These colorized images of women building war planes in the 1940’s were enhanced by Webmaster Dave over at the Shorpy Historical Photo Archive. Stop by the archive only if you’ve got lots of time to get lost in history.

These gifs demonstrate how a zipper and a constant velocity joint work. You can find more instructive gifs in Twisted Sifter’s gallery of 20 Animated Gifs that Explain How Things Work.

Chemistry crayon labels from the QueInteresante Etsy store.

About the project: 

Children play and draw with crayons practically every day, so why not make the experience more educational? This listing is for a set of 48 labels to stick in the crayons in a basic 48 pack of crayons so that while children are coloring, they are also exposed to the names of chemicals that will make those colors! So instead of thinking “I want green” they will think “I want Barium Nitrate Ba(NO3)2 Flame” and then when they take chemistry in high school and their teacher sets some gas on fire and it makes a green color and they ask the class what chemical it was your student will know it was Barium! Genius!

These Little Thinkers (and many more) are available in my Thinx Gifts Amazon store. Click on the images to see who’s who.

Images from Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century by Carl Schoonover

About the book:

Portraits of the Mind: Visualizing the Brain from Antiquity to the 21st Century (Abrams, November 2010) follows the fascinating exploration of the brain through images. These beautiful black-and-white and vibrantly colored images, many resembling abstract art, are employed daily by scientists around the world, but most have never before been seen by the general public. From medieval sketches and 19th-century drawings by the founder of modern neuroscience to images produced using state-of-the-art techniques, readers are invited to witness the fantastic networks in the brain.

Each chapter in Portraits of the Mind addresses a different set of techniques for studying the brain, and each is introduced with an essay by a leading scientist in that field of study. Extended captions provide detailed explanations of each image as well as the major insights gained by scientists over the course of the past twenty years. The result is a peek at the mind’s innermost workings, helping readers to understand, and offering clues about what may lie ahead.

Visit Planet Oddity to learn about The Oldest and The Most Incredible Trees in The World.

The Where, the Why, and the How: 75 Artists Illustrate Wondrous Mysteries of Science is a book of unconventional science illustrations assembled by Julia Rothman, Jenny Volvovski and Matt Lamothe, a group better known as Also Online. 

About the book:

A science book like no other, The Where, the Why, and the How turns loose 75 of today’s hottest artists onto life’s vast questions, from how we got here to where we are going. Inside these pages some of the biggest (and smallest) mysteries of the natural world are explained in essays by real working scientists, which are then illustrated by artists given free rein to be as literal or as imaginative as they like. The result is a celebration of the wonder that inspires every new discovery. Featuring work by such contemporary luminaries as Lisa Congdon, Jen Corace, Neil Farber, Susie Ghahremani, Jeremyville, and many more, this is a work of scientific and artistic exploration to pique the interest of both the intellectually and imaginatively curious.

I highly recommend watching the delightful animated book trailer:

The Where, the Why, and the How from ALSO on Vimeo.

Sol Explorer for iPhone and iPad by Reason Interactive is a super cool app that lets you zip around the solar system in your own spaceship and learn about the planets and their moons in a fun and interactive way. It’s got impressive graphics and a neat video demonstrating the scale of the planets. It’s exactly the kind of interactive eye candy that makes apps so much fun.

Brian of Reason Interactive happens to be a friend of mine and sometimes friendship  comes with perks. In this case, he’s offering it for half price ($0.99) for today (Sunday, Oct. 21) only. 

These vintage photos of exhibits being prepared for the American Museum of Natural History have convinced me that this must be the coolest job ever.

The Adventures of Madelene and Louisa (1859) is a remarkable vintage illustrated children’s book created by sisters Madalene and Louisa Pasley, who were 11 and 12 years old at the time of its creation.

(h/t Explore)

Today is the day: Cassini HD, our first app for iPad, is finally available in the App Store! Be sure and get it today at the special price of FREE (regularly $1.99). Most important of all, be sure and leave feedback on iTunes — we want to hear what you think. Happy discovering!

I’m very excited to announce that we have a release date for our new app Cassini HD. It will be available in the iTunes App Store this Saturday (Sept. 15) and it will be totally FREE for the whole first day (after Saturday it will be the regular price of $1.99). 

About the app:

While handheld and mobile devices have the power to put information at our fingertips, they can also transform how we learn and interact with knowledge. Cassini HD, the first iPad app from Thinx, harnesses that power to take audiences on a voyage of discovery to the ringed planet of Saturn. The app’s intuitive design helps users to easily navigate a collection of more than 840 spectacular images returned to Earth by the Cassini orbiter while showcasing those images in a way that is both elegant and informative.

Features:

• Journey from Saturn itself, to its stunning rings and past more than 20 different moons 
• Supports both portrait and landscape orientation for optimal viewing quality. 
• Full captions expand with additional information with just a tap 
• Alphabetical menu brings you directly to any section of interest; unique navigation map allows you to scroll easily through this vast collection 
• Integration with the most popular social networks: Share your discoveries with friends on Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter, or via email 
• Save your favorite images to your photo roll and use them as a wallpaper on your iPad 
• Future updates will add to this collection the latest images from Cassini as more become available.

This week is my blogiversary. August 23 of last year I put up my first posts on Tumblr not knowing what to expect. Fast forward to one year later, and I’ve met lots of new people who have made this a fun and interesting place to share and exchange all kinds of interesting art and ideas.

It’s such a great community that I wanted to give something back as a sort of anniversary gift, so I tried to come up with something appropriate. After seeing yet another spectacular photo from Cassini travel across my dashboard while thinking “I wish I could put them all in one giant gallery”, I realized that I had my plan. 

With my husband Joe, my app design partner, we got to work on what was going to be a simple ebook of the NASA Cassini Mission’s best photos. As time went on, I found the images so inspiring that the project grew, and it became a full fledged app with over 840 images, interactive menus, expandable captions and, best of all, the ability to share the images on Tumblr (and other popular sites) through a social media sharing tool.

I wanted to announce that it was available for download on my anniversary, but instead all I can do is let you know its coming VERY soon and there will be an opportunity for you to get it for free. So stay tuned and thanks for an awesome year!

You can find out more about it here. You can also join our mailing list for future announcements.

These images of the explorers of the American West are part of a much larger photo collection put together by the Mail of the first ever taken of this newly discovered territory. Timothy O’Sullivan worked alongside government teams as they explored Arizona, Nevada, Utah and the rest of the west as they sought to assess the land’s natural resources. He had earlier covered the U.S. Civil War and was one of the most famous photographers of the 19th century.

Prim and Plush molecules. Click on the images to identify these adorable little guys.