ideambulate

I enjoy artistic experiences that communicate some expression of meaningful information.
Maybe this is inherent to all analysis-junkies and artists.  Pretty graphs that explain complex data sets.  Poignant songs that sum up intricate social and political circumstances.  Equations that encompass beautiful realities. Etceteras, etceteras.
In that vein, what could be more meaningful than the blueprints of life, [...]

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A fair portion of schools have taken the effort to mandate/encourage course evaluations, most often submitted by students at the end of a given term.  I’m aware that these reviews are used to help professors brush up on the places where they didn’t do so well, and also to given administrators some means of weeding [...]

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As an adolescent, I invented a silly landmark for myself.  I would only consider myself proficient in a language if I could “get” a joke in that language which had no straightforward translation into my primary language.
Hardly a scientific milestone, but it seemed to make sense back then, since “getting” a joke requires at least [...]

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I wonder how we could apply the microscopic innovation of ciliary locomotion to macro-scale problems?  Cilia are those tiny tendrils on some bacteria that gyrate back and forth, propelling the cell in whatever direction it pleases.  However, this mechanism is only feasible when the environment around the organism has such a high viscosity that the [...]

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When I’m explaining something, or when someone is cramming some new thought into my head, I’m frequently impressed by the power of a good analogy.  Analogies definitely help explanations, but making up a good analogy on the spot is sometimes troublesome.
A properly constructed database of concepts and their relationships could be used to generate analogies [...]

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As I consider the the essential challenges of tissue engineering, particularly tissue regrowth, I have settled on a few key cellular capabilities desirable for a regrowth-aiding cell population — at least partial independence from extant environmental signals limiting growth, proliferation at rates beyond those typical for that tissue, and integration into environments which are at [...]

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Energy is a big topic these days, and I have to say I’ve run into some rotting bad ideas. Let’s try to top ‘em.

Photovoltaic panels in mirrors. Surely you don’t need all of the light reflected off your mirror to preen in the morning? By adding these indoor solar panel [...]

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One of the problems surrounding the development of in-atmosphere hypersonic travel is communication. Specifically, when a vehicle gets up to hypersonic speeds, the atmosphere around it develops a variety of weird characteristics that includes (for starters) crazy heat, gas ionization or dissociation, and unusual airflow. The end result is a glowing mass of [...]

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Set-based mathematics. Pretty straightforward stuff, yet it’s a scientific pillar of logical thinking and a hefty portion of statistics. I don’t know much about the state of education around the world, but I was introduced to a simple visualization of set logic, the Venn Diagram, back in grade school. It made a [...]

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Let’s use microfluidics and vesicles to characterize temperatures on a very very tiny scale!
Vesicle membrane fluctuations are highly temperature dependent.  Specialized microscopy systems can visualize vesicles, and image processing techniques can quantify the visualizations. Microfluidics can be used to carefully control the proximity of microscopic objects and global background temperature characteristics.
So, after proper calibration, one [...]

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Developmental benchmarks represent a powerful way of tracking the rate and manner of a child’s growth.  In some cultures, knowledge of these benchmarks are well known in oral and familial tradition.  However, it seems that in modern “western culture” such benchmarks aren’t necessarily widely known among parents.
They are, however, generally well-established within the medical profession [...]

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I like the idea of capturing energy from the “excess” efficiencies of social activities.
Soccer balls that absorb the kinetic energy of kicks and store some of it into internal batteries.  Kids play football on their way home from school, and their play powers the lights in their home when they stay up past dark to [...]

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Researchers analyzing folk culture have long since developed a number of forms of categorizing the essential stories that recur within and across cultures.  While there is certainly no single authoritative system (cultural historians and literary analysts aren’t exactly known for their systematic cooperation and standardization), smart people have tread the topic often enough that I’m [...]

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The sheer volume of medical terminology is astounding.  While terms are named according to generic greco-anatomical associations, even more seem to be idiosyncratically identified by the plethora of seventeenth to twentieth century medical researchers who happened to figure out how a given body part works.  Since the human body is full of interconnected system with [...]

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Stories are a great way to teach. Whether we’re talking about engaging “real life” narratives of modern human experience, or the epic tales propagated through the various modes of our cultural education.
Preachers have taken advantage of this for quite some time; mythic stories are probably the most memorable components of any given religious [...]

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