Scanning Electron Micrograph Of My Toothbrush!

Last month Johnny posted about an offer from ASPEX. They have desktop SEM (Scanning Electron Micrograph) and will scan a sample of anything you send to them.

The offer still stands. Follow the instructions here to get your dead bugs and rotten food scanned for free.

I sent in my toothbrush and they sent me an email with the results the other day! So here it is:



Pretty interesting, huh? They also put up two other toothbrush scans:

FREE Scanning Electron Micrographs of Just About Anything

An interesting offer from ASPEX
November 10, 2009 2:54 PM - by PZ Myers

I had my doubts about this; I got an offer from ASPEX corporation to let people get free scanning electron micrographs of just about anything. They make a desktop SEM (Scanning Electron Micrograph), and all you have to do is fill out a form and mail it in with your sample of a dead bug or a microchip or bacon, and presto, within a few weeks they'll have it scanned in and the image available on their website.

I asked them if they knew how many readers I have, and they said no problem, they can handle it.

Huh.

Well, you heard them. Scavenge your trash cans, dig into your local sources of vermin and oddments, and send them in. I'm thinking this could be really fun for any school teachers out there — you could have the whole class looking for interesting specimens to zoom in on. You can see their current galleries for ideas.

Follow the instructions here to get your dead bugs and rotten food scanned for free.

If you do send something in to get scanned be sure to note that you found them via PZ; and be sure to come back here and share your scan with the rest of us!

My Letter To President Obama

The other day I told you to write or call the White House to add your voice as an atheist regarding the Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the issue of the separation of church and state. I thought I'd share my letter with you. Here it is, short and sweet.

Dear President Obama and staff,

Thank you for your hard work.
As an atheist and a taxpayer, I am dismayed and alarmed that my tax dollars are funding a faith based program like the Office Of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. I firmly believe in the separation of church and state. The government should not have anything to do with religion, as stated in the Bill of Rights. We are a country founded on freedom of - and from - religion.
If we must have a faith based program, please at least get rid of the Bush era rules that are still in place. Please issue an executive order barring proselytism and employment bias in all publicly funded programs run by faith based organizations. Please make these programs fully accountable to the public and please make sure my tax dollars do not go to an advancement of religion in any way.
Thank you,
Sincerely,
An ethical atheist

You can use the White House contact form like I did, or you can write or call:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

TTY/TDD
Comments: 202-456-6213
Visitors Office: 202-456-2121

Here's a link to the First Amendment if you'd like to refresh your memory on the wording. He's our president. Let's at least try to hold him accountable to our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

20 Reasons I Am godless

Here are 20 reasons I have to be godless. Consider it a work in progress because I'm sure there are plenty of other great reasons I am not thinking of right now. I certainly welcome your suggestions for future lists and refinements.

1. I understand that Zeus, Santa, the Easter Bunny, Odin, Osiris and all of their ilk are fairy tale characters, stories made up to explain things that weren't known at the time, or to get weak-minded people to do what someone wanted. They are all just stories to tell to children or sheep, to keep them in line or entertain them. Jesus, Yahweh, Allah and Jehovah are no different. I've studied world religions. They're all mythical and steal from each other. They are all about submission and control of simple people through fear and coercion.

Wow. It's Over! And Other Goodness

First, let's do the other goodness. The political bit follows. My friend has been busy lately and I want to share what he's been doing.

• Global Atheist is an aggregate site that refreshes every 15 minutes. It's a great place to scan lots of awesome skeptical and atheist sites at once.

Now for the Rambling Political Bit:

After about 2 years of campaigning and general political nastiness, it's over. We'll have a new president soon! Change is in the air! President Barack Obama. I don't know about you, but I'm so glad it's done.

It seems that most of America is probably relieved and happy today, while some people (like my parents) are very angry and busy selling off their stocks so that they can leave the country. Maybe they can move to Canada. Oh wait, Canada really IS a socialist country. Just teasing.

Hopefully things will settle down, and people will get on with their lives. My phone didn't ring all day from the Republican party, telling me how to think, so it was nice to have some peace and quiet.

I feel like there is so much potential for positive change. I hope good things will be able to happen with a new administration.

What does it mean to us, the little people, to have a new president? Hopefully a lot. In my humble opinion, things can only get better after the past 8 years. Apparently most of America agrees that it was time for something different. WOOT!

Fold It- Play A Game For Science!

This is the neatest idea on so many levels. So you need to unwind and play a game. You're tired of windows solitaire. How about playing a game that could contribute to curing a disease? How about helping science with your big awesome brain!?

You can go here to read about the science behind the "game".

So basically, in a really simple nutshell, you're using your intuitive awesome brain to do something that would take computers a huge amount of time and expense to do.

Proteins are part of lots of diseases, so understanding how they fold on themselves is very important.

Free Online College Classes

College is expensive. But if you look around, you might find that education can be free. We live in a world full of information, but sometimes you just have to know how to search for it.

A friend of mine wrote about MIT and their free classes online. It sounds great. The only catch is, you don't get credits for the classes you take, so it can't get you towards a degree, but it's Free Information. It's pretty hard to beat.

While looking into MIT, I found a lot of other great colleges and universities are now doing the same thing. Here's a brief list. I'm sure there's much more out there if you look:

6 Places to Find Free Online eBooks

Books can be quite expensive. Sometimes, especially when doing research, it's also great to be able to search through the book easily, like you can do with an ebook. This list is partly done for selfish reasons, so that I can easily find these sites again for myself. But for you, my friend, here is a list of 6 great places to find ebooks for free.

Bartleby - providing students, researchers and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information free of charge on the web.

The Internet Public Library - Huge selection of more than 20,000 books to read online.

Many Books - Over 21,000 free ebooks available here.

Project Gutenberg - Over 25,000 free ebooks in their online catalog.

Refdesk - Quality, credible and timely online resources available for free, such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, calculators and much more.

The Online Books Page - Over 30,000 free books online, hosted by the University of Pennsylvania.

This list is compiled from Here where 40 sites are listed. But most of the links either didn't offer much or didn't seem quite as free as they appeared at first glance, so I've pared it down.

There are many other resources out there. But these seem like the best of the bunch. If you find more places to get great books online for free, leave a comment.