From Slate's Vault

Obscura, NYC

That is in fact a turd dropping from the sky, described politely as "faecal earth" by Jocelyn Godwin in her book on the designer of the print, Robert Fludd.

New York Academy of Medicine

'Things perfected by nature are better than those finished by art'

Hilarious Post by Ken M

Damien Hirst, Lapdancer, 2006 at the Tate Modern

The Telegraph

Auguste Rodin's Studio, published by The Telegraph

by Slinkachu, published by the Telegraph

See-Through Art

X-Ray art by Nick Veasey

Of all the things I've posted, THIS is the creepiest.

Shiv Collection, Rikers

via Gothamist

Columbia University Health Sciences Library

NY Times Quote of the Day

"Peculiarities like the remains of fossilized monkey puzzle tree that the Victorians called Whitby Jet and used to make mourning jewelry turn up again suddenly, ready to be back in style"

Ruffles

Curl Up with a Rare Book at UNMC

This looks like a terrible idea...

from HERE

Insects make jewelry too!

"Caddisfly larvae build protective cases using materials found in their environment. Artist Hubert Duprat supplied them with gold leaf and precious stones. This is what they created."

http://www.utaot.com/

Robert Fludd and Healing Crafts

"Fludd had supported the use of the weapon-salve in his Anatomiae amphitheatrum; this was the Paracelsian doctrine that a wound could be cured by anointing the weapon which caused it with a mixture of the patient's blood, moss grown on a human skull, and mummy (human flesh from the body of a hanged man). The cure is based on the theory that there is a magnetic or sympathetic relationship between the weapon and the wound which allows for action over distance to occur; the wound itself needs only to be disinfected with the patient's own urine."

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Anatomical Art at the MoMA

Automated Poop

Growing Lace

See the story at The Guardian

Nasty Marzipan Sculptures

Taking a Shot at Graverobbers

"The gun, which the museum dates to 1710, is mounted on a mechanism that allows it to spin freely. Cemetery keepers set up the flintlock weapon at the foot of a grave, with three tripwires strung in an arc around its position. A prospective grave-robber, stumbling over the tripwire in the dark, would trigger the weapon—much to his own misfortune."

Reposted from HERE

Vision, as Explained Through Radiology and Gorillas

NY Times: Why Even Radiologists Can Miss A Gorilla Hiding In Plain Sight

Nat Geo: When Experts Go Blind

Brass Door Knocker of a Hand

From the Monastery of the Cross, Jerusalem

Bioformology

A Play on Nature's Patterns from the New York Times




And my photos of it:

The Dinner Party

At the Brooklyn Museum

Images from the Brooklyn Museum and the Grolier Club

Grolier Club

Rooms of Wonder: From Wunderkammer to Museum, 1599-1899 exhibition

Brooklyn Museum

Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets exhibition