Drawing of Purkinje cells and granule cells from pigeon cerebellum by Santiago Ramón y Cajal, 1899. Photo: Instituto Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Madrid, Spain

It took Santiago Ramón y Cajal quite a while to find his true calling in life. He tried his hand at cutting hair and at fixing shoes. As a boy in the mid-1800s, he planned for a career as an artist. But his father, an anatomy professor, shook his head and decided that young Ramón y Cajal would pursue medicine instead. The would-be artist went on to found the field of modern neuroscience, earning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along the way. Born May 1, 1852, in Spain, Ramón y Cajal would have celebrated his 151st birthday today.

Before he began to stand out as a researcher, Ramón y Cajal had been an anatomy school assistant, a museum director and a professor and director of Spain’s National Institute of Hygiene. His most important work did not begin until around 1887, when he moved to the University of Barcelona and began investigating all of the brain’s different cell types. He discovered the axonal growth cone, which control the sensory and motor functions of nerve cells, and the interstitial cell of Cajal (later named after him), a nerve cell found in the smooth lining of the intestine. Perhaps most significantly, he developed the “neuron doctrine,” which demonstrated that nerve cells were individual rather than continuous cellular structures. Researchers consider this discovery the foundation of modern neuroscience.

In 1906, the Nobel committee awarded Ramón y Cajal and an Italian colleague the prize in Physiology or Medicine ”in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system.”

While Ramón y Cajal may have changed neuroscience forever, he maintained his original childhood passion. Throughout his career, he never gave up his art. He sketched hundreds of medical illustrations, and some of his drawings of brain cells are still used in classrooms today. 

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Not the baby in question. Image: Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL)

A woman whose liver, pancreas, stomach, large intestine and small intestine all began their lives outside her body has just given birth to a life of her own.

At age nineteen, Fatema Al Ansari was diagnosed with mesenteric thrombosis—a blood clot that caused her abdominal organs to fail and require transplant. Now, just seven years later, she is the proud mother of a baby girl, in the first documented case of anyone with five organ transplants giving birth. The Associated Press reports some of the challenges she faced during pregnancy:

Her recent pregnancy was considered high-risk and she was monitored closely by her team of transplant doctors and gynecologists in Miami.

She did not have an infection during her pregnancy, as her doctors had prepared for, but she faced minor complications including the flu, some bleeding and physical discomfort from her growing baby.

Having five organs transplanted is no longer incredible—which, in and of itself, is pretty amazing—but doctors couldn’t find any other case of someone with five transplants then having a child. Organ recipients must take drugs to suppress their immune systems, which would otherwise reject the foreign tissue, and are at high risk for infection. For Al Ansari’s body to even be able to grow with the baby is a feat.

In fact, the first post-transplant pregnancy wasn’t documented until 1963, according to Transplant Living. Several studies have chronicled pregnancy and delivery in patients with kidney transplants and heart transplants. In 1976, guidelines were proposed for those with transplants who wanted to get pregnant, including a one year waiting period after the surgery before pregnancy. And in 1991 the National Transplantation Pregnancy Registry was established to study women with transplants who wanted to have children.

In 2011, the Intestinal Transplant Association recorded 600 people who underwent five-organ transplants. For many of them, having children was probably considered impossible. But medicine is amazing, and now it might not be.

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Suffragettes march, complete with cloth banners, across the intersection of Pennsylvania Ave. and 11th St. in Washington, D.C. Photo: Library of Congress

One hundred years ago, as Washington, D.C. prepared for the March 4, 1913 inauguration of Woodrow Wilson, a group of women determined to march for their right to vote descended upon the city, prompting some to wonder what, exactly, they were on about.

Organized by leading suffrage activist Alice Paul (you might know her as the one who went on a hunger strike, only to be force-fed in the psychiatric ward of a Virgina prison), the parade and rally, staged on March 3, 1913, drew a crowd of more than 5,000 women (plus some 70 members of the National Men’s League for Women’s Suffrage, and a bunch of hecklers, and people in town for the inauguration). A breathless New York Times account of the parade published the next day set the scene:

Imagine a Broadway election night crowd, with half the shouting and all of the noise-making novelties lacking; imagine that crowd surging forward constantly, without proper police restraint, and one gains some idea of the conditions that existed along Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the Treasure Department this afternoon. Ropes stretched to keep back the crowds were broken in many places and for most of the distance the marcerhs had to walk as best they could through a narrow lane of shouting spectators. It was necessary many times to call a halt while the mounted escort and the policemen pushed the crowd back.

