Artist Lori Nix specializes in post-apocalyptic dioramas of abandoned scenery in which "public spaces devoted to history and science lie deteriorating and neglected while nature slowly takes them back."

Nix describes her work as “saturated with color and infused with a dark sense of humor.”  The truly amazing thing about her work is that rather than being Photoshop manipulations, they are actual miniaturizations – painstakingly hand-crafted over periods ranging from two to fifteen months.  Click the thumbnail for a larger image or, better yet, go check out the complete slideshow.

Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov blends WWII photos of European cities with contemporary versions to create a haunting study of contrast.  With a seamless overlay of colors and and greyscale, Larenkov’s doesn’t just connect old with new, but does so alongside a stark contradiction of visceral wartime imagery and modern excess,  You can click on the thumbnail for a larger version or head over to his LiveJournal page for the complete series.

Ginger Blakley is a Canadian artist whose work is “influenced by her love for nature and the beauty found in old world simplicity.”  Her work vacillates between fantasy and decay giving her pieces a sort of decrepit beauty.  What I find most striking about Blakley’s work is the blend of antique simplcity alongside images of decay and discard.

Blakely has also made available the incredible work done by her father on a series of “fanciful machines” – a gorgeous collection of steampunk-esque vehicles.  Like a set of farming implementations from the imagination of Willy Wonka, his work offers a visceral ingenuity of pre-technological complexity while managing to convey the same sense of decay permeating his daughter’s work.  You can check out more images from each artist here.

Finally, I have an image without an artist.  Found on DeMotivation.us, this mimicks seventies-era library prints that are still popular in classrooms.  If you’re wondering, the caption translation reads: Books – That is exactly how they work. 

I can’t tell who to credit for this one, but I would run out and buy it in a heartbeat if anyone manages to track down the artist.

Big thanks to XKCD for pointing me towards Wikipedia’s ever-growing list of common misconceptions.  As the page’s introduction notes:

This is a list of current, widely held, fallacious ideas and beliefs about notable topics which have been reported by reliable sources from around the world. Each has been discussed in published literature, as has its topic area (such as glass, and the misconception that glass is viscous) and the actual facts concerning it.

There’s some surprising stuff in there.  For example, did you know that glass is not, in fact, a slow-moving liquid?  I know there’s been a terrible void in your lives since I killed the Cognitive Bias section, so I’ve gone ahead and split each out and put them into rotation on the right side of the site so your visit here will be that much more educational.  THF eradicates Stupid, yo!!

I normally post shorts of the more artistic variety, but am making an exception for this nine-minute tribute to Carl Sagan produced by callumCGLP for Milky Way Musings.  Narrated by Sagan himself, the clip features excerpts from Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. 

Sagan was a true gem – a man of vast intelligence tempered by an unsurpassed wonderment of both the art and mystery of life, he effortlessly traverses and unifies the topologies of science, philosophy and religion while remaining both captivating and entertaining.  In nine short minutes, he manages to illustrate our overwhelming insignificance while conversely asserting a nearly limitless power to expand our destiny.  The first of a series of 13 (so far), the video is set against an engaging visual foreground from Discovery's Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking and the BBC's Wonders of the Solar System with Brian Cox alongside a musical score from the Lost Soundtrack (yup, you heard me) and is sure to both entertain and illuminate your week.  Enjoy!

Image by TheDarkThing via Flickr

• Nearly a decade ago, no lesser Capitalist than President Bill Clinton chastised the pharmaceutical industry for gross profiteering at the expense of our children by highlighting an economic sector that spends $1 billon more on advertising and lobbying than R&D.  Well as it turns out, those outrageous R&D expenses big Pharma are always whining about may be exaggerated by as much as 600%.
• Such exaggerated costs are one of the reasons drug companies assert the need for monopolies and threaten to stop making their miracle cures if the public does not help those poor souls recoup from their altruistic endeavours.  In the process, a drug that used to be $10 per shot will now bleed patients for $1500 – nearly all of which is pure profit – all in the name of quality control.
• After years of stacking the FDA which sympathetic cronies, Big Pharma is now claiming that the FDA approval process is so flawless that they should be indemnified against any lawsuits stemming from their wrongdoing, garnering government support in at least one state. But don’t worry, the federal government is sure to bestow fabulous cash and prizes upon any flipper babies.
• But finally, no matter how bad it is in the good old you-ess-of-aye, at least we're not as bad as those hippies and communists in the rest of the ‘developed’ world.  And I’ve got the infograhic to prove it!