The Great Sunflower Project

...free. Just register at the Great Sunflower Project website and you’ll be sent a package of wild annual sunflower seeds (Helianthus annuus). Twice a month you’ll get an email to remind you to time how long it takes for five bees to visit your sunflowers. Sounds like it has drinking game potential, though that might lead to inaccurate results . . ....

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We’re not quite back . . .

...In response to numerous requests, Homegrown Evolution had intended to give a photo tour of our Los Angeles compound, but computer problems are preventing this. You will all have to settle for the drawing above while we resolve vexing software/hardware issues. Though not Luddites, we’ve been contemplating a break from staring at computer screens. And less computering time means we’ll have a few moments to give the hovercraft a tuneup....

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3D Greetings

...tice. We taught ourselves how to free view three dimensional images a long time ago and, in additional to it being good for your eye muscles, it opens up a whole world of fun with old stereoscopic images such as these. To make your own stereographs all you need to do is take two pictures slightly spaced apart. As long as your subject doesn’t move you can do it with just one camera. Full instructions here. For those of you who, after an hour of rev...

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Eat Food, Mostly Plants, Not too Much

...ivore’s Dilemma, recently wrote an editorial, “Why Bother” in the New York Times Magazine arguing that it’s time for us all to think about planting some vegetables. He has a new book, In Defense of Food an Eater’s Manifesto, that addresses the ethical decisions we face in our trips to the supermarket. In this engaging, hour long lecture at the Google headquarters, Pollan gives some practical advice for navigating those dreadful supermarket isles....

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A Tensegrity Table

...scavenged materials (scavenging seems appropriate in these crummy economic times!). To make your own tensegrity table, molecular biomechanics professor Dr. William H. Guilford has some very nice step-by-step instructions here. My version is slightly different, but frankly Guilford’s design is probably more stable. I used some electrical conduit tubing left over from remodeling the house, some rope and a stop sign that I found laying in a driveway...

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