Be still my beating heart

Image courtesy of The Curated Tee

My four-year-old has a dresser drawer full of cute t-shirts with Valentine’s style hearts on them. What she needed was a shirt with an anatomically accurate drawing of a human heart on it. Thanks to artist Derrick Nau’s “Heartbeat Tee” and the folks at The Curated Tee*, she now has one. Actually, she has that one. Exactly that one – the one on the left.

The Curated Tee was founded by Vanessa (co-host of the Pop My Culture Podcast) and Mandy . They unnamedcollaborate with artists to produce one t-shirt per month (available by subscription or individually the following month).

To be honest, they won me and my money* over with the “Heartbeat Tee”. It is not just the beauty of Derrick Nau’s illustration, which is considerable. The mature choice to recognize this piece of science art as both aesthetic, educational, and appropriate for young children makes me willing to trust The Curated Tee as curators:

His image is intricate and beautiful and encourages children to stop and think about what’s inside their bodies and what makes them tick.

So often our science-inspired art exists in its own niche. The merchandise can become kitschy and primarily signal our membership in the tribe of nerds/geeks/etc. Here, Derrick Nau’s anatomical heart illustration stands next to a lovely image of friends riding bikes – freeing us to appreciate both its beauty and the information it contains. Science is treated as a normal part of a complete life.

The Curated Tee is also collaborative with artists, placing the artists front and center. That includes giving them a percentage of sales (no, not everyone does) and not requiring submission of t-shirt ideas (link to PDF) in order to start a collaboration. No one loses by eagerly acknowledging the creative contributions of all involved in putting that shirt on your kid. It is also a great way to be introduced to a new artist and their inspirations.

While I’m not thrilled to bits that The Curated Tee uses American Apparel as a supplier of the base shirts, I am sympathetic to the decision on business grounds.

My primary disappointment is that the shirts currently only go up to size 4T, which is why my family only has a three month subscription (and why I don’t have an anatomical heart t-shirt for myself). I have been assured by Vanessa and Mandy that they intend to expand the shirt sizes offered after they get through this “start-up” period.

There is more, beyond the science art shirt and artistic collaboration, that I like about The Curated Tee. First, it does what it says on the tin. The shirts are very soft and comfortable. The shirt printing looks just as good as the one on the website. The image above might as well be a picture of the shirt I pulled out of the bag. My daughter was fascinated and curious about the image. Second, the shirts are gender neutral. I’m tired of having to go shopping in the “boys” section to get me daughter the cool dinosaur shirt she needs.

If you are going to call yourself The Curated Tee, you better go a good job of curation. Based on these initial offerings, they are living up to their name.

*Yup, not an advertisement. I paid for my subscription out of my own pocket.

Garbage – Part 1: Pacific Garbage Patch

Two of the most interesting science-related destinations on earth are both garbage-related, so get ready for a garbage-themed two-part post.

Remember the duckies that floated around the oceans for years? Ocean currents brought them all the way across the Arctic. But ocean currents don’t always push garbage to shore. The currents also create large vortexes from which floating plastic can’t escape. Instead, it all stays within the vortex, and creates a patch of floating waste in the convergence zone.

Marine Debris Poster (4) AI9

This is what happened at the Pacific Garbage Patch.

Despite some photos you may have seen, this is not a large patch of floating objects. (In fact, I can’t find ANY reliable and reusable photos of what it ACTUALLY looks like, so you just get a map.)

Unlike the duckies, which retained their duckie shape throughout their oceanic travels, the majority of the plastic in the Pacific Garbage Patch is not shaped like any recognizable objects. It’s mainly plastic pellets, down to microscopic size. The water can look relatively normal on the surface, but water samples consistently show plastic.

As Miriam Goldstein describes in an interview with io9, it’s not entirely clear what the effect is of so much plastic in the ocean, but it’s definitely changing the ecosystem.

It’s also very difficult – logistically – to clean up plastic from such a large and remote area. It’s not close to any particular country, and the garbage comes from everywhere, so whose job is it to clean?

The best solution, of course, is to prevent garbage from ever ending up in the ocean in the first place, and next week I’ll take you on a virtual trip to a place where household waste is being reused in a unique way.

Map from Wikimedia, in the public domain.

Biblical Support for Mechanisms of Evolution

Ecclesiastes 9:11 contains a very poetic description of genetic drift as a mechanism of evolution, though it leaves out any description of the importance of effective population size:

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
-King James Version

P-Value Interpretation

If all else fails, use “significant at p>0.05 level” and hope no one notices.
–xkcd by Randall Munroe

I can’t say that I ever thought about doing this, but I can admit feeling enormous stress proofreading for “less than” signs pointing the wrong direction – an anxiety that may have been justified on more than one occassion.

xkcd by Randall Munroe (CC BY-NC 2.5)

Science Caturday: Better Than Measles

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Disneyland: the happiest place on earth?  Maybe not right now. Health officials have now confirmed 67 cases of measles linked to visits to California’s Disneyland and Disney Adventure Park. The Centers for Disease Control believe that the virus was carried by a visitor exposed to it overseas and that it then spread rapidly among unvaccinated children.

Measles is highly contagious, extremely unpleasant, and can lead to brain damage and even death. So please vaccinate your children –  and maybe skip that trip to Disneyland this winter in favor of some fun at home with the cat.