In the allegory presented on the Treasury steps it saw a wonderful series of dramatic pictures. In the parade over 5,000 women passed down Pennsylvania Avenue. Some were riding, more were afoot. Floats throughout the procession illustrated the progress in the woman’s suffrage cause had made in the last seventy-five years. Scattered throughout the parade were the standards of nearly every State in the Union.

Despite their numbers and enthusiasm, the ladies and their supporters were not without adversaries:

The procession, it was charged, had not gone a block before it had to halt. Crowds, the women said, had gathered about one woman and her aids, and drunken men had attempted to climb upon the floats. Insults and jibes were shouted at women marchers, and for more than an hour confusion reigned.

Still, the event was considered a success by most who attended, save one famous figure:

Miss Helen Keller, the noted deaf and blind girl, was so exhausted and unnerved by her experience in attempting to reach a grand stand, where she was to have been a guest of honor, that she was unable to speak later at Continental Hall.

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Image: Roland Tanglao

In the NHL, players’ birthdays fall into a strange pattern: the best players seem to all be born in the earlier months of the year. This pattern was extremely clear from youth hockey all the way up to the pros. In Outliers, journalist Malcolm Gladwell explained one possible cause of this weird birthday trend. Here’s New York’s summary:

Gladwell explains what academics call the relative-age effect, by which an initial advantage attributable to age gets turned into a more profound advantage over time. Because Canada’s eligibility cutoff for junior hockey is January 1, Gladwell writes, “a boy who turns 10 on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn’t turn 10 until the end of the year.” You can guess at that age, when the differences in physical maturity are so great, which one of those kids is going to make the league all-star team. Once on that all-star team, the January 2 kid starts practicing more, getting better coaching, and playing against tougher competition—so much so that by the time he’s, say, 14, he’s not just older than the kid with the December 30 birthday, he’s better.

Coaches seem to draft based on this idea that older players—players born in the first three months—will have the advantage and be better. A new paper, published in PLoS ONE, looked at those numbers:

Compared to those born in the first quarter (i.e., January–March), those born in the third and fourth quarters were drafted more than 40 slots later than their productivity warranted, and they were roughly twice as likely to reach career benchmarks, such as 400 games played or 200 points scored.

But, actually, this is a daft way to put a team together. The birthday effect that Gladwell describes hasn’t held up to scrutiny, and, in fact, when you look at the Canadian Olympic hockey team, it’s not at all full of “older” players. The NHL doesn’t seem to follow that pattern either, according to SB Nation:

According to nhl.com, at the 2010 Olympic break there were 499 Canadians on NHL rosters. That’s about 55% of the players in the entire league. If you broke their birthdates down by quarters of the year you get the following:

Canadians Non-Canadians (as of the end of the 09-10 season)

Jan-Mar: 25.7% 34.2%

Apr-June: 28.5% 23%

July-Sept: 25.5% 21.3%

Oct-Dec: 20.3% 21.5%

As you can see, if there’s a country with an “old” hockey workforce, it’s not Canada. There were actually more Canadian NHL players born in September (43) than January (41), and June was the most populous month (50). True, there are more players born in the first half of the year, but the notion that Canada is only producing successful players from a small portion of the calendar seems to be, at best, somewhat of an overstatement.

Robert Deaner, the researcher behind the new study, wanted to show people that this birthday effect simply doesn’t hold up. He told the press office at Grand Valley State University:

“There’s no doubt that drafting professional athletes is an inexact science. Plenty of sure-fire first-round picks fizzle while some late-round picks unexpectedly become stars. But our results show that, at least since 1980, NHL teams have been consistently fooled by players’ birthdays or something associated with them. They greatly underestimate the promise of players born in the second half of the year, the ones who have always been relatively younger than their peers. For any given draft slot, relatively younger players are about twice as likely to be successful. So if teams really wanted to win, they should have drafted more of the relatively younger players.”

Take note, coaches: stop listening to Malcolm Gladwell, and start listening to science.

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Image: freakgirl

In the United States, “Happy Birthday to You”—one of the most popular songs in the world—is still under copyright. And it will be until 2030. While you’re free to sing the song in private, you need to pay to perform it in public.

