Sooo when I was in New York my dear friend Kurt was kind enough to make a concerted effort to see me - which was no small feat considering that he was headed into moving apts, manning a World Malaria Awareness Day info booth in the city, presenting a talk to esteemed peers, and conducting his never-ending stream of lab work at his graduate post in the Department of Medical Parasitology at NYU that promises to save us from disease.

Needless to say, no matter how many scrumptious desserts we stuffed down his gullet, and how many meals we coerced him into joining, he couldn’t shed his guilt about frolicking around the city with us when he should have been at the lab getting blisters from all his pipetting.

At one point he cracked: I have to go, he pleaded. I have lab guilt, he admitted. And then muttered something about being an ex-catholic.

And so inspired was I by this admission that I decided to make a T-shirt for him to that effect that I’m now selling at The Inkstand.

But I have to clarify: lab guilt is in no way the exclusive property of ex-catholics. From what I can tell, it applies to any person who has experiments to operate and science to see to. And to be fair, us un-lab-bound people who cherish and love our scientist friends, should be more sympathetic to their plight. So, if you see someone wearing this t-shirt, gently approach them to gage their interest in joining you at the pub, but whatever you do DO NOT pressure them if they decline. It is your job as their supportive friend to understand their quandary and slowly back away leaving them to their martyrdom. How else will the best science get done in this world?

Men’s “I’ve Got Lab Guilt” Tee. $22
Women’s Lab Guilt American Apparel Tee $22

As I’ve wandered around New York city lately a couple things have struck me as being relevant to the self-aware science geek. Here’s the first. More to come.

For one, I went to New York magazine‘s shopping pages to see what pretty things were for sale and where. There I came across a Design*Sponge‘s take on the purdiest things to take home. And lo and behold item number 105 out of 126 on her Shop-A-Matic list was a “Science series decanter” on sale at Clio in Soho for a whopping $334 (actually that’s for the small one. The large one is $485). Now this is great because it means that science is trendy but it’s also stupid because only a fashion slave douchebag would buy this item for a small fortune when you can get the real deal for $7.95 from Edmund Scientific’s. That one’s 1000ml so it should fit a bottle of wine just fine. But if you want an even larger one to hold your wine in a slightly prettier fashion get the 2000ml one from 4Physics.com for $18.30.

We’ve blogged about witty element earrings sold on Etsy and periodic table socks.

Now INN designs has introduced some Periodic Rings that up the ante. By several thousands of dollars. But what else do you expect from a solid silver, gold or platinum ring? If you’re serious about pledging your allegiance to chemistry, perhaps this is the way to do it.

They kind of resemble men’s signet rings. So I’m thinking you get three in one: a clever periodic table reference, an artistically sculpted hunk of precious metal, and something to press into hot wax to seal those scrolls you use to invite people over for some weekend wine and cheese. Oh and also: Forget the plebeian brass knuckles; these pricey suckers will definitely leave a dent in your molester’s eye socket.

VIA Notcot

Remember how in elementary school the dorksters (like me) would make book jackets to preserve the pristine perfect nature of your text books for perpetuity? Well a whole new realm of book covers have come to my attention. They’re called Flapart, and the science tangent is less of a tangent and more of an orbit, but that’s ok because they’re so damn fantastic.

Their book covers act like a big loud “ha, PSYCHE!” (did I just date myself?) to any people who are nosy enough to sneak a peak at what you’re reading. And instead of any intellectual title they’ll find you reading such gems as “How to Impersonate an Engineer (minimum grade 10 required)”, or “The Nutritional Benefits of Nose Picking.”

Now isn’t that a gospel you’d be willing to spread for $6? 

I’ve wanted this for ages and yet never really gotten around to buy it...you know how it is. Silly thing you don’t REALLY need, see it on the Internet, think huh. In a certain mood you’d buy it in a heart beat at an actual store, but some certain laziness takes you over..and...and...before you know it THEY’VE DISCONTINUED IT.

I guess that was the kick I needed cause I’ve finally ordered. Just shows that whole BUY NOW! ONLY 2 LEFT marketing psychology really works. I am so easy to manipulate.

Okay, but this one is pretty good, too. 

After much talk and brain storming and fiddling in Adobe Illustrator and resizing and font play and dingbat obsessing and color tweaking I’m happy to report that our first batch of T-shirts are up for sale at the brand spanking new Inkstand.

