So freaking cool (and freaky)...Via Neatorama and Curious Expeditions.

It is a remarkable bit of irony, that finger. Venerated, kept in reliquary, subjected to the same treatment as a Saint. But this finger belonged to no Saint. It is the long bony finger of an enemy of the church, a heretic. A man so dangerous to the religious institution he was made a prisoner in his own home. It sits in a small glass egg atop an inscribed marble base in the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, or the History of Science Museum in Florence, Italy. On the shelf next to the middle finger of his right hand is something that the once five-fingered heretic would be much happier to see preserved. A small, cracked bit of glass that once glimpsed into the heavens.

I discovered this pretty neat blog via boingboing today (at least that's where I think I found it). This illustration seems to show something that is strangely like an fMRI machine... well with fire instead of magnets, bricks instead of plastic, and smoke instead of a computer analyzing brain images...ohh and instead of the brain images it gives direct insight into the semantic content of the brain.

Check out the BibliOdyssey blog for many many more great illustrations.

I feel like posting some silly brain pictures so here they are:

Here's another interesting book from the "Review copies of books Steve gets in the mail from publication companies, like Prometheus Press, that love bloggers" series If you've read this book please let us know what you think in the comments section.

Todays book is The (Fabulous) Fibonacci Numbers.

Book Description:
The most ubiquitous, and perhaps the most intriguing, number pattern in mathematics is the Fibonacci sequence. In this simple pattern beginning with two ones, each succeeding number is the sum of the two numbers immediately preceding it (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ad infinitum). Far from being just a curiosity, this sequence recurs in structures found throughout nature--from the arrangement of whorls on a pinecone to the branches of certain plant stems. All of which is astounding evidence for the deep mathematical basis of the natural world.

With admirable clarity, math educators Alfred Posamentier and Ingmar Lehmann take us on a fascinating tour of the many ramifications of the Fibonacci numbers. The authors begin with a brief history of their distinguished Italian discoverer, who, among other accomplishments, was responsible for popularizing the use of Arabic numerals in the West. Turning to botany, the authors demonstrate, through illustrative diagrams, the unbelievable connections between Fibonacci numbers and natural forms (pineapples, sunflowers, and daisies are just a few examples). In art, architecture, the stock market, and other areas of society and culture, they point out numerous examples of the Fibonacci sequence as well as its derivative, the "golden ratio." And of course in mathematics, as the authors amply demonstrate, there are almost boundless applications in probability, number theory, geometry, algebra, and Pascal's triangle, to name a few. Accessible and appealing to even the most math-phobic individual, this fun and enlightening book allows the reader to appreciate the elegance of mathematics and its amazing applications in both natural and cultural settings.

About the Author
Alfred S. Posamentier (New York, NY) is dean of the School of Education and professor of mathematics education at The City College of the City University of New York. He has published over 40 books in the area of mathematics and mathematics education, including Pi: A Biography of the World's Most Mysterious Number and Math Charmers: Tantalizing Tidbits for the Mind. Ingmar Lehmann (Berlin, Germany) is on the mathematics faculty at Humboldt University in Berlin and the coauthor of Pi: A Biography of the World's Most Mysterious Number.