But now WFMU and the Free Music Archive are hoping to rescue the world from this intellectual property trap. They put out a challenge: make a new, copyright-free birthday song. Here’s the winner:

The Free Music Archive explains the project a little more here:

The Free Music Archive wants to wish Creative Commons a Happy Birthday with a song. But there’s a problem. Although “Happy Birthday To You” is the most recognized song in the English language and its origins can be traced back to 1893, it remains under copyright protection in the United States until 2030. It can cost independent filmmakers $10,000 to clear the song for their films, and this is a major stumbling block hindering the creation of new works of art.

Part of the reason the song will be under copyright for so long is that the two school-teaching sisters who wrote the melody and the words didn’t both copyrighting it. The New York Times provides a little bit more history, writing:

In 1893 the sisters wrote a book called ”Song Stories for the Sunday School.” Within that book was a composition called ”Good Morning to All,” which had the ”Happy Birthday” melody. The lyrics went: ”Good morning to you, good morning to you, good morning dear children, good morning to all.” Sung in Many Languages

Only later did the sisters add the birthday words. It is now one of the three most popular songs in the English language, the Guinness Book of World Records says, along with ”Auld Lang Syne” and ”For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.”

It wasn’t until 1935 that the Clayton F. Summy Company copyrighted the song, crediting different authors. Later, the song was purchased as part of a deal cut by the Sengstack family when they bought Summy. These companies have been sticklers about the copyright, too. Here’s the Times again:

Enforcing the copyright of a song as popular as ”Happy Birthday” has led to some peculiar situations. By law, any public performance of the song for profit or mechanical reproduction triggers a copyright fee. Summy sued Postal Telegraph in the 1940′s when the song was used in singing telegrams. The suit was dropped when company lawyers were stymied by the argument that even though the song was used for profit, it was not sung in public.

The company also objected when Frederick’s of Hollywood advertised underwear that played ”Happy Birthday.”

Currently, the copyright’s in the hands of Warner Music Group, which, like its predecessors, continues to profit off it. So WFMU and The Free Music Archive are trying to help us all out by building a better, freer song. Try it out.

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How to Properly Celebrate a Hobbit Birthday
Happy 100th Birthday, Julia Child!

Gandalf’s fireworks were far better of course. Image: davidmonro

January 3rd was J.R.R. Tolkien’s birthday, and in his honor, we’ve put together instructions on how to throw the best Hobbit Birthday ever.

First, we have the official advice for the producers of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

Next, play Pin the Ring on Bilbo made by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt:

Then, make sure you have lots and lots of food. Here’s WikiHow on How to Celebrate Hobbit day (these are the same foods at listed in the guide above, but food is very important to hobbits, so you must be sure to get it right):

• Mushrooms (these are favorite hobbit food and Farmer Maggot used to grow them and Frodo got caught trying to steal some)
• Wine (Bilbo and Frodo both inherited vineyards); beer is also popular with hobbits
• Hot soup
• Cold meats, mince pies, pork pies, rabbit, fish and chips, rashers of bacon
• Blackberry tarts and other blackberry foods (including uncooked blackberries)
• Freshly baked bread and lots of butter
• Pickles are often mentioned
• Ripe cheese
• Food made from vegetables such as corn, turnips, carrots, potatoes and onions
• Food made with apples, such as apple tart (with raspberry jam)
• Honey (foods made with honey such as honey cakes would be nice)
• Scones (known as “biscuits” in North America), fruit pies, and cakes of any kind, including seed cakes
• Pinwheel sandwiches (just because these are small and cute and the hobbits may have approved provided they weren’t too fussy)
• Tea and coffee.
  • Keep seasonings and sauces to a minimum; apparently hobbits didn’t bother with them that much.

Finally, give other people presents. Yes, other people. It’s Hobbit tradition to give gifts to others on their birthdays. Here’s Tolkien on the subject:

Receiving of gifts: this was an ancient ritual connected with kinship. It was in origin a recognition of the byrding’s membership of a family or clan, and a commemoration of his formal ‘incorporation’. No present was given by father or mother to their children on their (the children’s) birthdays (except in the rare cases of adoption); but the reputed head of the family was supposed to give something, if only in ‘token’.

Giving gifts: was a personal matter, not limited to kinship. It was a form of ‘thanksgiving’, and taken as a recognition of services, benefits, and friendship shown, especially in the past year.

