Invertebratemas!!

INVERTEBRATEMAS! This is for my rewrite of "12 Days of Christmas." I turned it into the "12 Days of Invertebratemas":

(I'm only going to write it all out once, so I'll start on the last verse)

On the twelfth day of Invertebratemas, my true love gave to me:

12 biologists drinking
11 minor phyla
10 stupid vertebrates
9 corals spawning
8 jellies pulsing
7 scallops clapping
6 prawns a-swimming
5 R.O.V.s
4 Cheatopterus
3 Hemigrapsus
2 nudibranchs
1 giant pacific octopuuuuuuus

You're welcome.

--m

From My Treatise on Bathtub Crayons

Fig. 1: A bad photo of my shower wall after tonight's adventures in bathtub crayons. Results of experiment suggest that they are fully awesome, and most people would benefit from regular use (of both shower and crayons).

Fig. 2: Cleanliness of artist relative to number of bathtub crayons. Current study implies a correlation between these two factors, and the author thinks with further work, this could be found to be a causative relationship.

I'd like to thank the following institutions for supporting this research: the International Committee on Crayon Use, the Foundation for a Better Tomorrow, and the No More Smelly Artists Society. Further thanks to all those who came before me and to my housemate, the great pretzeled narwhal, for putting up with me during the course of this research.

--m

WSN Post Numero 2

Conference going well. I'm done presenting. I had a celebratory drink followed by the dinner that I missed (by then cold) because of my presenting.

Now, to sleep!

--m

WSN Headphones n' Music Ad

I'm actually at the Western Society of Naturalists conference, where you couldn't throw a jelly(fish) three feet without hitting a marine biologist. I know the guy in charge of the WSN Amazon store, and he needed people to draw ads for a promotion he was doing, so I'm presenting an ad I drew to you tonight!

--m

LHC Big Bang Dream

I had a dream a few days ago that I was at the LHC, but it was in British Columbia, Canada. I got to go down and see the acceleration track and everything. Then today I woke up and saw the news about the miniature big bang they made! I am friggin' prophetic.

Anyways, to make a long story long, this is how I feel about the whole thing.

--m

For Anyone Who Has Ever Cursed Excel

Tonight while getting some of the graphs done for a project, and I did spend a good portion of my time cursing and asking it why it was doing X thing (much to the amusement of my housemates).

--m

Microwave Olympics

Before I begin, let me say do I no way endorse you or anyone else holding their own Microwave Olympics. It's a dumb, dangerous idea. You use the microwave at your own risk and Octopod Adventures takes no responsibility for anything (ever, really).

That said, the little pyromaniac/mad scientist inside me wants to hold a Microwave Olympics, wherein I would test various items inside the microwave and observe, record, and rate the results. I did it accidentally last week with a lime (results: fun smelling, but very pulpy in the explosion), and I've been fighting the good fight since.

--m

I Do Highly Technical Scientific Research

Working on figures for my paper tonight, I kept imagining this. I also think I see hammer pants on my embryos. Again this is my study species, Arbacia punctulata.

So I made this for you. Photo credit to me, and sympathies to my poor, poor advisor.

--m

Science Win!

When there's an experiment that works, this is how it feels. A bunch of our embryos today look like duds, but my culture of some sand dollar babies is moving right along and that makes me feel okay about myself.

--m

P.S. Tomorrow I'm taking off, so have a good weekend.

Nerd Post Ahoy

So I'm back at Friday Harbor Labs, through the University of Washington. It's kind of an epic place to be if you love invertebrates.

So, posts coming back regularly now, sorry for my failure to post.

--m

All That Anger Just Covers Up Their Loneliness

I'm studying for french and as a reward tonight I let myself do another marine-invertebrate A Softer World tribute comic.

The big, purple, spike-y sea urchin is my study species (Arbacia punctulata) with a mysterious pencil urchin (Genus? sp?) next to it.

Mouseover text: all that anger just covers up their loneliness
Photo credits: M. Rock

--m

Ode to Dr. Koehl

All night long I've been working on a final project for my Biomechanics class (Me? Do work?) and so I've been drawing a lot of copepods as illustrations for my presentation.

