StumbleUpon | madscientistgirl's comments & reviews

The Care and Feeding of Faeries

Sat, 17 Jun 2006 23:46:55 -0700

Thanx to Terry for cheering my up with faery-folly ;)

Peer Review : Web Focus : Nature

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:00:06 -0700

Nature Peer Review Trial and Debate

Nature is undertaking a trial of a particular type of open peer review. In this trial, authors whose submissions to Nature are sent for peer review will also be offered the opportunity to participate in an open peer review process (see below for explanation). The trial is optional for authors; it will continue in parallel with Nature's usual procedures, and does not affect the likelihood of eventual publication of the submitted work. At the same time as the trial, Nature is running a web debate on peer review, to which we welcome comments from readers.

Well, this is interesting! I haven't fully dug in yet, but the fact that they are offering room to challenge the current peer-review system, sounds tantalising (since a while ago I was getting a bit worked up about it). Let's hope something good comes out of it.

http://madscientistgirl.stumbleupon.com/review/4444787/

Sun, 11 Jun 2006 03:26:15 -0700

The worst thing about getting older is to see that your parents are getting older too and to realise that one day they won't be here anymore...

MSG - Monosodium Glutamate Information

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:41:59 -0700

From the page: "MSG does not cause headache"

I'm sure there are several people that know me who will disagree with that... ;)

A Step Too Far

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 14:31:14 -0700

Excellent spoof of a softer world. Bizarre and sometimes pretty harsh.

http://madscientistgirl.stumbleupon.com/review/4424517/

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:30:37 -0700

An ode to Magic Lanterns

One of the predecessors of the moving picture was the Magic Lantern, a device facilitating the projection of images or series of images on the wall, much like the modern slide projector. It was dubbed magic since in the early days of the magic lantern the colorful images that mysteriously appeared on the wall or screen were attributed to magical powers.
When I was a kid, the father of one of my friends had an old Magic Lantern. I have fond memories of the afternoons that we would all gather on their attic and watch these old-fashioned slide-shows.

Like with most inventions, a lot of people were involved with the development of the magic lantern. The person credited for the invention is more often a case of nationalistic sentiments rather than historical accuracy.

The earliest references date from 1420 in Liber Instrumentorum, written by Giovanni da Fontana, a young Venetian academic in Padua. He illustrated the mischievous notion of painting demonic shapes on the horn window of an ordinary lantern in order to frighten people with the grotesque shadows thereby cast upon a wall (see right). Clearly the device has no projection lens, so the image it produced would not have been very sharp, though no doubt it served its purpose. Da Fontana may have described the first concept of a magic lantern, although there is no direct evidence that he was also involved in its invention.

Another famous figure in the history of the lantern was Athanasius Kircher, a German Jesuit priest and scientist. The 1646 edition of his Ars magna lucis et umbrae included the description of a primitive projection system whereby sunlight reflected off a mirror is projected through a lens on a screen. The second edition, published in 1671, included the first drawings of a magic lantern (see right). Kircher is often mistakingly credited for the invention of the magic lantern for when he published his drawings, the lantern was already described by many others and probably already in use.

A more likely candidate was Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch physicist studying optics and acclaimed for his wave theory of light. In Huygens' books we find the first description of a complete, working magic lantern and in 1659 already he constructed a projecting lantern with a three-element lens. For that reason Christiaan Huygens is today considered the most likely inventor of the magic lantern. (Of course, this claim may be a perfect example of the nationalistic sentiments I referred to earlier ;))
However Christiaan was not very proud of his invention. He was ashamed because it appeared that various swindlers were using his instrument to frighten people. His father, who served at the French court of Louis XIV, once ordered a lantern upon the king's request. Christiaan did not comply with this request because he was afraid that he would ridicule the Huygens family.

Around the same time Thomas Rasmussen Walgensten, a Danish mathematician, also started to develop working models of the lantern projector (see right). He was the first person to use the term Laterna Magica and not only realised the technical and artistic possibilities of the Magic Lantern, but also its economic potential, travelling round Europe demonstrating and selling them.

http://madscientistgirl.stumbleupon.com/review/4425163/

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 06:29:48 -0700

From the 18th Century onwards hundreds of people where involved in the development of the lantern and its accessories. In the early years of the nineteenth century showmen with lanterns travelled around the country giving shows in the places they stopped. As magic lanterns became cheaper to buy, and readily available in shops, people could create Lantern shows for themselves at home.
In 1895 the Lumiere Brothers invented the Cinematographe and the Magic Lantern soon took second place. As motion picture developed, the lantern rapidly moved all the way to the background, only to be removed from its dusty corners by the odd collector and occasional magic lantern show, celebrating nostalgia.

Three magic lanterns, ca. 1860

Some antique magic lantern slides:

Sources and further reading:

The Magic Lantern Society
Antique Lantern Slides
De Luikerwaal - Dutch magic lantern site
Adventures in Cybersound- Magic Lanterns
A thrill in the dark - Victorian Magic Lantern shows

BBC - Liverpool - Features - Number 59

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 01:15:39 -0700

This statue is part of the exhibition "Another Place" by sculptor Anthony Gormley, on display on Crosby beach in Merseyside, England since last summer. The exhibition comprises 100 cast-iron, life-size figures made from casts of the artists' own body and ranged along three kilometres of the coastline, up to a kilometre out to sea. The figures are positioned rising out of the sand and sea at different heights, but each is looking out to sea. Gormley, who often uses the human form in his sculpture, says of the work: "It is no hero, no ideal, just the industry reproduced body of a middle-aged man trying to remain standing and trying to breathe, facing the horizon busy with ships moving materials and manufacturing things around the planet"

The wonderful picture on the left was made by deltadreamer, who lives nearby and can tell you more about it.

Text abstracted from here

First Place | Community Awareness Award

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 15:36:39 -0700

Photoseries "Upstate girls" by freelance photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally who won a Picture of the Year Award in the category "Community Awareness" for it. It tells the stories of a group of women and girls. They got the short end of the stick from the moment they were born, having babies way too young, living on the verge of poverty, spending half their adolescent years in confinement and so on.
The saddest thing is, they will pass their lifestyles to their children, who will mostlikely also grow up devoid of chances for a better life.

The Girls Outside the Courthouse
Three days after Jessica was released from jail she accompanied her friends to see their boyfriends, who were being brought from the jail to the courtroom for an audience with the judge. Visiting jail and 'showing up for court' when a boyfriend or girlfriend is locked up is a bigger part of the social life of a teenager in Troy than going to the movies. Jessica once told me that she wished that she could be locked up again so she would not be bored as she often is since her release. Jessica said that if you could decide when to get out that 'jail would not be that bad.'

Billie Jean Before A Fight
Kayla offers Billie Jean her knife for protection. There is word around Troy that her sister's boyfriend wants her beat up and is 'hiring' another girl to do it. Billie Jean's sister won't intervene as her boyfriend has a job. The fathers of her other two children is in jail and can offer no child support.

The award winning Spider Catcher

Thu, 08 Jun 2006 10:54:37 -0700

Very simple, yet so effective. Perfect tool for arachnaphobics with a heart for animals.