A trace of this can be seen in the account of Sméagol and Déagol – modified by the individual characters of these rather miserable specimens. Déagol, evidently a relative (as no doubt all the members of the small community were), had already given his customary present to Sméagol, although they probably set out on their expedition v. early in the morning. Being a mean little soul he grudged it. Sméagol, being meaner and greedier, tried to use the ‘birthday’ as an excuse for an act of tyranny Because I wants it’ was his frank statement of his chief claim. But he also implied that D’s gift was a poor and insufficient token: hence D’s retort that on the contrary it was more than he could afford.

With that, have a very happy birthday Tolkien—and thanks for all the adventures.

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Image: Leo Reynolds

Tons of parents vie to have their kid born first every new year. But how many do you think planned to have their kids turn 12, at 12:12, on 12/12/12? Two. Okay, their parents probably didn’t plan it out, but two kids do have twelfth birthdays today at 12:12—Kreg Ryan Gunter from Belleville, Illinois, who turned 12 just past midnight, and Kiam Moriya of Birmingham, Alabama, who’s turning twelve at twelve minutes past noon today.

There might be six other kids with the same six twelves out there somewhere, says The Daily:

Based on statistics from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 4 million babies were born in the United States in 2000 — an average of about eight in any given minute. So far though, only these two boys have come to the attention of the media.

But, of course, that’s just an average—no one really knows if there are more of these lucky 12-year-olds and soon-to-be-12-year-olds. Ryan (Kleg goes by his middle name) told The Daily that he had been looking forward to this day since he was 11 (and we know that one year in kid time is like an eternity). Kiam plans to eat Krispy Kreme donuts arranged in the shape of a 12, because “donuts are awesome.”

When explaining why their birthdays were so cool, Kiam said “It’s like one minute out of a whole lifetime,” he said. “You know, it’s all 12s.”

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Photo: Google

Auguste Rodin, the French sculptor behind “The Thinker” and “The Kiss,” celebrates his would-be 172nd birthday today with a Google Doodle tribute. The Los Angeles Times describes the artist’s work:

Rodin’s sculptures emphasize musculature and movement, with subjects often assuming contorted and anguished poses. His work is often viewed as paving the way for modern sculpture of the 20th century.

His sculptures dabbled in mythology and allegory, and his unique ability to entice turbulent, deeply textured figures out of his raw materials ran counter to the predominant sculpture traditions of the time, earning him much criticism by contemporaries. Eventually, however, he outgrew those jealous judgements, rising to become France’s preeminent sculptor and gaining world-wide recognition by 1900.

Besides his enduring mark on modern art, Rodin is probably best known for his tumultuous love affair with fellow artist, Camille Claudel. The two met in 1883, when Claudel was just 18 years old. They embarked upon a passionate but stormy relationship, with Claudel often serving as Rodin’s model, while producing her own artistic works and assisting Rodin with commissions.

Meanwhile, Rodin kept up ties with Rose Beuret, his first love and mother to his child. “I think of how much you must have loved me to put up with my caprices…I remain, in all tenderness, your Rodin,” he wrote to her once, while still carrying on with mistress Claudel. In 1898, following an unwanted abortion, Claudel severed ties with Rodin for good. Soon after, she suffered a nervous breakdown and her family committed her (needlessly, many argue) to an asylum, where she spent the next 30 years, until her death in 1943. Her relatives never came to claim Claudel’s body, so she was buried in a communal grave without ceremony.

Rodin finally married Beuret, but only in the last year of both of their lives.

Rodin and Claudel’s tempestuous relationship has inspired plays, ballets and movies. A new rendition, staring Juliette Binoche as an asylum-bound, bitter Claudel, is scheduled to hit theaters next year.

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Image: NASA

Seventy-eight years ago today the world was graced with the first breaths of Carl Sagan—researcher, communicator, scientist extraordinaire. Throughout his years as both a scientist and a science communicator, Sagan brought the Cosmos to the people in his characteristic, quirky style. His charisma has created tons of spinoffs and inspired artists and musicians all over the world. Here are some of our favorite tributes.

Here’s how Sagan would make an apple pie:

Image: neven

And here’s how he would make it if he were a techno musician:

Here’s what he would be like if he were a super hero, via XKCD.

Image: XKCD

Here’s Sagan’s portrait based on his pale blue dot series:

Image: Sam Saxton

Sagan’s science set to music and epic space photographs is pretty inspiring:

Less inspiring, but equally creative, is this segment with Sagan as a puppet.

And if you want to see Sagan in action, watch the whole Cosmos series, check out the Carl Sagan Channel on YouTube.

