Yesterday is the birthday of the man who froze the gallop and thawed it out again.
From, of course, Wikipedia.
Originally published April 10, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
Author: Lori Jia
A trilobite from Lea, a graduate student in ecology.
Click here to go to the full Science Tattoo Emporium.
Originally published April 9, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
Luzius writes:
“I’m a PhD student in Historical Linguistics in Zürich, and I’ve got a glottal stop tattoo on the pinkie of my left hand. It is one of the letters of the International Phonetic Alphabet and it designates a specific consonant occuring in many languages of the world. To articulate a glottal stop, you need to stop the airflow by pressing your vocal cords together, build up pressure from the lungs, and then release the vocal cords with an audible burst. Many dialects of English have a glottal stop instead of /t/ in words like /cat/ or /butter/. It is common in German, too, where you can hear it in front in front of words starting with a vowel, like /Anna/ or /Eis/.
A new map of some of the connections neurons make in the frontal cortex of a monkey’s brain. From PLOS Computational Biology. Bigger image here.
Originally published April 4, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.
My newest “Dissection” column is up at Wired.com. This time around, I take a look at how our brains relay signals. They turn out to do a terrible job. What’s impressive is how they clean up their own mess. Check it out.
[Image via Vesalius Gallery]
(update 4.4.08 9:30 am: link fixed)
Originally published April 4, 2008. Copyright 2008 Carl Zimmer.