

Though the image at the top from volume 1 of Heck’s Iconographic Encyclopaedia of Science, Literature and Art (1851), showing a battle between an ichthyosaur and a plesiosaur, would have been unlikely, it was a widely reproduced image that may have inspired a similar battle scene in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth (bottom image.)

Learn more in the final Chapter of Fantastic Worlds, Underworlds!