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Photo: Google

The Google team must be literati or vampire fans—or both: Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the birth of Bram Stoker, arguably the father of the modern vampire. If he were alive today, he’d be 165, still something of a baby-vamp, by “True Blood” standards.

Dublin-born Stoker (christened Abraham)entered this world in 1847. He was a soccer and track start at Trinity College, and after graduating spent a few years working as a clerk. By the time he reached 50, however, he’d found his true calling: he released his most notable book—perhaps the most famous horror novel ever written—Dracula.

To create Dracula, Stoker spent a few years submerging himself in Eastern European folklore and its popular countryside mythology of the vampire. Unfortunately, Stoker died just 15 years after Dracula’s publication, and it wasn’t until after the author departed this Earth that the book really gained traction in popular culture, sparking adaptations in films, literature and television, and igniting an entire industry of vampire-related entertainment, Digital Spy writes.

Though the original 541-page typed Dracula manuscript disappeared for decades, until  in the 1980s it reemerged inside a barn in northwestern Pennsylvania. The work, titled “The Un-Dead,” was purchased by billionaire Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen.

Most vampire buffs associate Bella Lugosi’s original 1931 portrayal with the essence of Dracula, but fervent fans would argue that Gary Oldman’s sultry, tortured portrayal of the “son of the dragon” in the 1992 “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” really hit the coffin nail on the head:

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Proud Panda Parents Mei Xiang and Tian Tian Image Credit: Ann Batdorf, NZP photographer

There’s a new panda in town. Last night, around 10:46 pm Eastern Time, giant panda Mei Xiang (pronounced may-SHONG) gave birth to a panda cub at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

It is the second cub born to the giant panda pair Mei Xiang and Tian Tian. Their first cub, Tai Shan, lived at the zoo for almost five years, until 2010, when he was transported to China.

In a post on the National Zoo’s website, chief veterinarian Suzan Murray says:

“Mei Xiang is behaving exactly the same way she did when Tai Shan was born. She is cradling her cub closely , and she looks so tired, but every time she tries to lay down, the cub squawks and she sits right up and cradles the cub more closely. She is the poster child for a perfect panda mom.”

The cub’s birth could mean more time in the United States for Tian Tian and Mei Xiang, whose reproductive capabilities (or lack thereof) have been a source of speculation for years. The pair are here as part of a research agreement between the United States and China as part of a breeding program, but have only produced two cubs in the 14 years that both have been in the United States.

Right now, handlers are monitoring the cub by video and won’t approach until Mei Xiang leaves its side. People desperate for a panda fix can join in the fun by visiting a live webcam of the enclosure. If you listen carefully, you can hear the cub’s insistent shrieks for its mother’s attention. Viewing is limited to just five minutes due to the high volume of traffic on the site.

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H.P. Lovecraft finally rests in peace, sans night horrors. Photo: StrangeInterlude

Today, “weird fiction” fans everywhere toast the birth of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, more commonly known as H.P. Lovecraft. Though Lovecraft left this world in 1937, his prolific short stories, poems and essays continue to feed the imagination and nightmares of readers around the world, including fanboy and author Stephen King, the creators of the Batman series and the band Metallica.

Just what makes that particular brand of Lovecraftian horror? Strange Horizons describes Lovecraft’s unique way of conveying fear on paper:

Drowning is scary, murderers are scary, and dead bodies are scary, but these are all perfectly natural occurrences. No, horror for Lovecraft involved the breaking, or disturbance, of cosmic law — in short, things that are against nature, or at least nature as humans conceive it.

As Lovecraft himself noted, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.”

Lovecraft’s sad, short life informed his now-considered-genius writing – the silver lining of nearly 5 decades of suffering. He was born 122 years ago today, on August 20, 1890, and life more or less went downhill from there. His father, who became “acutely psychotic” a few years after Lovecraft’s birth,  died of syphilis when the young boy was only 8 years old, though Lovecraft – perhaps oblivious to his father’s true malady – maintained throughout his life that his dad died from “overwork.”

A sickly child, little Lovecraft hardly ever attended school. Around the age of 8, his mother pulled him out of organized education for good. Still, the boy was a voracious reader and would spend his days gobbling up whatever books he could get ahold of, especially those related to chemistry and astronomy. By the age of 9, Lovecraft was producing his own written musings on scientific topics.

