The Godless Geek Blog: Sometimes... science is icky

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Sometimes... science is icky

"Germs by:" Carlos Lerma"

I ended up watching several different documentaries while evaluating streaming -madness this weekend including: "nova the unknown world", which was described as follows: "Photographer Lennart Nilsson has built a career out of taking pictures of things most folks never see; using special microscopic lens technology, Nilsson is able to magnify the smallest creatures until they take on the appearance of mammoth monsters, and this documentary gives him a chance to bring his photographs to life."

I enjoy photography, especially something unique like microphotograhy, so I thought hey, this should be cool and it was. But it was also kinda creepy.

As a rationally minded individual who values scientific thinking I think it's important to understand the world as it really is, and logically I know that all of our bodies are covered, inside and out, by tiny little creatures. From bacteria to dust mites billions and billions of microorganisms share our bodies, as well as our homes our clothes and even the food we eat and I know this. But seeing it, really seeing it well...

Here's something I didn't know about:
It's called a hair follicle mite, think of it as a tiny mole that lives in your hair follicles, but don't worry, they prefer to live in the larger follicles of your eyelashes not your scalp. Try not to think about that when you look in the mirror from now on.

Then of course there are the dust mites. Ah the dust mites. We all know about them right? We know that without them the world would be buried under piles of dead skin, right? Sure but have you ever actually seen one? How about a whole group of them feasting on bits of dead skin? Or maybe where they really like to live, right on the surface of your skin.

Your welcome.

I could go on to show you moth larvae living in your sweaters, or book lice and the tiny scorpions who eat them or any of a number of wonderfully icky things that are in all likely hood swarming around you at this very moment. But by now I figure if you're still reading, you're probably dieing to run in the other room and bathe yourself in rubbing alcohol, which won't do you any good of course but feel free to try. So I'll just embed the video here and move on.

Despite the good fun I'm having trying to gross you all out with the video's subject matter, it really is a good and interesting documentary. There are some amazing images of things I had never seen before and in some cases didn't even know existed and like it or not these things are real so you might as well get to know them. knowing the truth about the world is important, even when its disgusting.
Now if you'll excuse there are things I must disinfect
-Caine-

Links and Additional Content

"Ritual 3" by: " Carlos Lerma"

Today's link is artist " Carlos Lerma's blog" . Carlos is the artist behind the image I used at the top of today's post and does a lot of cool stuff. I like his blog a lot, you'll find; videos, flash animation, sketches, illustrations and all kinds of other good stuff, especially if you happen to be bilingual, but even if you're not Carlos clearly is, so you'll be able to enjoy many of his blog posts as well as all of his art.

Image Credits: Germs, and Ritual3 by: " Carlos Lerma"
Stills taken from the nova documentary,
" Unknown World"