The Seed Cathedral — tens of thousands of undulating fiber optic rods…

…with different varieties of seeds embedded in the tips.

(h/t SLOG, pics from Dezeen)

Oh dear. Sometimes it’s so hard to let go.

And most importantly, don’t forget to join us MARCH 13, at 1pm for the PLUTO IS A PLANET PROTEST MARCH AND RALLY. The march starts at the Greenwood Space Travel Supply store (8414 Greenwood Ave N) and will end at Neptune Coffee (8415 Greenwood Ave N).

But really, Greenwood Space Travel Supply is all kinds of awesome, even if they’re weirdly co-dependent with small rocks in the outer solar system. They’re the Seattle branch of the 826 network, which is a non-profit writing center for kids.

They also have cool t-shirts.

In honor of the Oscars, I spent last night watching a movie. It was set on another world, populated by exotic flora and fauna (e.g., a blue creature with a long tail). The good inhabitants of this world live as one with all nature, and refuse to kill or do harm. A caucasian human shows up, and saves the world from disaster by being brave enough to kill. The movie was in 3-D, creatively combining real-action and animation, and was lushly filmed with dramatic scenes of waterfalls and forests and mountains. The movie’s title starts with the letter “A”.

Of course, I’m talking about Alice in Wonderland. What, is there some other movie you were thinking of? Spoilers follow (although it’s not the type of movie that gets spoiled), so if you’re hyper-sensitive about such things (as I am), cease reading now.

Alice and Avatar make an excellent study in contrasts. They both use the same canvas, and there are remarkable superficial similarities between the two. However, I found Alice to be much more interesting and satisfying as a film. Avatar, as the entire world seems to have noted, has a completely mundane and predictable story, with a sound-byte message. Within about ten minutes of the film, you know more-or-less the full arc. It’s a reasonable story, with lots of visual candy, and I can’t say I was bored (which is saying a lot for a three hour film). But, at least for me, it left little mark. To go to such great lengths to build up an entire world, you’d think you’d have something profoundly new and interesting to say. Sean does a nice job of summarizing some of Avatar’s failings.

I found Alice, on the other hand, to be much more entertaining. For any self-respecting science geek, having a movie which revolves around a vorpal sword has to warm the cockles of your heart. But there’s substance behind all of the talking flowers and Jabberwocks. For example, consider the good and bad queens. They had interesting, quirky personalities, and didn’t play directly to stereotype. In Avatar, these roles would have been completely one dimensional. In Alice, the Red Queen has moments of doubt, and seems genuinely surprised that she is not loved. Images of hearts proliferate, to no avail. The White Queen, meanwhile, swats at “dragonflies” while professing her love for all creatures. She seems somewhat annoyed that she’s not allowed to wreak mayhem on her rival, as if she’s struggling within the bounds of the “good queen” convention. There are subtle physical manifestations as well: her snow white hair is dark underneath, and she has slightly dark circles about her eyes. The distance between the two queens (and sisters) is not as great as it initially appears. These satisfying levels of grey give the characters more depth and nuance (something that is completely absent in Avatar). Alice demands that the viewer do some work; the movie does not present everything neatly wrapped with a bow. The moral of the film is left a bit hazy. It has something to do with letting your imagination run wild. Resisting convention. Living in the world you want, rather than the one you find. At the end of Avatar, the main character remains on Pandora. Alice, on the other hand, chooses to leave Wonderland and return to London. Which film is more courageous?

It’s generally easy to write a damning book review. It’s much harder to write a positive and enthusiastic one. So how about a review that includes this paragraph?:

I put down Rebecca Skloot’s first book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” more than once. Ten times, probably. Once to poke the fire. Once to silence a pinging BlackBerry. And eight times to chase my wife and assorted visitors around the house, to tell them I was holding one of the most graceful and moving nonfiction books I’ve read in a very long time.

That’s Dwight Garner reviewing the book for the New York Times. What’s more, this is a nonfiction book revolving around science! Henrietta Lacks died at age 31 of cervical cancer. She was relatively poor, and completely unknown. No tombstone marks her grave. Without any sort of consent or awareness, some of her cells were “stolen” during her treatment. It turned out that the cells could be cultured, and they rapidly became a key tool in biomedicine. Salk used her cells to develop a vaccine for polio. The cells are ubiquitous, living on and thriving half a century after Henrietta Lacks’ death. Although this was all news to me, apparently any self-respecting biologist has heard of HeLa. Her full story has plenty of moral and philosophical implications, as well as basic science. Henrietta Lacks has had a profound, and completely unwitting, impact on our lives. Wired magazine has a chart:

Garner ends his review with:

This is the place in a review where critics tend to wedge in the sentence that says, in so many words, “This isn’t a perfect book.” And “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” surely isn’t. But there isn’t much about it I’d want to change. It has brains and pacing and nerve and heart, and it is uncommonly endearing. You might put it down only to wipe off the sweat.

I think he liked the book. Other reviews have been similarly enthusiastic (see Skloot’s blog for links). “Immortal Life” is definitely heading to my bedside table. But apparently one of my co-bloggers has recently published a book, and I should probably read that one first. If only I could find time.

Apologies for the dismal lack of blogging — apparently even scientists travel around the holidays, who knew? I’m in South Carolina at the moment, so instead of the well-constructed argument (complete with witty parenthetical asides) on a pressing issue of the moment that I’d love to provide, please accept this simple link to some sketches by Richard Feynman. (Via Chad Orzel, author of How to Teach Physics to Your Dog.)

Feynman’s fondness for drawing is well-known, especially when the subject was naked ladies. The sketches aren’t going to win any art competitions, but they’re certainly better that I could do. And here’s one I bet very few professional artists could pull off:

I find that the subtle use of integration by parts really speaks of man’s inhumanity to man, don’t you agree?

