Coloured X-ray of a woman’s foot in a high-heel shoe. The construction of the shoe is clearly seen; so is the way that the foot is forced to rest mainly on its toes. Bones and soft tissues of the lower leg and foot are visible. The lower leg bones are the tibia and fibula. The foot comprises many bones, including the calcaneus (heel bone), several tarsal bones, five metatarsals, culminating in the phalanges bones of the toes.
Hugh Turvey of Gusto Images has been creating amazing X-Ray art pictures for many years.
I recently read Bill Brysons’s A Short History of Nearly Everything which was a highly entertaining introduction to the history of science. There are well over 400 reviews about the this best seller at Amazon and I tend to agree with the general consensus that despite the scientific or methodological flaws, it’s a wonderful and inspiring book… especially for readers with a non-scientific background such as myself.
At times Bryson’s book seemed like a non-stop flood of anecdotes and trivia, but it did get me in high gear with my interest in science. One of the many repercussions was that I found myself googling around for interesting X-Ray images. Another site I found was a collection of radiographic art photos of plants entitled X-Ray-art.com.
Posted by api at 09:52 - 1 Comment »
An interesting site by an elderly storm chaser:
Extremeinstability.com
I should have redone this page looooonnnngggg ago. So, here we go. I’m a storm chaser. No duh eh? Name is Mike Hollingshead. Born and raised in Blair Nebraska way back when(76 for the age curious out there). One day I’ll have a decent pic of myself and I’ll put it above. This will have to do for now(current as of May 25, 2005). Yes I know I need to shave. So anyway to the nitty gritty to get this over with. I’ve always loved severe weather, or just interesting weather in general. Most chasers have some long ago memory of a tornado or storm they can fall back on as their first interest; I can’t. All I can come up with is one day in a park, maybe age 7 or so, thinking I was controlling the wind. I’d wait and think I could make it blow stronger. Very thrilling eh? I’d always have to stay up during storms and watch the lightning out the window. It all just grew and grew, especially after my first tornado video “Tornado-The Entity”….or was it “The Enemy Wind”? Ok my history is pretty sad since I can’t recall such IMPORTANT details. Anyway, whichever video it was I was impressed, but it didn’t make me a chaser. The more images of supercells I started seeing online (MUCH later) made me become an actual chaser. I just had to see them for myself. This would be about 8 years after those first tornado videos, after the internet had been around for a few years.
We NEVER get storms like that here in Finland which is a pity. But we do get a lot of snow sometimes.
Posted by api at 11:26 - No Comments »
Arctic seed vault
The vault’s purpose is to ensure survival of crop diversity in the event of plant epidemics, nuclear war, natural disasters or climate change; and to offer the world a chance to restart growth of food crops that may have been wiped out.
At temperatures of minus 18C (minus 0.4F), the seeds could last hundreds, even thousands, of years. Even if all cooling systems failed, explained Mr Riis-Johansen, the temperature in the frozen mountain would never rise above freezing due to the permafrost on the mountainside.
To quote one of my mottos: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”
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A kammi is a type of traditional semi-permenent shelter typical of Lappland. Lappland is inhabited in part by natives called the Saami people. While hitchhiking to a little solo expedition at the Paistunturit area I got a ride from a friendly Saami lady. She was on her way to a funeral and she was wearing the full traditional costume for the occasion. I learned a few things about their way of life during the ride. All three of their most sacred Ailigas hills have a radio mast these days. She also inquired if I was able to kill a reindeer if we happen to hit one on the road. I told her that I haven’t done it before. She instructed me that there are two spots where to stab the reindeer with a knife to kill it quickly.. either the back of the head or stab directly in the eye. All in all, a very informative and thought provoking encounter. I found myself wondering why I know more about the life of Amazon indians and African bushmans that about the life of the indigenous people in my own country.
Anyway, where was I.. oh yes, the traditional shelters of Saami people. I hiked through the wilderness area near Kevo and found a few unmarked kammis on my way to Utsjoki. Some of them were made of natural materials such as the one above, but some of them were made of fancy modern roofind material and had mattrasses, gas stoves, books, mirrors and other luxuries. On occasion I chose to use my modern tent instead of staying at the kammi though. If interested, please check out a gallery of pictures taken on the trip.
Jouni Laaksonen maintains an excellent catalog of cabins in Lappland. Some of the known kammis are listed there as well.
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I recently finished a web site makeover for Helsinki Dance Company. One of the elements on the new site is a Quicktime intro video. It was a tremendous joy to be able to work on a project like this with a considerable degree of artistic freedom. I used layering, time remapping, motion paths and Live Type effects, all of which are standard features of Final Cut Pro. It is a marvelous, creative tool that really lets you get your ideas on the screen without drowning you in technical details. The kaleidoscope effect was made with a free plug-in originally programmed for After Effects.
On the front page there is a rolling feet video element which was a bit tricky to optimize, but finally I got it to work with the new alpha channel support of Flash 8. It helps set the mood and ambience without overpowering the page with excessive eye candy.
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