Photos from the International Museum of Surgical Science

Today, Kat and I went to view the wonders on display at the International Museum of Surgical Science, here in Chicago. What an excellent way to spend an afternoon.  They have piles and piles of bonesaws.  Was everybody into amputation back in the olden days? Other highlights — a full recreation of a 19th century … Read more

Trip to Fermi Lab

The view from the 15th floor of the main Fermi Lab building
 

So on Friday, my health and science reporting class took a road trip to Fermi Lab, about an hour outside of Chicago.

They’ve got a particle collider there, and they smash protons and anti protons together to see what happens.

Over the years, they were responsible for the discovery of three primary particles, including the bottom and top quarks.

It was a fascinating trip, even though the weather was against us.  The campus is large, and primarily looks like prairie.  You wouldn’t know there was a particle collider there, unless you saw the huge earth birms from above.

Here’s a trailer for a PBS special that was filmed there called “The Atom Smashers”.  Bonus — the special was scored by Ghostly International’s Kate Simko.

Want to see some more pictures I took at Fermi?

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What’s the opposite of paranoia?

Well, I asked Google, and I found this metafilter page, which helpfully has an answer from one of my heroes, Robert Anton Wilson: Robert Anton Wilson called it “metanoia”: Paranoia = “everything wants to destroy me”; Metanoia = “everything wants to help me”. I’m not sure if he was getting that somehow from John Lilly’s … Read more

Walking around Loyola Park

Today’s another pretty nice day.  It’s not as beautiful as yesterday, but still pretty nice. I went and walked around a little bit in Loyola Park, which is actually my backyard. It’s starting to thaw out, finally, and the park is really great now that it’s a civilized temperature outside. I wish I had taken … Read more

Time to open the windows … at last.

It’s beautiful today. The temperature is something like 50 degrees, and all the snow that’s been covering the ground for the last month is melting. It’s not spring time yet, but you can tell it’s getting closer.  It’s certainly a good day to air out the house.