al-mofhariz

The 3rd-annual Carnivorous Nights Taxidermy Contest--held at Union Hall on the Day of the Dead--was a beastly success! Check out all the photos on Flickr taken by Robert Marbury, Marco Repola, and Eric Harvey Brown. The Rump Ape--patron saint of the taxidermy contest--(pictured above with Union Hall co-owner Andy Templar) congratulates the winners!

The winners are:
Mike Zohn of Obscura Antiques received the Order of Carnivorous Knights Grand Prize for his "shadowbox mise en scene" of albino weasels posing as miniature polar bears:
Takeshi Yamada (last year's Grand Champion of Taxidermy) defended his title and received the Rump Ape Prize for Best Hybrid Creature:
Ryan Toth of the Evolution store in SoHo brought down the house with his two-faced cat skeleton, Frank & Louie, and won the Secret Science Club Prize for Best in Bones. Pictured below is Darrin Lunde of the American Museum of Natural History inspecting the cat(s):
For his skull--lovingly encrusted with rhinestones…

WORLD-RENOWNED CHEMIST RONALD BRESLOW LECTURES ON SAHA
H2O, CO2, C6H12O6. All these molecules are naturally occurring—but new ones are being created all the time. “What I do is make new molecules with interesting properties,” says Columbia University chemist and professor Ronald Breslow.

The recipient of the U.S. National Medal of Science and the author of more than 400 scientific papers, Dr. Breslow has been instrumental in creating over 1,000 new chemical compounds—including SAHA, a recently approved cancer-fighting drug with a novel mechanism of action.

A pioneer of biomimetic chemistry and a passionate proponent of the public understanding of science, Dr. Breslow asks: How can we mimic naturally-occurring chemistry to solve problems of human health? Can artificial cells that approximate life be made in the laboratory to propel basic discoveries as well as treatments? What future challenges can chemistry address (e.g., efficient solar power, antibiotics to combat resistant bacteria)?

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