In honor or shark-swimming season (see below for implied date limits and locations), here’s the beginning of an essay by Richard J. Johns [pictured here], attributed by him to Voltaire Cousteau: How to Swim With Sharks: A Primer Forward Actually, nobody wants to swim with sharks. It is not an acknowledged sport and it is neither […]
Year: 2013
The breakfast-cereal bat comes to roost at the museum
The pipistrelle bat (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) that made headlines (and this blog) in Germany last November, after the Chemisches und Veterinäruntersuchungsambt (CVUA-Stuttgart) reported its find in a box of breakfast cereals, is in the news again. The mummified insectivore is now a registered specimen (NMR 9990- 03109) in the Natural History Museum of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. […]
Teller tells about deception, perhaps truthfully
Teller, the usually-one-named magician who partners with the often-two-named Penn Jillette to form the pair called Penn & Teller, talks about deception, in an essay in Smithsonian magazine. He begins to get to the point, by saying: Magic’s not easy to pick apart with machines, because it’s not really about the mechanics of your senses. […]
The Image of Those Who Make Medical Images
Radiologists, the professionals who create medical images, upon whose skill, care, and truthfulness we all rely, are a colorful bunch of people. A recent letter/diatribe in a medical journal hints at just how colorful and bright some of them can be: “Avoiding Testocracy,” Richard B. Gunderman, MD [pictured here], PhD, Zachary Ballenger, MD and Darel […]