Ice Jellies and Buchsbaum's Translucent Canes

Just came across a BBC article about these lovelies this morning, and I just had to share them! Oooo lala! These jelly fish live in the Arctic's deep (and might I add... cold!) waters.

For those who don't feel like reading about them, but want to see more photos of these amazing ice jellies, there's a wonderful gallery of them here.

It is fortuitous, I would think, that I came across these critters seeing as yesterday I started playing with translucent polymer clay canes. I don't have any samples of my efforts to show yet, but I will share my initial inspiration... Merrie Buchsbaum's stunning "organic" canes, which sing praises about the potential of translucent polymer clay.

Don't these beads make your fingers just itch to get your stash of translucent clay out?

I've been saving an article to share with you about a new form of... well... I guess you would call it a microscope, of sorts... anyway, for the first time ever, researchers in Zurich (aren't those Swiss simply terrific?!) have managed to take a 3D image of a molecule. And guess what... it looks just like the pictures in my old high school chemistry text books! (The real molecule is the one on the top.)

Pretty wild, huh?

Ok, enough with the science lessons... I'll do my best to post some pics of my own work next time... and perhaps - by then - I will even be able to tell you that my Scrap Clay tutorial is done and on my Etsy site. Heh.

Edit:
Wait, wait, do go yet! I just got a comment from "Errant" about a photo at Deviant Art by Igor Siwanowicz, and you have to see it!

These two different "morphs" of the Deat's-head caterpillar give me the shivers... in a really good way! Thanks, Errant, for the lead. (Now my Muse is goin' crazy, so it's off to the studio I go.)