But my favorite recent example of science-inflected art has to be this newly discovered late-period Jackson Pollock:

Oops, sorry; that’s not an abstract expressionist masterpiece at all. It’s a plot of theoretical predictions and experimental constraints for dark matter, as linked by Brian Mingus in comments. Check out dmtools if you’d like to make your own plot. Science and art are for everyone.

Cormac McCarthy is one of my favorite contemporary authors. I find his wordsmithing absolutely compelling, right up there with Salman Rushdie (which is high praise in my book). Both McCarthy and Rushdie carry the mantle of Vladimir Nabokov (which is the highest praise in my book). Here’s a taste from No Country for Old Men, musing on the arrow of time (I apologize for the length; I couldn’t help myself):

---

He watched her, his chin in his hand. All right, he said. This is the best I can do.
He straightened out his leg and reached into his pocket and drew out a few coins and took one and held it up. He turned it. For her to see the justice of it. He held it between his thumb and forefinger and weighed it and he flipped it spinning in the air and caught it and slapped it down on his wrist. Call it, he said.
She looked at him, at his outheld wrist. What? She said.
Call it.
I wont do it.
Yes you will. Call it
God would not want me to do that.
Of course he would. You should try to save yourself. Call it. This is your last chance.
Heads, she said.
He lifted his hand away. The coin was tails.
I’m sorry.
She didnt answer.
Maybe it’s for the best.
She looked away. You make it like it was the coin. But you’re the one.
It could have gone either way.
The coin didnt have no say. It was just you.
Perhaps. But look at it my way. I got here the same way the coin did.
She sat sobbing softly. She didnt answer.
For things at a common destination there is a common path. Not always easy to see. But there.
Everything I ever thought has turned out different, she said. There aint the least part of my life I could of guessed. Not this, not none of it.
I know.
You wouldnt of let me off noway.
I had no say in the matter. Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased. I had no belief in your ability to move a coin to your bidding. How could you? A person’s path through the world seldom changes and even more seldom will it change abruptly. And the shape of your path was visible from the beginning.
She sat sobbing. She shook her head.
Yet even though I could have told you how all of this would end I thought it not too much to ask that you have a final glimpse of hope in the world to lift your heart before the shroud drops, the darkness. Do you see?
Oh God, she said. Oh God.
I’m sorry.
She looked at him a final time. You dont have to, she said. You dont. You dont.
He shook his head. You’re asking that I make myself vulnerable and that I can never do. I have only one way to live. It doesnt allow for special cases. A coin toss perhaps. In this case to small purpose. Most people dont believe that there can be such a person. You can see what a problem that must be for them. How to prevail over that which you refuse to acknowledge the existence of. Do you understand? When I came into your life your life was over. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the end. You can say that things could have turned out differently. That they could have been some other way. But what does that mean? They are not some other way. They are this way. You’re asking that I second say the world. Do you see?
Yes, she said, sobbing. I do. I truly do.
Good, he said. That’s good. Then he shot her.

---

Cormac happens to live in Santa Fe. I bump into him now and again, usually at the Santa Fe Institute, where he does much of his writing. The SFI is one of the most beautiful research venues I know of. Cascading levels of interaction space, with sofas and blackboards, ringed by offices with views of the mountains and the valleys surrounding Santa Fe. Populated by an eclectic and stimulating group of people. And there are really, really good cream puffs at afternoon tea. It’s just up the street from where I live, and I should spend more time there.

Cormac is wonderfully interesting, and not as dark as much of his work (e.g., The Road, No Country for Old Men, Blood Meridian, Child of God). It also turns out Cormac is old school. He has written all of his novels to date on an Olivetti Lettera 32 manual typewriter. Since undoubtedly the majority of our readers are unfamiliar with this ancient technology, suffice it to say that it is roughly halfway between a stone tablet and an iPhone. After 46 years, Cormac’s typewriter is giving up. Some of the keys no longer function. And although there is a genre of literature predicated on omitting letters, Cormac is a traditionalist, and prefers a full alphabet. Thus he is auctioning off his typewriter (he has already acquired an antediluvian replacement). Most importantly, the proceeds of the auction will benefit the Santa Fe Institute. In some ways, this is an opportunity akin to owning Shakespeare’s quill. And you directly contribute to the scientific enterprise! The auction is today. Bid here. (Note: they’re expecting at least $15k, so it’s not for the faint of heart.)

This was originally relegated to a tweet, but it deserves to be elevated to a blog post. Bobby McFerrin, at the World Science Festival, demonstrating the pentatonic scale. A rare combination of joy, passion, and teaching. I dare you not to smile at the 0:42 mark.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Too busy at the moment to provide what is traditionally known as “content.” Instead, enjoy this artistic and message-conveying video, sent by loyal reader Markus.

Docking from Mato Atom on Vimeo.

(found in a list compiled by one of my kids, cross referenced to the relevant page number in Roald Dahl’s “Matilda”)

• gormless
• toddle
• diddled
• rakish
• throttling
• asinine
• formidable
• obstinate
• piffle
• regale
• aimiably
• blancmange
• parabola
• clot
• brigand
• suppurating
• implacable
• replete
• comatose
• swot

Gawd I love Roald Dahl. How could you read that list and not want to know what the book was about?

(Sadly, this is exactly the sort of language that tends to be lost in the “abridged” books all to frequently passed off to children — if you have a few minutes to spare, there is a brilliant reflection on abridged children’s literature here.)

Springtime in the Imperial Palace gardens, Tokyo:

Nikon D200.