Vitruvian people

No doubt you are familiar with the 1st image, even if you don't know its formal name. This version of Vitruvian Man was drawn by Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci c. 1487. The name refers to ancient Roman architect Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (1st c. B.C.), who described the human figure as the main source of proportion in classical architecture. Some of the proportions set forth in his text are as follows:

• the length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height
• the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is 1/8th of a man's height
• the maximum width of the shoulders is 1/4th of a man's height
• the length of the hand is 1/10th of a man's height
• the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is 1/3rd of the length of the head
• the length of the ear is 1/3rd of the length of the face
• the length of a man's foot is 1/6th of his height

Leonardo's diagram, based on Vitruvian proportions, expresses his belief that the workings of the human body were an analogy for the workings of the universe. Many other artists (see slideshow) have interpreted Vitruvius's words over the centuries, including German artist Albrecht Dürer in 1528 and English poet and printmaker William Blake in 1795.

But were you aware that there are a number of Vitruvian women? As a modern response to the idea that man is the measure of all things, a woman has been drawn in his place. Pictured (2nd image) is "Sex Change for Vitruvian Man" (2005) by contemporary Australian artist Susan Dorothea White. Also of note is "Vitruvian Woman" (1989) by contemporary American artist Nat Krate. There have also been a performance piece (1980) and a video installation (2009) intent on feminizing the iconic image of the Vitruvian Man - without giving him a "wife," as was done with the Visible Man.

Follow-ups

Follow-ups 12/9/09 Reader Megan brought this to my attention: a mutant parakeet - the opposite of the bald parrot pictured in this post! And just for good measure, here are a few more oddities: birds in sweaters (scroll down), diapers, a flight harness, and fancy dress.

Hermits - 2 scenarios 12/8/09 An unidentified couple from Indiana have been selected from 250 individuals or families who offered to adopt 2 pugs - Harry and Sally - who had fed on the flesh of their owner after he died.

Happy Thanksgiving! 11/26/09 I mentioned in an e-mail to my previous next-door neighbor Steve that we were going to save ourselves the trouble and order a boxed turkey dinner from the local grocery store this year, and I just have to share his response: "I hear them kind of turkeys are the ones that died in the truck - the brown part of the skin is really broom marks." When I told him we were doing the same thing for Christmas, he responded, "Christmas boxed turkeys are the ones that the homeless shelters rejected on Thanksgiving for smelling worse than the people there to eat them." I hope that doesn't offend anyone. It left me giggling!

Docking cow tails 10/27/09 A jumping cow made the news in Blagdon, Somerset, U.K. In news somewhat related to this post, the RSPCA reports that a "caller was distressed about a 'tumour' hanging off the back of a sheep. When an inspector attended, he found the 'tumour' was, in fact, a tail."

Shackleton 10/28/09 Word of another treasure found in an Antarctic hut - this time the oldest supply of Kiwi butter found near a shelter of Robert F. Scott.

Dinosaur eggs 10/3/09 Every new dinosaur discovery is said to threaten the current knowledge of paleontology. Here's another discovery that promises to "shake the dinosaur family tree."

Pig butchering 9/1/09 Investigations by the U.S.D.A. are underway in Florida to root out unlicensed slaughterhouses.

Human hybrids 8/22/09 Like the artist of this procative sculpture, Australian artist Sam Jinks creates very realistic sculptures like the one pictured above. It reminds me - as it is surely meant to - of the Pietà.

Surviving rabies 8/18/09 An Arizona man was set upon by a rabid bobcat last week and managed to strangle it with his bare hands.

Leonardo's lion 8/17/09 An instrument - the harpsichord-viola - has been reconstructed from the sketches in Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.

Ripley's Seeing is Believing 8/14/09 In this post, I link to a video of a pelican swallowing a pigeon. Here is a report of 2 herons whose eyes were bigger than their stomachs - with fatal results.

Pangolins 7/20/09 My sister brought to my attention the recent rescue of some pangolins destined for the Black Market, and I found a number of recent recoveries: 130 and another 31 in December and 98 in August in Malaysia, and 66 in December in Thailand.

Green eggs and ham 5/11/09 Wild pigs are a hazard at the international airport in Harare, Zimbabwe. Dressing as a wild boar while hunting proved fatal in Greece. And walkers in Germany were terrorized by wild boars. (Plenty of weird wild boar news to form a future post about "Hogzilla" and his kin.)

