Asparagus and Rubber Bands

| Emily Coren
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Springtime and asparagus are synonymous for me, the change of the seasons marked in rubber bands. At the end of winter my jar of rubber bands disappears, consumed by binding half used bags of sugar and picnic lunches. Just in time, the first asparagus appears at the farmers market. I don’t buy rubber bands, I buy asparagus. Thick blue rubber bands binding together each pound of asparagus, one rubber band at the top of the bunch the other at the bottom. Arthur loves asparagus so we easily go through six or seven pounds of it a week, which adds incrementally twelve to fourteen rubber bands back into the jar in my kitchen. It’s a few weeks into spring and I’m enjoying the proliferating springy mass of blue elastic.

Santa Cruz, CA
4/16/13

Hard Drive Controller Wallet

Image | | Emily Coren

Hard Drive Controller Wallet

Arthur is a computer programmer who builds virtual machines. There is usually enough physical redundancy that nothing can catastrophically fail, but once in a while things do. When cascading hard drive controllers fail at Arthur’s work, large amounts of data are lost. He has collected the offending hard drive controllers that have failed him, as trophies of a sort. He asked me to construct a wallet out of them for him. This is the result, it’s made of black canvas and five broken hard drive controllers sewn on like buttons.

Palo Alto, CA
3/27/13

Why we need Science Communication

| Emily Coren

Scicomm1

I compiled a list of resources for science communicators, it’s sort of a summary of my summer reading. My article Why We Need Science Communication was published this morning by Nature Publishing Group. So far it’s gotten enthusiastic reviews.

Thanks to Maki Naro for his beautiful guest editorial cartoon! Maki is a new friend of mine, that I met at ScienceOnline last month. You can also learn a bit more about Maki in a recent interview of him at Little House Entertainment.

Chocolate Star Linzer Cookies

| Emily Coren
Imag1222

Next to cookies what Arthur likes best are my illustrations. He's probably my biggest fan; infinitely patient as I sit and draw when we are traveling together. This site would not exist without him. And he's an over-doer, so I made two kinds of cookies, not just one… These chocolate-lemon linzer star cookies like yellow stars in a dark sky are inspired by my astronomy friends at NASA Landsat (http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/) and Universe Today (http://www.universetoday.com/).

Chocolate Cookies
3 c flour
3/4 c cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
1 c butter
1 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Lemon Filling
Lemon curd and cream cheese, with a little yellow food coloring.

Chill dough. Roll and cut. Re-chill. Bake 10-15min at 325. Cool to room temp. Layer with filling.

Happy Valentines Day Arthur.
Santa Cruz, CA 2/14/13