Later in life, Lovecraft’s stories often drew upon his scientific knowledge and he became one of the first writers to mix science fiction and horror. Scientific American elaborates:

Lovecraft is today considered one of the first authors to mix elements of the classic gothic horror stories, mostly characterized by supernatural beings, with elements of modern science-fiction, were the threat to the protagonists results from natural enemies, even if these are creatures evolved under completely different conditions than we know. He was an enthusiastic autodidact in science and incorporates in his story many geologic observations made at the time, he even cites repeatedly the geological results of the 1928-30 expedition led by Richard Evelyn Byrd.

While he was learning the fundamentals of geology and evolution by day, young Lovecraft’s nights, however, were not so productive. He suffered from intense night terrors and described regular visits from horrific “night gaunts,” devil-like horned creatures with no faces that assaulted the boy in waking dreams and later haunted the pages of his disturbing stories.

Lovecraft’s grandfather died in 1904, and due to a case of mixed up inheritance paperwork, the family lost much of its fortune and was forced to move into a shabby house. Lovecraft promptly had a nervous breakdown, gave up on earning his high school diploma and began writing poetry. A few years later, his mother – hysterical and depressed – wound up in the same mental hospital that Lovecraft’s father had been committed to years earlier. Lovecraft’s mother likewise took her last breath in the hospital’s wards, in 1921, when surgeons botched her gallbladder surgery. Lovecraft later eulogized this mental asylum in his fictitious Arkham, Massachusetts, which DC Comics borrowed to create the infamous Arkham Asylum that housed the Joker, the Riddler, Poison Ivy and Bane in the Batman series.

The now-orphaned Lovecraft tried to turn his life around. He won the hand of a woman 7 years his senior and the happy couple moved to Brooklyn. Things went well for a while despite Lovecraft’s judgmental aunts (they didn’t like that his wife was a tradeswoman), but then the inevitable money woes descended. Lovecraft’s lady lost her shop and her health, and the struggling author couldn’t find work. His wife took off for Cleveland in the hopes of finding employment, leaving Lovecraft in a solo apartment in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, which he soon began to hate intensely and channeled that antipathy in his short story, “The Horror at Red Hook.” Still living apart and seeing no means of reuniting, Lovecraft and his soon-to-be-ex agreed to divorce and the starving artist returned to his aunts’ home in Providence. Little did he know, this would be the last pain-filled chapter in his life.

Back in Rhode Island, Lovecraft produced the majority of what today are his most celebrated works, including  ”At the Mountains of Madness “and “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.” But he saw no hint of his current popularity, and grew poorer by the day. With his surviving aunt, he moved from smaller to smaller houses, and also suffered from malnutrition. He was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine, and, ever the macabre-obsessed weirdo, kept meticulous notes of the various unpleasant ways his malady manifested itself. On March 15, 1937, ten years after moving back to Providence, Lovecraft passed away, his pain finally coming to an end.

Only after his death was Lovecraft’s fiction finally recognized as works of genius by horror and fantasy genre fans. In 1977, his disciples pooled their funds to purchase a respectable headstone for the long-deceased master, inscribing it with the phrase “I AM PROVIDENCE” taken from one of Lovecraft’s letters.

If you happen to be in Phoenix today, join other fans tonight for “The Birth of HP Lovecraft Party” where Lovecraft afficionados will attempt to summon one of the horror guru’s most dreaded and celebrated creatures – the tentacled lord Cthulu - from the cosmic abyss.

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This morning’s Google Doodle pays homage to one of America’s favorite chefs of all time, Julia Child. It’s a big honor, but the woman deserves it, it is her 100th birthday after all.

Child is probably best known for her television show The French Chef, one of the first cooking shows on television. But as she cooked her way through fame and fortune, Child had a soft spot for science as well. Here she is burning some food to make carbon in her delightful, Julia Child way.

Child helped out with another science experiment too – making primordial soup:

Julia Child, famous chef, entertains you in her kitchen by preparing a primordial soup. Her recipe demonstrates how simple inorganic chemicals on the ancient Earth may have been transformed into complex organic compounds, the building blocks of life. In this presentation our chef mixes a batch of raw primordial soup in special laboratory apparatus made to simulate conditions of ancient Earth.

Julia Child spent most of her time in the kitchen acting a lot like a good scientist – trying things to see if they work. Things like blow torches. Here she is using one on a crepe.