Chihuahuas in the weird news 5/2/09 California animal shelters report an overabundance of chihuahuas and have begun to ship them out of state.

Frozen baby mammoth 4/26/09 "Lyuba" has been preserved and insured in preparation for an international museum tour.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 India's last performing bear has been set free to live out its remaining days in a sanctuary in Bangalore. A zoo in Georgia houses a lion, a tiger, and a bear together in a single habitat.

Centenarians - and then some 3/26/09 The Georgia centenarian mentioned by President Obama in his election night speech has died at the age of 107. Meanwhile, a man in Maine has turned 108. And on the darker side, a Massachusetts centenarian has been killed, purportedly by her 98-year-old roomate, and a 100-year-old sex offender has been released from prison in New York.

Big bunny 2/24/09 Here's a story about a giant pet rabbit who has patterned its behavior after the family's cocker spaniel.

Killer chimpanzees 2/17/09 Monkeys trained in the martial arts revolted and turned on their trainer in China.

Marine creatures 2/15/09 An aquarium in Norfolk, U.K., has lowered the water levels in the turtle tank so the creatures can be given their seasonal and vitamin-rich treat of brussel sprouts without their resultant gassiness triggering overflow alarms. And since we're talking about turtles, here's one with 2 heads and 6 legs.

Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday 2/12/09 The body of the former president of Cyprus has been stolen from his tomb.

Hedgehogs 1/8/09 Here's an overweight albino hedgehog on a swimming regimen to lose the ounces...

Rats! 12/20/09 A capybara - the world's largest rodent - has been accidentally crushed to death in a Canadian zoo.

Birds and dogs 12/15/08 In December, in Apalachicola, Florida, a man saw a medium-sized poodle snatched up by what appeared to be a chicken hawk, and a Pomeranian was carried off by an owl and dropped 2mi away, breaking her tail. Also in December - speaking of big birds - a hawk or falcon gots its talon stuck in the escalator of a metro station in Washington, D.C. and a hawk spent the night in a Wellington, Florida, hardware store [note that the manager's name is Quigley!]. Last year, professional golfer Tripp Isenhour got a lot of bad press and a fine for deliberately killing a red-shouldered hawk with a golf ball because it was interrupting the video he was shooting on an Orlando, Florida, course.

Space chimp 12/5/08 Russia's Cosmonautics Agency is in talks with an institute in the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia to send one of their 350 apes on a mission to Mars, looked after by a robot.

Yellowstone 11/21/08 Scientists have revealed that the seismic "plumbing" beneath Yellowstone National Park runs an astonishing 410 miles deep!

Follow-ups

Cloaca 11/17/09 Today is World Toilet Day! I used the opportunity to contact Virginia Gardiner, inventor of the LooWatt, to give her my regards. In this article from Tuesday, the founder of the World Toilet Organization wants everyone to see past the toilet's lack of charisma to solve the world's sanitation problem.

Follow-ups 11/16/09 In my last set of follow-ups, I linked to the illustrations of radiation-damaged insects by Cornelia Hesse-Honegger. I soon heard from follower Kent Schnake, who was sent "reeling back to the 1950's. I was born in 1950," he writes, "so one staple of my childhood was movies about various dangerous mutations due to radiation. I immediately thought of a movie I saw about giant ants. As I was looking about for examples, I stumbled on this article that gives an excellent explanation of why scaling creatures up in size would create big problems regarding their viability. It seems that the 50 ft. Woman would have had serious health problems!" The article is a fantastic find and a great read.

Circus animals on the lam 11/13/09 A family was recently driving through a safari park in Johannesburg, South African, when a lion managed to open the back door of the car. Meanwhile, 8 British tourists are suing a safari park north of Cape Town, South Africa, because of the irresponsible actions of a park employee who overturned the vehicle they were riding in, causing them to be surrounded, threatened, and traumatized by a pride of lions.

Birds in fable and fact 10/22/09 In Fairbanks, Alaska, hundreds of ravens gathered right after 2 of the birds were accidentally electrocuted.

Mona Lisa(s) 8/12/09 Here is an attempt to create the largest reproduction of the painting - 50X its original size - in Wrexham, Wales, U.K.

Autotomy 5/10/09 In a follow-up to this post, I linked to a video of a Chinese speed-cooking competition. Here is a similar video of a deep-fried carp cooked, served in a Taiwanese restaurant, and eaten - all while it is still alive.

