Stannous Flouride's Book of Truthiness

Wild felines (Felis silvestris*) are found on every continent save Antarctica though most of them are, if not unknown, for the most part unseen. From half to twice the size of a domestic house cat, these are lovely beasts.

*The name Felis silvestris (cat of the woods) is a general term that includes many different species including the one from which the house cat was domesticated.

It is also the source for these two cats’ names:

The amazing Canadian painter Alex Garant

is participating in a pair of gallery openings this Saturday. One at the Gauntlet (1040 Larkin St., SF), and the other at Modern Eden (801 Greenwich Street, SF)

Here’s a time lapse of her painting a portrait of Joe Rogan:

My friend’s previous spider rug fell victim to her dog’s diarrhea and though she was willing to wait until All Hallow’s Eve and buy another, I thought that having to step from a nice warm shower onto a cold tile floor for two months would be barbaric.
So I made her this. The spiders are painted and the webs are embroidered.

I did an image search for ‘spider sihouette’

No printer so I traced them off the screen

I sketched them in chalk

Painted them with acrylic paint

Closer look

The tarantula, edged in brown

When paint dried I tossed it in the dryer to set the acrylic paint

Spiders need webs so I embroidered some

Webs on opposite corners

The finished product

In place

The Smithsonian Institution has begun to put some of its 137 million items into online 3D downloads. They can be examined in 360º and downloaded to be printed in 3D!

From a Tlingit Dakl’aweidí Killer Whale Hat

To Chuck Yeager’s Bell X-1, Glamorous Glennis:

To a full Woolly Mammoth skeleton:

To the Wright Flyer:

To the Revolutionary War gunboat the Philadelphia:

Or a model of the remnants of supernova CasA:

Or a beautiful Chinese (Shang dynasty, ca. 1100-1050 BCE) ewer in the form of an elephant with masks and dragons:

Or a plaster model of the Greek Slave,
by Hiram Powers, 1843 (used to replicate it in marble by Italian craftsmen)

How about an Ecuadorean orchid Embreea herrenhusana:

Or the type of flight suit Amelia Earhart wore on her solo flight across the Atlantic:

I got a bit carried away with these screen caps but there are many more you can explore, including whale fossils,  the recently found Jamestown reliquary, or 2 Abraham Lincoln masks from just before the beginning:

and end:

of his Presidency.

At each page you can click on the page icon on the left for a caption and explanation of the artifact. Read more about the project here.

More fun with signs and other verbiage:

It’s up to you to decide what you want to wear.

Emily McDowell designs greeting cards for family and close friends of cancer patients. The messages are blunt and direct. As a former cancer patient herself now in remission, the designer got irritated when her close circle stop visiting and calling her because they didn’t know what to tell her.

She is making things simple by putting the right words on a sentiment which is most of the time sincere and honest but comes out awkward to the patient. Loneliness and solitude is, according to Emily McDowell the most difficult part of the illness to endure. Despite the loss of hair, fatigue and the heavy medical treatments, loosing friends and family members as a support system because they are having a hard time verbalizing encouragements and empathy is painful. 

In a digital world where motivational quotes are spread out through Instagram and Facebook, these make a difference because they are palpable and create a direct connection between friends, family members and the receiver.

Emily McDowell’s ‘Empathy Cards’ are available at her online shop.

These have gone viral, McDowell has been on NPR and on various other media with her cards. Here’s a follow-up to the events that followed her creations’ debut.

More horny critters:

PUBLISHED by catsmob.com

Okay, not a goat. Just a sheep found in the outback with 40kg (88lbs) of wool:

Brilliant images from the Earth:

Chandra data of Circinus X-1 reveal a set of four rings that appear as circles around the neutron star, providing a rare opportunity to determine the distance to an object on the other side of the Milky Way galaxy. These rings can be seen in the composite image of X-rays from Chandra (red, green, and blue) with a visible light image from the Digitized Sky Survey. These rings are light echoes, which are produced when a burst of X-rays from the star system ricochets off of clouds of dust between Circinus X-1 and Earth. By combining the X-rays with radio data, astronomers can use relatively simple geometry to pinpoint the location of the intervening clouds and then Circinus X-1.

This image combines NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations with data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. As well as the electric blue ram pressure stripping streaks seen emanating from ESO 137-001, a giant gas stream can be seen extending towards the bottom of the frame, only visible in the X-ray part of the spectrum.

1.2 “/pixel, 22.7×35.5 arcmin
North is 2¡ CCW from up
RA = 18h02m25.61s Dec = -23d01m26.9s