I’ve been taxing my poor printer by forcing it to churn out our little What Do Guts Do? poster, so I’m excited to tell you (and my LaserJet 2605dn) that we’re printing it professionally so it’ll be bigger and better! We’re expecting these giant 18 x 24 posters any day now and were pleased to get a sneak preview from the Jakprints blog. Apparently the poster made the folks over there newly appreciate the pancreas and all it does to regulate your sugar levels. My friend’s six year old helped me go over the artwork, and he understood most of it (he is not only very bright, but has been looking at our guts ever since he was a baby), i.e. why the kidneys are in the bathtub, why the bladder is watering the plants, why the spleen is beating up germs, why the lung is playing the trumpet, etc. Only when he got home, he gave us a call and wanted to know why the uterus was riding a bicycle. We expect these any day now, so check back soon!
Archive for October, 2009
Sneak Preview
Posted: Friday, October 23rd, 2009In Da Club
Posted: Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Why bother letting someone pee in the woods when you could make a product for it instead? Enter the Uro-Club, a portable urinal disguised as a golf club that was developed by a urologist who, we guess, likes to play golf and pee privately. We saw this unusual item on the Shark Tank season finale, where the guy was looking for some capital to get the pee iron off the ground, so to speak. Golf courses are not short on shrubs or trees — why is this thing necessary? Ask yourself, as a man, what’s more awkward — sneaking off to a nearby shrub, or whipping out a plastic tube and putting your junk in it in front of all your buddies? Just tell ‘em: “No, no, I’m just golfing under this towel.” But peeing on the green doesn’t get publicity, or make a great golfer gag gift, so maybe this will help this Florida urologist retire early. When the portable toilet disguised as a golf bag is coming out, my friend Simon wants to know? That’s gotta be next.
Keeping It Real
Posted: Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Think the drama of ER, Grey’s Anatomy or House MD most accurately portray the everyday lives of those working in the medical field? Think again. Despite its goofy exterior, Scrubs is well known by health workers as the most accurate medical show on television. We’re not sure how well newcomers Trauma and Hawthorne stack up, but Scrubs captures the everyday cases doctors and nurses have to handle, the not-so-exciting administrative details and even the way in which hospitals must wrangle with health insurance companies. So we’re glad they’ve managed to stay on the air, despite last summer’s talk of pulling the plug. {Thanks, Corina! via Slate}
Tales From Your Entrails
Posted: Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Time Out New York calls the Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn “mishmash of taxidermied animals, medical artifacts and creepy gewgaws.” The part-time fetish of a full-time graphic designer, the library has everything wonderful and weird related to body parts both human, animal and in-between (we’re fantasizing that she has a jackalope). Joanna Ebenstein’s collection of old teeth and decaying taxidermy became large enough to warrant making a mini-museum. We’re wishing we could go there, so if you’re in New York, maybe you should visit! {photo by Eric Harvey Brown}
Plastic Bird Guts
Posted: Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Photographer Chris Jordan’s work has always inspired and amazed me, particularly his series on techno-junk recycling and his tender photos of post-Katrina New Orleans. His latest project, shooting birds (no, not that way) on the Midway Atoll, who died with guts full of plastic trash from the North Pacific Gyre. “The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young,” Jordan writes. {via Boing Boing}
$9.99 Liver and Lungs!
Posted: Friday, October 16th, 2009
Urban Outfitters likes to move the merch really fast, and now it’s time for you all to benefit — prices half been slashed in half on the plush lungs and plush livers on the Urban Outfitters website. So buy now from their website and save — just $9.99 apiece! Enjoy the fruits of UO’s fickle-ness and get cheap livers here and cheap lungs here — take one home today! Wow! OMG! Awesome! Help the liver and lungs escape from Urban Outfitters and take one home for super-duper almost-nothing prices (they just ordered more hearts, so they don’t totally hate our guts, just our lungs and livers.)
Schmancy Show
Posted: Friday, October 16th, 2009
The 2009 Plush You show at Schmancy was a rousing success, with hoards of Seattle-ites piling in for last weekend’s opening party. We’re sad we missed it, but we’re pleased as punch all three of the pillows we made got sold and will go home with some nice Washingtonian. More pictures from the show are here, and you can buy what’s left from the show here.
Garden of Organs
Posted: Friday, October 16th, 2009
Does growing body parts sound entirely impossible and slightly insane? Turns out it’s not only possible, it’s actually happening in laboratories today. Check out this CBS News story about growing organs — apparently a lab at Wake Forest University has grown an entire beating sheep’s heart. Crazy, right? They even regrew a severed human finger by sprinkling on some witch-y sounding pig bladder powder, and believe it’s only a matter of time before they are able to grow an actual human heart. Growing tissues outside the body has significant implications for organ transplant patients, most of whom linger on transplant lists for years, waiting for a heart, liver or lung. Scientists involved with regenerative medicine believe that all organs can re-grow, they just need a signal to tell the cells how to do it.
Calling All Gynecologists
Posted: Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Menstrual cycles can be baffling, and that’s why I really wanted to make this special poster explaining this special time of the month, mostly so I can justify to my poor husband exactly why I am feeling totally insane. “It’s not me, honey, it’s the progesterone spiking,” or, “Can you understand now why I’m being a total bee-yatch? I’ve got at least five different hormones coursing through my body right now. I’m on drugs.” Marvel at the leuteinizing hormone! Be amazed as the estrogen takes a nosedive right before ovulation! Check out the egg as it takes its long journey through your reproductive system! Anyway, check it out and give me feedback — calling all OB/GYNs! Editors! Anatomy nuts! Sex educators! — before I send this thing to the printer. I know it’s a little crazy-looking, design-wise, but then again, so’s the menstrual cycle.
Eat Your Lungs Out
Posted: Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Yes, you can have your liver and eat it too with these anatomically correct chocolates from Visual Anatomy. They don’t stop at organs, though, the collection includes knee joints and even a chocolate pelvis. Generously packaged with four chocolate kidneys to a box! As they say on the website, Bone Appetite!
