The life of an author — particularly an author of fiction – is necessarily connected to that which is most dangerous: our consciousness. It is often through the exploratory process of creative literature that we touch the exciting possibilities and subversive consequences of our capacities as a species. Yet for all of the grandiose ways […]
Continue reading“In the theatre there are 1,500 cameras rolling at the same time- in the cinema, only one,” as quoted by Orson Welles, the prolific director of the most studied film of all time, Citizen Kane. Within the last century cinema has grown from pioneering silent films into orchestrated musicals, “spaghetti westerns” and has taken us […]
Continue readingThe cliché goes that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but some photographs eschew any such numeric limitation and go on talking to us forever; certain photo portraits have that rare power. Far more than pictorial representations of celebrated or instantly recognizable figures, they capture so much more, seeming to encapsulate not simply the […]
Continue readingBeing diagnosed with any incurable disease is misfortune enough, but society for some reason looks upon the diagnoses of rare diseases as a special kind of grim fate dealt by the universe, the house which always wins. But sometimes — a one in ten million or more sometimes — a person is stricken with a […]
Continue readingImage Source What’s so great about having eyes anyway? If these eyeless animals could talk, they’d tell you that vision is overrated. Each one of these ten incredible creatures has an amazing story to tell. In the darkest environments, with nothing to go on but smell, touch and hearing, they manage to feed and reproduce, […]
Continue readingPublic Stoning Iranian courts still order public stonings, and those sentenced are often severely whipped before they are stoned. Women are buried up to their necks before a stoning. If convicted of adultery, Iranian law requires the stones not be too big or too small so that the probable death is not merciful or prolonged. […]
Continue readingPaul of Tarsus Saul of Tarsus, a.k.a. Paul the Apostle, Paul of Tarsus [?-65 c.e.] was a Hellenistic Jew and student of Gamaliel the Elder who served as enforcer for the Pharisaic Sanhedrin against the apostate Christian sect following the crucifixion of Jesus. Around 33 c.e. he experienced a dramatic conversion experience while on the […]
Continue readingThe world is out to get you. That’s how I ended up feeling after compiling this list of horrifying, permanently scarring, eternally terrifying rare diseases. Genetic, infectious, parasitic and everything in-between, these 15 diseases scar their victims for life and scar us mentally having looked at them. 15. Blaschko’s Lines So, it turns out we […]
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Those who are inspired by a model other than Nature, a mistress above all masters, are laboring in vain. – Leonardo Da Vinci Biomimicry – The practice of developing sustainable human technologies inspired by nature. Sometimes called Biomimetics or Bionics, it’s basically biologically inspired engineering. 1. Velcro The most famous example of biomimicry was the […]
Continue readingGenetic Algorithm: A heuristic search technique used in computing and Artificial Intelligence to find optimized solutions to search problems using techniques inspired by evolutionary biology: mutation, selection, reproduction [inheritance] and recombination. 1. Automotive Design Using Genetic Algorithms [GAs] to both design composite materials and aerodynamic shapes for race cars and regular means of transportation (including […]
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