Ektopia

My Anatomy are a series of imaginary anatomical cards. Bizarre and brilliant all the way. [via]

Fleshmap: Studies of Desire - “We asked hundreds of people how much they like being caressed on various parts of their body, and how exciting it is to touch different places on their lovers. Their answers, a total of 33,871 ratings covering 707 points on male and female bodies, provide a collective portrait of desire.” Basically, men aren’t being touched where they want to as much as they want to and women are being touched too much where the men want too! No real news there then! And in this image below you’ll notice that men aren’t at all interested in womens’ left scapula! [via]

Netters Anatomy comes to the iPhone - “Using outstanding anatomical illustrations from Netter’s hugely popular Atlas of Human Anatomy (4th Edition), Netter’s Anatomy allows you to carry the bestselling reference for human anatomy on your iPhone or iPod touch. Navigate through images with the flick of a finger, pinch to zoom, and tap to test your knowledge of muscles, bones, vessels, viscera and the joints. Use study mode to explore images at your own pace and quiz mode to test yourself on what you know”. Here’s a video of it in action. Another reason to covert the iPhone. [via]

What do you get when you mix cornstarch, water and a subwoofer together? Some crazy organic white life-form that looks like it’s writhing in pain and trying to escape the petri-dish!

The Homestar Spa adds some visual tranquillity to your bath time. Either project stars around the room, petals in the bath or even a deep blue sea theme complete with swimming fish. It’s going to be around the £70 mark. [via]

Air Monsters “is a mobile instrument that seeks to explore the issue of air pollution. This is achieved by a fictional narrative of invisible monsters that resides in the air which metaphorically represents the air pollutants in the air. The function of Air Monsters is to translate actual air pollution data into visual information in the form of monsters, from invisible to visible. These monsters each have a behaviour of their own and is directly affected by the various changes in location and environment.” I love the way that the monsters themselves are visually based on the chemical elements. [via]

A nicely curated collection of creepy medical manikins. [via]

So it turns out that if you dig a straight hole through the Earth from any one place to another you will have a 42 minute journey if you were to only take downward gravity into account. Douglas Adams would be proud!

We popped over to London Town yesterday, which was an ideal time to link up with NYC The Telectroscope.

“Hardly anyone knows that a secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel has finally been completed. An extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope has been installed at both ends which miraculously allows people to see right through the Earth from London to New York and vice versa.”

Kind of like an silent old version of a webcam you could say! Anyways, we waited in line, so that our little Daughter could hold up a message (”MADE IN NYC”) to whomever was looking in NYC’s lens, but just as we got to the front of the line we heard one of the people looking after the miracle’s connection had “gone down”…I couldn’t work out how optics “go down” but accepted their explanation and left.

It’s a charming story and we’ll definitely go back in a few weeks…we will make a steam punk optical connection with NYC! Here’s Nina waiting patiently in line!

Here’s a really interesting video oout of sync metronomes syncing together when they are placed on a plank balance on a couple of cans. The only other time I’ve seen this effect is on the Millennium Bridge!