But what would Child have thought of today’s combination of food and science? There is something quite different between the specialized, equipment intensive molecular gastronomy of today’s chefs, or the laboratory produced meats and flavors, and Child’s playful, homey experimentation with food. Chances are, she would have hated today’s processed foods, but appreciate molecular gastronomy, says the Chicago Sun Times:

Child once commented on Cuisine Nouveau, molecular gastronomy’s 1990s precursor, “It’s so beautifully arranged on the plate —- you know someone’s fingers have been all over it.” So we can guess what she might think of meat glue and spherified vegetable juice.

And while she was a lover of tools like the blow-torch, and the microwave, she was also a no-fuss kind of chef. Here’s the Chicago Sun Times again:

In The Way to Cook, Child wrote, “I wouldn’t be without my microwave oven, but I rarely use it for real cooking. I like having complete control over my food — I want to turn it, smell it, poke it, stir it about and hover over its every state. …” Child used her microwave for defrosting and melting chocolate and butter and even baking potatoes (she loved baked potatoes with lots of butter).

For all she embraced labor-saving devices, she was a stickler for process. She deplored “elimination of steps, combination of processes, or skimping on ingredients such as butter, cream — and time.”

The clean, sterile laboratory atmosphere of molecular gastronomy doesn’t have lots of room for intentionally burned foods and fingers mucking about in everything. So for today, in honor of Julia, let’s torch some crepes together.

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Julia Child in Paris

Photo: Wikicommons

Were he still walking this Earth, Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock would be 113 today. His career spanned more than half a century and gave us jewels like cinematic voyeurism, cameo appearances, icy blondes and deranged, child-pecking sea gulls. Besides leaving his mark as “one of cinema’s most significant artists,” Hitchcock also molded young minds. In celebration of Alfie’s birthday, Brain Pickings shared this touching letter, penned by an elementary school principal after Hitchcock visited to film part of “The Birds” in 1962:

The real purpose of this letter is to inform you what your deed of kindness did for a boy to whom you gave your drawing and autograph. This boy is quite shy and does not participate readily in class activities, such as sharing his experiences before others during sharing time. He was so thrilled and moved by his experience that he proudly shared his experience and autograph not only with his own class, but in every classroom in the school. The boy never before has done such a thing. Many times it takes such a spark as this to help a youngster out of his shell and on the road to confidence. You don’t realize what your act of kindness has done for this child.

And here’s a Hitchcockian birthday celebration:

More from Smithsonian.com:

Behind the Lost Hitchcock Film 

The White Shadow and Streaming Restored Films Online 

Photo: teaperson

Children and hobbyists rejoice – today is Lego’s 80th birthday. As LEGO.com explains, on this day in 1932, Ole Kirk Kristiansen, a master carpenter in Denmark, established a business building stepladders, ironing boards, stools and – this is the important one – wooden toys. His son, Godfred, becomes probably the first Lego-engrossed youngster, joining the family business at the tender age of 12.

The shop was called LEg GOdt, or “play well” in Danish. Later, it would come to light that the phrase also means “I put together” in Latin.

The business started small, manufacturing small wooden toys.  World War II kept Godfred home in the shop rather than traveling to Germany for school as he had originally planned. By 1949, the Kristiansens had hired 50 people and released the first LEGO forerunner, the “Automatic Binding Bricks,” sold exclusively in Denmark with four or eight studs, in four different colors.

The original Lego crew. Photo: LEGO Group

In 1954 the family registered the word “LEGO” and the first export of the toys began the next year. The LEGO empire expanded, first in Europe, then to the US, Asia, Australia, the Middle East and South America. Legos proved to be a delight to children everywhere, regardless of their background.

In 1979, Godfred is appointed Knight of the Order of Dannebrog for the family creation. In 1995, after climbing from child laborer to global toy empire overseer, Godfred passed away.

The company tries to abide by the original spark that led the Kristiansens to create their wooden ducks and building blocks:

Curiosity asks, “Why?” and imagines explanations or possibilities (if.. then). Playfulness asks what if? and imagines how the ordinary becomes extraordinary, fantasy or fiction. Dreaming it is a first step towards doing it.

Amidst today’s ipads, video games and electronic toys, the simple Lego holds its own.

Meanwhile, Here’s the Guardian’s behind-the-scenes look at the Lego Olympic coverage, just in time for the birthday celebrations:

More from Smithsonian.com:

The World’s Greatest Structures Built with Legos

Lego Meth Lab Makes it Almost Seem OK