This is a collection of 60 or so comic strips made in 2008 that present breakthroughs in science research through a strange group of genetically modified characters.  Sometimes the comics are funny, and other times they are more concerned with creating imagery to better illustrate the science article presented in the blog area beneath.

Click on here to start at the beginning or peruse individual months from the console to the right.  Please enjoy.

Ugh… when you find out that polymers can actually interact with medical samples, such as enzymes and tissues and the like, it makes me wonder why we’re so comfortable eating food out of similar substances, or weaving it into our clothes.  Clearly it affects our GOSH DARN BIOCHEMISTRY… but obviously I forget that ”it’s so cheap to make!”

 Well, yeah.  The costs aren’t in production. The costs are in our health, and the integrity of scientific process.  In fact, we can’t even study the effects of plastic on our biochems unless we study them out of glass instruments.

 Ugh. Ugh. Have a happy weekend, I’m nauseous. Ugh.

Back in the late summer of 2007, feet started washing up on North America’s northwestern coast.  That’s right, human feet, trapped in shoes.  All sorts of theories started bubbling up… the discarded severed feet of some psycho-killer, or the decomposing break-0ffs of drowned bodies… but were they the feet of organized crime victims, or of plane crashees or illegal immigrant capsizings?

 There was a hoax that threw investigators off… but in November of 2008, an actual sixth foot washed ashore.

 Even after Dominion was Over, the feet never stopped flowing. Whose were they? Where did they come from? It will remain a mystery for as long as curiosity exists in this biosphere.

Jeez, if you folks want horse science, I guess there’s some stem cell research that can benefit horse breeders. I don’t really know.  I just had a dumb idea I wanted to illustrate. Horses are scary. Horse owners can be scarier.

So Jujubes used to be totally inedible rock-hard gelatin candies, until they added different chemicals to soften ‘em up and make ‘em more chewable.  This is what happened when the makers of LEVONORGESTREL bought out the confectionery companies to enhance flavor and reduce populations AT THE SAME TIME!

And thus, like the insect invasions and so many other things that went wrong during Dominion’s Collapse, this turn of events helped ensure the end of the Masters.

The author of the following site LOVES Jujubes, to the point where I feel unease.

Gasbustin’ wouldn’t have been possible without the realization that most of our planet’s mantle can absorb carbon dioxide like nothing the Masters could have imagined.

 In fact, this mantle mineral, peridotite, seems to naturally occur on the Earth’s surface in the country that used to be called Oman before Dominion ended.

The mineral needs only be exposed to carbon dioxide, and it starts reacting with the gas, trapping it in a carbonate mineral.  With a little extra effort, we were able to stuff our industries’ excess CO2 into the mantle, preventing it from filling our atmosphere and trapping heat.

Thanks to Mr. Avila for his help with Ghostbusters vocabulary, and Mr. Rosichelli for his own fine idea on how to depict the strip.

I shoulda done this one on Friday, what with the SPOOKY HALLOWEENERY angle. 

Boy-howdy, usually I’m a big fan of the Fungal Kingdom… neither plant nor animal, it makes for an intriguing genre of organisms.

 But I hear about how fungus is waging war against our vertebrate allies, the amphibians and the bats (not to mention our non-vertebrate friends, the trees), and then the darkness drops again, but now I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, and some rough beast, its hour come at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born.

Wow.  What with the impending election day, I forgot it was Hallowe’en. Sorry I drifted from SCIENCE, but I had FEELINGS I had to express.

 Anyhow, yeah, check out W. Edwards Deming. He’s a bad-ass.

Well, they don’t really have noses. But they do have a sense of smell. Well, they can sense chemicals in their surroundings.  C’mon, I anthropomorphize animals as a hobby, I can’t concern myself with these details.

 Anyhow, Dr. Kornfeld’s team at Washington University in St. Louis discovered a chemical that blocks the roundworms’ sense of smell, which then somehow lets them live a while longer. Likely has something to do with the lack of sensory input kicking the metabolism down a notch.  The moment they discover the connection, you’ll hear it here when Dominion’s Over!

India has joined the world’s powerhouse nations and have launched their first lunar mission!  They are reminding the rest of the world that there’s a lot more out there, beyond our little blue marble, and we have to maintain our vision and imagination to see it all.  Though there may be powerful economic forces that may deter us from pursuing our technological potential, I propose that one of the greatest investments a government can make is into its populace’s dreams and hopes and aspirations.

 India is reminding us of something that started half a century ago. Let’s pick it back up.

 When Dominion’s Over, the (bio-engineered facsimiles of the)Hindu Pantheon will be happy to settle on the most magnificent object in our night sky.

 Say hi to Agni, Ganesha, Hanuman, Kamadeva, and an overly-armed Vishnu!