I’m just as fiddly trimming my bangs and aren’t we all lucky that t-shirt designs don’t get shorter and shorter the more you correct them.

Without further ado, I present to you The Inkstand. With its rocking “Scientists are Foxy” shirts. We’ve got some more ideas up our sleeves (yes they’re science related but they include puns - oh yes, the wonderful pun). So do check back often. Pleeeeaaaase.

So the other day I was in one of those horrifying specialty pet shops searching for a gift for some new dog owners.

You know them… The little boutique ones that sell terrier cardigans for $60 alongside home made dog cookies whimsically shaped like cats. I LOVE dogs. Really truly deeply love them. But there’s something off kilter about these stores. They smell like beef jerky sitting in the sun for weeks and I swear the people that work there inhale helium behind the counter just to keep their baby-talk-to-dog voice just so.

But hanging on the wall of dog toys, between the pink mint flavored bone shaped chew toys and the reindeer dog costumes WAS THE COOLEST THING EVER.

It was a chew toy SHAPED LIKE A STRAND OF DNA!!! Pull on it and you can see those gorgeous base pairs hydrogen bonded like rungs of a ladder but in it’s natural state the helical strands (AKA the phosphate deoxyribose backbones) coil just like Shirley Temple’s ringlets.

It came in a mini dog version and a big dog version. And I wanted both of them BADLY and I don’t even have a dog. So instead I’m urging all you friends of science geek dog owners to snap these up in an effort to make the world a more joyful place all filled with DNA chew toys.

You can buy them online at DNAStuff.com for $13.95. Or brave some cutesy tootsy pooch boutique store in person.

For once, someone has taken the idea of “mapping the brain” literally.

Take a side picture of the brain and morph it into cartography.  Finally, finagle all the names to match and be all in-joke and cheeky. And litter the islands of New Zealand around it to throw everyone off scent.

Just think about it. It’s the best exercise in surreal escapism.

If we went on a sunny two week vacation to Brainland we could kayak in those neuro-anatomical furrows called sulcis (sulcus is the singular) that demarcate the separate lobes of the brain. We could go for a long hike along that ridge on the cerebral cortex called the gyrus. As for me? I’m dying to go on a sailing trip past Axon Turning Point, into Retinal Inlet and camp for a day and a night on Neuron Island, spending my day collecting shells and little vesicles of neurotransmitters before they’re released to the sea.

Stroke of genius courtesy of UNIT SEVEN. On their website you can download Brainland wallpaper for free. Or buy large super high-resolution printed copies of it to put on your wall to longingly gaze at.

(via NOTCOT)

The intersection of craftiness and science is always a joy to behold. And Beverly St. Clair’s Genome Quilts are no exception. In the same way that your genetic information is encoded in your genome, she has come up with a way of encoding it in a quilt.

She has taken each of the four base pairs, Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thymine and matched each of them up with the orientation of a triangle in a square to match their initial. Like this:

There’s a lengthier explanation on her website here.

So, for example, if you add up all the base pairs of the Hepatits C virus genome, string them along in rows as if they were a text, and quilt them, the object below is what you get:

She has also quilted the human red cone pigment gene and the WIG-1 gene. Neat-o.

If you’ve got a favorite gene in mind that you want to snuggle up to in bed note that St. Clair also takes commissions. Prices range from $1000-$5000. 

In fact, if you commission a quilt of some section of your very own genome - like you can at National Geographic’s “Genographic project” - and turn it into a heirloom object as its passed down the inheritance might on two counts: the genes might very well get passed down along with the bedding. 

I’ve got incorrigible friend crushes on Tom Eykemans and Gwynne Siak, the artist duo from Seattle who run the artshop Monocol. Why? Mostly because they make and sell the uber intelligently designed Darwin and Finchy pillows:

Life’s hard and times are tough when you’re a 21st Century thinker in 1800’s England. Darwin is a limited edition of four hand screened 12x16” pillows with his trusty Finchy to keep him company in ostracization and religious-scientific crisis.

Use him to deflect the blows of Christian Scientists or to cobble the knees of non-evolution minded friends—defense or offense? Religion or Science? You decide.

You too can own such dazzling creative genius for a mere $35 at Etsy. Genius, genius, I tell you.