A new video game called Mass: We Pray brings new family fun to those who can't wait until Sunday to go to church. It has a cross-shaped motion-sensing controller reminiscent of a Wiimote, and you can collect "grace points" in order to unlock holy mysteries. The release date is slated for Spring 20... More.
Scientific American talks evidence, digging into seven arguments against the reality of climate change that, if not the most frequently-cited in general, are certainly the most frequently cited in BoingBoing comment threads. Personally, I've started trying to avoid the snarky, dismissive tone this p... More.
Scientists in the Netherlands successfully engineered pork-like meat in a lab recently, according to the Telegraph. No report on how it tastes yet, but it's possible that faux beef could be gracing our dinner tables within five years. ... More.
Charlie Todd says: "For our latest mission, Agent Lathan pretended to get lost during a Knicks game. Throughout the second half he kept appearing further and further away from his assigned seat with a confused look on his face." After a while, a bunch of people started calling out to Rob. Where's... More.
Mike Arrington writes that the CrunchPad project has self-destructed over greed, jealously and miscommunication. Short version: the hardware partner tried to screw him and it is now lawsuit time. This is a real shame, because the low-end tablet had a great design, was open to hackers, and represente... More.
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Going on the Xmas list.
It's called a Beauchene skull. We use it to teach the bones of the skull in anatomy and physiology classes. You may be able to find good replica skulls from www.carolina.com or www.wardsci.com (two biology supply houses that I order from). Real skulls are incredibly expensive and only shipped to academic institutions. They also sell fake "alien" skulls these days for comparative anatomy classes. They look really cool.
That's cool, but the mention of "3D printers" just makes my brain freeze. Why is it called a printer? If it's creating an object in three dimensions it would be called a fabricator, not a printer.
You can get this to go with it.
http://shop.transmissionatelier.com/1867antiqueanatomyprintskullbyhenryhsmith-p-8.html
It's called a "Beauchene" mount. I've seen them for sale at boneroom.com - expect to pay thousands of dollars, though. I expect a cast would be cheaper, but I haven't found one yet. (and I'd like to, too!)
Because the machines that are used to make these 3D objects are, in fact, printers. If you know how a laser printer, or even ink printer works, then you have a good idea of how a 3D one works. One of the major differences is the use of different materials, though the overall technique is similar.
They even have printers that use biological/genetic material instead of ink. Their use is slowly becoming more prominent in research labs these days.
You can purchase casts of the beauchene/exploded skull from most anatomical model vendors
http://www.buyamag.com/skull_model.php for instance
Though from the anatomy teacher perspective the disarticulated skulls are way more fun/useful. You could save 700 bucks and design your own 'explosion' with one of those.
OK, maybe I'm just dumb or didn't take too many science classes, but what's an exploded skull? I'm going to assume that's not literal.
anatomical chart company, only $1506.00
http://anatomical.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_QS9
The best part about Beauchene skulls is how they're made. The sutures of a skull-- where the individual bones join-- are too tightly knit to pull apart without breaking the bones. So you pour rice in through the auditory foramen (earholes), and drip water on it until the gradual expansion of the rice distends the bones.
"My head hurts."
"How does your head hurt?"
"Like it's full of dry rice, and someone is dripping water in my ear."
Sweet, Evolution finally did it's upstairs. I rented a Gavial skull from there once. And paid 50 damn dollars for a bumble bee.
I used to know a surgeon who specialised in fixing peoples faces after bad things happened - a lot of what he did involved fitting metal plates. He would take a CT scan of the patient, extract the skull, and then make a skull-model from foam using a 5-axis mill. He used the foam model to check the plates fit properly. Very cool, but somehow also slightly creepy. I never did get a model of my skull..shame...