My best friend may have the "most dorktacular tattoos" award sewn up (Green Lantern + The Auryn, ladiez!), but Carl Zimmer has a Flickr gallery of sciency types gunning for the crown.
I hope some of them at least had some utility inked in while they were at it.
Rock n' rollers have had unprejudiced access to the mind-expanding potential of drugs as fuel for inspiration for decades — why shouldn't Silicon Valley wondernerds have the same options?
Silicon Valley blog Valley Wag reports on an insider who says that OC-80 (that's oxycontin in an 80-milligram dose) has swept the valley by storm, seducing "everyone who's anyone" with its "much better than cocaine" effects. The expensive highs can cost $70 per pill at retail prices and $40 in bulk. Allegedly users get docs from the more permissive burg of L.A. to FedEx the prescription medication in its highest dose to their offices. Then it's scrape the green coating, crush, snort and on to some righteous beta testing! Saith Silicon Valley's Deep Throat:
You have no idea (or maybe you do) the amount of prescription painkillers flowing in Silicon Valley. If you think that Hollywood has drug problems, the Valley is way, way worse. It's just that people keep it much more secret.
A follow-up tip from another insider posits that OC use might have even contributed to the much-reported decline of Yahoo. I'm sure Microsoft will clean up the place...right after this last toot of OC. (What, those Yahoo guys practically left it on the counter!)
OK, I lied. But in celebration of Lego's fiftieth anniversary, I COULD have made photosynthesis-- or at least the molecules involved.
Most of us are familiar with the robotics/programming-centric Mindstorms imprint of Legos, but they also have a whole division dedicated to science-tastic models. The "life-sciences" section has badass double helixes and chromosomes, in addition to the aforementioned plant life process.
Continue reading 'I made "photosynthesis" out of Legos. What did you do?' >
