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Pens for Pillocks

Welcome to Why Mice Sing. A morass of science, the grotesquery, art, and other randomness that generally results when you give a pen to a pillock.

Science and SocietyGrotesquery

Past and Present Projects:The Cat's PawThe Vulgar Army

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Art

  • Drawn
  • Illustration Friday
  • Lovepad:: Eveline Tarunadjaja Pen and ink
  • Rachel Farran Photography Freelance photographer

Blogroll

  • BLDGBLOG Architectural conjecture, urban speculation, landscape futures.
  • Coilhouse “A love letter to alternative culture” - Wonderful site. So much inspiration can be found there.
  • Crooked Timber A group blog that covers everything from pie, to politics, science fiction, the world at large and pretty much anything in between.
  • Science Blogs
  • The Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry

Food

  • delicious:days Wonderful food blog. Beautiful food photography too that has me drooling just thinking about it.
  • Obscura Pty. Ltd. Melbourne coffee company. Try the ‘mocha’. Yummy.

Geology

  • Apparent Dip
  • Clastic Detritus
  • Deep Sea News Ok. Not exactly geology. But being the generous person I am. They’ve been claimed for it.
  • Geology Happens
  • Good Schist
  • Green Gabbro
  • Highly Allochthonous Allochthon, with molybdenite, are two of my favourite-sounding geological words. What this has to do with
  • Looking for Detachment Geology is a source for (bad?) puns lost on the rest of the population.
  • Lost Geologist
  • Lounge of the Lab Lemming
  • Real Climate
  • The Accretionary Wedge Geology carnival

Online Comics

  • Digger
  • Feywinds
  • Freak Angels FREAKANGELS is a free, weekly, ongoing comic written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Paul Duffield.
  • Girl Genius Adventure, Romance, Mad Science!
  • Girls With Slingshots Two girls, a bar and a talking cactus.
  • Gone With The Blastwave This had me laughing out loud. But, I am a very morbid person.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court The level of characterisation in dialogue and illustrations is simply wonderful.
  • I Was Kidnapped By Lesbian Pirates From Outer Space A salacious tale of seduction and lust!
  • Kukuburi Soooo pretty. The colours! Well paced, charming and funny.
  • Patches Personal favourite - I so want a print of this: http://www.hingos.com/patches/index.php?pt=080214
  • Raising Hell More zombies.
  • Roza
  • The Abominable Charles Christopher Sweet story with beautiful illustrations.
  • The Phoenix Requiem
  • The Port
  • The Zombie Hunters
  • Who Killed Round Robin? Seven British artists. One comic. And “[n]obody knows where the story will go but there is one element that remains fixed: it is a murder mystery.”

Politics, Economics and Law

  • Environmental and Urban Economics
  • Globalisation and the Environment
  • Globalisation and the Environment [diff]
  • Healthcare Economist
  • It’s the Environment, Stupid
  • Law and Disorder
  • Lenin’s Tomb
  • Natural Capital Hasn’t been updated since April 2007, but worth a look.

SF&F

  • Ecstatic Days Fantasy author Jeff Vandermeer. Full of juicy SF gossip, squid, mushrooms and ray guns.
  • io9 “Strung out on science fiction”
  • Steampunk Magazine

AporiaBelovedArms Around the World 2008 (Pen & Ink)
ShowtimeGeneric OctopropTales and Legends
GwoksWhile they were sleepingTin Man 2003 (Watercolour)
Dogma The Vulgar March 2003 (Oil on board)Spacer
WMS at DeviantART

 

MiceSong
"Mouse songs are sung at ultrasonic frequencies, which is why no one has noticed their complexity before, nor indeed been moved to celebrate the tunes in romantic poetry" (Hooper, 2005)

A paper in PLoS Biology by (Holy & Guo, 2005) demonstrated that male mice vocalise within a range of over 30 to 110 kHz (ultrasonic) in the presence of females, or female urine. The vocalisations have the characteristics of song with "several different syllable types, whose temporal sequencing includes the utterance of repeated phrases" the complexity of which, approaches "that of many songbirds".

Holy TE, Guo Z (2005), Ultrasonic Songs of Male Mice. PLoS Biol 3(12): e386
Hooper, R. (2005), Romantic rodents give secret serenades, New Scientist News Service, (Acc: 21/04/06)

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Copyright © 2008 Michelle Farran. All rights reserved.