Chihuahuas in the weird news 5/2/09 Above (1st photo) is the best costume I have seen on a dog (not a chihuahua) this Halloween! And the chihuahua depicted (2nd photo) deserved, in my opinion, Best Costume of all the dogs featured in a post this summer.

Animal accidents 1/16/09 There have been a flurry of mentions that British photographer Kevin Beresford has published a surprisingly popular Roadkill Calendar for 2010, but nowhere can I find a link with order information, which seems a bit suspect.

Traumatic skull injuries 11/25/08 Though it involved the heart and not the skull, this traumatic injury immediately reminded me of Phineas Gage.

Follow-ups

A more modest list of follow-ups...

Conjoined twins 11/5/09 Reader Sandra Konigmacher suggested this link, which offers antique anatomical prints like this 1775 print by Johann Gottlieb Walker.

Collyer brothers 9/9/09 I neglected to mention in my post that E.L. Doctorow has just published a novel loosely based on the Collyer brothers called Homer and Langley.

Mona Lisa(s) 8/12/09 Famous masterpieces - including the "Mona Lisa" - reproduced using coffee.

Eunuchs 8/7/09 India's intersex and eunuch community has been granted the right to indicate a 3rd gender - neither male nor female - on the country's voting ballots.

Steampunk design 7/21/09 Photographs of some cool steampunk guitars and - if you're into that sort of thing - guns.

Elusive animals 6/4/09 A researcher has proven for the first time that a South American songbird chirps not with its beak, but its feathers. In addition, several new marine species have been discovered during a biodiversity study off the coast of New Zealand, including the squat lobster that eats only wood (treetrunks and shipwrecks) that has sunk to the ocean floor.

Centenarians and then some 3/26/09 A happy story sbout twins celebrating their 100th birthday and a sad story about a homeless 97-year-old.

Shark attack capital 3/12/09 A pregnant shark at a New Zealand aquarium was bitten by another shark, unexpectedly releasing four baby sharks as visitors watched.

Spider prey 3/7/09 A British man has been arrested trying to smuggle 1,000 live spiders out of Brazil in 2 suitcases.

Footprints 2/28/09 Scientists have found the first dinosaur tracks to be recognized in New Zealand.

Killer chimpanzees 2/17/09 Charla Nash, victim of the chimp attack in Connecticut in February revealed her badly mauled face on "Oprah" this week (caution, photo on p. 3).

Megafishes 2/15/09 An Englishman fishing in Spain landed the 3rd largest catfish ever caught in the world - and then released it back into the wild.

Hedgehogs 1/8/09 A bald hedgehog, abandoned by its mother, is being cared for at a wildlife rescue center in hopes that his spikes will regrow.

Follow-ups

Mexican novelist Mario Bellatin wearing one of his designer prostheses.

I want to follow up on my posts, but the news items and comments are coming so fast and furious that I have opted to discontinue my time-consuming practice of many small illustrations in favor of the one I consider the best, so be sure to check all the links for associated photographs. Enjoy!

The narwhal 8/19/09 Here are some extraordinary images of an ocean photographer's encounter with a 50' humpback whale in the South Pacific.

Leonardo's lion 8/17/09 Relating to my post about Leonardo da Vinci's inventions is this Smithsonian slideshow of the instruments of discovery used and improved upon by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), including another of my favorite words to say - the astrolabe.

Mona Lisa(s) 8/12/09 Among these replications of Leonardo da Vinci's iconic painting, I forgot to include the work of Scott Wade - Mona Lisa's image on a dirty window.

Victor Noir 8/10/09 Speaking of sex symbols, Marilyn Monroe can be your postmortem bunkmate. The woman whose husband's body is entombed above hers at Westwood Village Memorial Park in L.A. is moving his body and auctioning off the crypt on e-bay to settle her Beverly Hills mortgage. (Thanks to reader Elena for the link!)

Jaws in 1916 8/8/08 Thanks to reader Michael Keighery for this link to an Australian mystery from 1935. The Shark Arm Case followed 3 shark deaths off the coast of New South Wales. A 3.5M tiger shark was caught and put on live display at the Coogee Aquarium Baths. The visitors who flocked to see the man-killer were not disappointed - it disgorged a tattooed human arm. But the owner of the arm was the victim of a murder rather than the shark...

Eunuchs 8/7/09 In India, thousands of male members of a cult devoted to Radha dress as this female lover of Krishna, baffling religious leaders.