I'm covering Reynolds numbers and what they mean for small marine life--specifically by looking at source literature on copepod feeding mechanisms (which are super neat). Most of this work was done by Dr. Mimi Koehl, and really, the research and experimental design are so good I squee and have fangirl moments.

I've met her before and seen her present her research (not on copepod feeding) and I'm pretty sure some day I want to be as smart as her. And maybe have people think that my research is as cool and groundbreaking and EPIC.

In the meantime, I drew myself as a calanoid copepod. (And I realize I'm not a tremendously accurate copepod at that, so my plankton friends will hopefully resist the urge to flay me alive.)

--m

P.S. Here's the paper I'm talking about, if any of you want to see how cool it is: Koehl and Strickler, 1981
P.P.S. This is the site I was using for taxonomy and image references

My Mad Scientist Efforts Continue

They aren't really wearing purple hammer pants when I look at them under the microscope, that's just a dramatization. But they do look like they're wearing little parachute pants.

I work with sea urchin embryos (Arbacia punctulata pluteus embryos, to be specific) looking for abnormal development when the embryos develop in chlorinated water. If you're really interested, my advisor and I did present a poster of our work at the 2010 SICB.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've had a busy day breaking the french language and redefining calculus theorems. A mad scientist needs his/her rest.

See you all à demain!

--m

Godzilla Vs. Mothra

I'm fascinated with the idea of Godzilla and Mothra as real, non-science-fiction animals (this is the best way I can think to describe it and it is still inadequate). I wanted to draw an image using an iguana as the model for Godzilla and just a generic moth for Mothra. I did mostly tracing (it's been a long day) and then had lots of fun with color vs. not colored.

It's tired, and I'm late (yea, that's how bad it is) so I'm going to go sleep.

Good news: Apple has agreed to overnight a new Time Capsule for FREEEEZ. I love their customer support.

Until tomorrow,

-m

Mad Scientists Always Have Goggles and a Beaker

Self-portrait. I'm going to assume that that green compound I've developed is my "Turn-self-into-octopus" serum. It was on my to-do list, but obviously I finished it.

Also, still don't have the hang of this mohawk drawing. It always comes out looking ridiculous, which come to think of it, is basically how it looks in real life.

You might also recognize Head Honcho Queer Girl's shirt. I think it would be a pretty good shirt for doing mad science in.

--m

Withdrawal is an Ineffective Form of Birth Control

Look at that cute sperm!!

A request from some friends of mine about withdrawal as a means of birth control. This request either says something about them or something about the kind of people I am friends with, I don't know which yet.

The drawing was done in about twenty minutes. Another thirty five was spent agonizing over the text...I hate lettering. Not sure how I feel about using "pre-cum" in a comic, but due to the same lettering issues, I didn't feel like writing "pre-ejaculate".

--m

P.S. Apologies for two days without comic. I'm doing a reading tomorrow, so I won't have time to do my nightly comic. I'm drawing it tonight and setting it to post tomorrow during the afternoon.

An Octopus To Be Proud Of

Okay. This is the first octopus I've drawn in a long time for this comic where I didn't do some tracing over other images to get the basic forms and shading. This is entirely from my head (with some untraced reference images) and I'm really, really proud of it.

I needed a new desktop image and I figured I'd put up some for all my many readers. (snort) The quote on one is from Dodie Smith, but originally it reads: "The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to."

If for any reason you need another size or want another color, send an email (octopustank @ gmail DOT com) and I'll see what I can do.

-m

E.T.A.: Please do not edit these images yourself or use them (for anything but being a desktop image) without permission.

Science Loves

This does really happen to me. I have been known to get misty-eyed if I think about the beauty of the periodic table for too long. I wish I was kidding.

That said, I wanted to do a comic about science and my love of it. I've included the periodic table, a eukaryotic cell, the symbol for Reynolds numbers, and three of my all-time science heroes plus a stick figure of another.

Top: Madame Marie Curie

Middle: Middle-aged Charles Darwin

Bottom left: Rosalind Franklin (if you don't know her, I demand you go look up her wikipedia page immediately.)

And, obviously, Octopod-Adventures style Einstein.