Stain 8/6/09 My former boss Jim Schaefer sent me this link to an incredible story and slideshow of photographs of Hiroshima taken by the Physical Damage Division of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey and accidentally rediscovered in a pile of junk on a Watertown, Massachusetts, street. On this year's anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, a piano that had survived Hiroshima was played at a performance in Tokyo.

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Death worm and bloodworm 8/5/09 Follower Kent Schnake liked the worm post and recommended the film Dune. He also points out that the guinea worm and similar parasites common in Africa are - even though they don't spit acid and shoot lightning out of their ass - horrible in their own way.

Weird watercolors 8/1/09 This post mentions the painting Rembrandt did as a child. Here you can listen to a piece of music written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) at the age of 7 or 8.

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Hummingbirds 7/28/09 Follower Megan McCabe said this post reminded her to tell me about the work of graffiti artist Dan Witz, who paints lifelike hummingbirds in public spaces.

Creative cremains 7/24/09 I heard from a reader who offers another creative alternative to stashing ashes in a columbarium - adhering a small portion of them to a photograph - an "ashprint," as she calls it on her blog Final Photograph. In other ashen news: Earlier this month, a man in Vershire, Vermont, borrowed a wheelbarrow, disinterred the cremated remains of his father, and brought them - along with the man's headstone - home with him, a crime punishable by a prison sentence of up to 15 years and a fine of up to $10,000.

Happy Father's Day! 6/21/09 In a follow-up to my Father's Day post, I referenced this story about fighting finches. I just learned that partridge-fighting is a popular gambling sport in Afghanistan.

Placing of rocks 6/20/09 I had not heard of the Durdle Door in Dorset, England, until I researched this post, but once seen, it is most recognizable. It has been used, however, to lure tourists to a resort in Dubai.

Bog bodies 6/19/09 Workers at Gilltown bog in Co. Kildare, Ireland, uncovered a 3,000-year-old oak barrel of butter. Museum director Padraig Clancy calls the Iron Age practice of sinking the butter in the bog "piseogary."

Obama likeness 6/5/09 A similarity to Michael Jackson is seen in this Egyptian statue at Chicago's Field Museum.

Elusive animals 6/4/09 Researchers have just discovered that the Tasman booby is not extinct after all - it has been masquerading as the masked booby for years!

Barnacle geese 5/30/09 A sea monster with writhing tentacles that washed up on shore in Wales turned out to be a seething mass of goose barnacles attached to a log!

Cave paintings at Lascaux 5/25/09 Archaeologists believe they have identified the earliest map - a 14,000-year-old representation of the area landscape found on a tablet in a Spanish cave.

Birds! 5/21/09 Like the goose flying upside-down in this post, here is a remarkable photo of an eagle (unsuccessfully) attacking a goose larger than itself in mid-air.

Mortsafes 5/20/09 My friends Valerie and Roger were vacationing in Scotland recently and send me this snapshot from one of the graveyards indicating how the caretakers have responded to a gravestone that apparently fell over on someone.

Species named after Stephen Colbert 5/8/09 Related to this post only because it's about a bug, here's a story about the discovery of the rarest insect on earth, not seen in 70 years - the 6" Lord Howe Island stick insect, also known as the "land lobster." The article was written by fan Dylan Thuras of Curious Expeditions and Atlas Obscura.

Bears in the news 4/24/09 There have been numerous stories in the news of bears being struck and killed by cars, but here is a more uplifting item (with video) of a bear that took a swim in a residential pool in San Dimas, California.

Robo-animals 4/9/09 A duck with a fractured leg that healed badly has been outfitted with a sandal. A Thai elephant that stepped on a landmine 10 years ago now has a prosthetic; here's another article about "Motola" with a few more photos. An elephant suffering from abscesses in an English zoo has received a pair of slippers. And a wetsuit has been tailored for a featherless penguin.

Flannery O'Connor 4/9/09 After roaming free for 6 weeks in the town in which I grew up - Springfield, Illinois - 2 peacocks have been reunited with their owner.

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Taxidermy art 4/6/09 I recently made the on-line acquaintance of artist Lisa Wood - check out her wonderful website here.

Poisonous plants 3/30/09 A German supermarket has removed all bags of mixed salad after a customer found a poisonous weed called groundsel in with the greens.

Rosamond Purcell 3/22/09 I have attached this story to my post about Rosamond Purcell because she photographs such collections. Almost 300 rare tropical birds have been stolen from cabinets in the Natural History Museum in Tring, Hertsfordshire, England. Police believe the irreplaceable specimens may be ripped apart so their colorful feathers can be used to make jewelry and fishing lures.

Designer legs 3/15/09 Like amputee Aimee Mullins, who owns several pairs of designer legs, Mexican novelist Mario Bellatin has more than a dozen attachments for his prosthetic arm.

Seahorses and sea dragons 3/14/09 Researchers at the University of Zurich found that male seahorses choose the largest females as mates, which contradicts earlier assumptions that the females do the choosing.

Footprints 2/28/09 Paleontologists from the Natural History Museum in Basel, Switzerland, have discovered - halfway up a mountain in the Alps - the largest dinosaur footprints to be found to date in Europe. My Dad and stepmother Sarah recently happened on a dinosaur museum while traveling through Blanding, Utah, so I have uploaded them here.

Preserved in amber 2/24/09 A new species of an ancient gecko was found in the forest of Myanmar (Burma) preserved in amber in 2008. The amber preserved its toes, with their characteristic sticky hairs, and part of its tail. Here is another article about all of the new species discovered in the Himilayas.

Man on Wire 2/23/09 A priest dressed in traditional garb took part in a daredevil stunt in East Sussex, England, to raise money for charity - he walked a tightrope 80' in the air with no net and no training.

Corpse flower 1/30/09 I haven't specifically blogged about carnivorous plants, but here's a story too good to pass up: a newly discovered species of pitcher plant large enough to eat a rat!

Ancient animals 1/19/09 "Billy," a 110-year-old Galapagos tortoise, has finally mated with 47-year-old "Tammy" after spurning her advances for 15 years! Their 7 eggs are due to hatch in 8 to 12 weeks.

Follow-ups and followers 1/9/09 In the follow-up to my frozen reindeer post, I added the photo of the moose that got strung up on a telephone pole. In the weird news recently was the story of a live ram that was rescued from a telephone pole in Norway when his horn got caught and he abseiled down the wire!

Internal decapitation 12/28/08 Chris Stewart, a 14-year-old boy from Hampshire, England, is the first person to completely recover from (and only the 6th to survive) having his skull separated from his spine, and is back on the track - but in a go-kart rather than a racecar.

Albinos 11/18/08 More albino animals: A porcupine named "Blondie" lives with her sister at the London Zoo. A rare albino swallow made an appearance in Aberdeenshire, England.

Fatal tiger maulings 11/10/08 The 2 brothers who survived the Christmas Day 2007 tiger attack described in this post were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and giving false identification to police after they were stopped when swerving on the highway and found with an open bottle of vodka in the car.

Zeppelin 10/26/09 Here is a great slideshow of the construction and destruction of the dirigible Hindenburg.

Amputation 10/19/08 Riam Dean of London has won an employment suit against Abercrombie & Fitch. The 22-year-old amputee had been taken off the sales floor and made to work in the stockroom because her prosthetic arm did not meet with the store's image.

Alive! 9/25/09 The survivors of the plane crash in the Andes, whose survival cannibalism was documented in books and films, are urging fellow Uruguayans to sign up for a government-run organ donation program.

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Phew, I've got to do my follow-ups more often...

Leonardo's lion

A mechanical lion invented by Leonardo da Vinci to entertain French king Francois I (1494-1597) has just been recreated at the Chateau de Clos Luce in Ambroise. "We loved the idea that Leonardo was not only an artist and an engineer, but also a fabulous stage director, a master of special effects," said the president of the private museum. "He knew how to satisfy an audience with amazing creations. He was the George Lucas of his time." The lion is wound up by hand, then takes about 10 steps forward, shaking its head from side to side, wagging its tail, and opening and closing its mouth (click on photo for video). Da Vinci was a master of automata, some of which he built and others of which exist only as descriptions or drawings in his many notebooks. Models of his inventions have been replicated as hobbies (flying machine, mechanical hammer), class projects (crankshaft, mill), and museum pieces (tank, automobile). Here are images of more machines and here are descriptions of some of the inventions featured in a traveling exhibit. If you are interested in reading more, here is an interview about the proto-car and a book about da Vinci's robots. Now my imagined dinner table includes Robert Ripley, Leonardo da Vinci, and an Italian translator!

Dissection by Leonardo da Vinci

In his notebooks, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1509) makes reference to dissecting ten human bodies. This is credible, though it can't be corroborated, because these would have been private dissections. As a successful artist, he was allowed to dissect in hospitals in Florence, Milan, and Rome. He completed 200 illustrations for an anatomy text that wasn't published until long after his death.