Saturday Sharing (My Finds Are Yours)

Today's edition of Saturday Sharing shows you the unusual (the lit journal Dr. Hurley's Snake-Oil Cure) and the huge (1,100-pound Qur'an),  and rounds out with a video news feature about the fascinating (touchable holograms).

✦ One of the more fascinating blogs I've visited on a tip from Smithsonian Institution Archives is Dr. Hurley's Snake-Oil Cure, described as "a journal of fiction, photography, comic strips, art, reviews, opinions, and tonics, a well as a dash of everything else." The eclectic group of contributors offers posts out of the ordinary, if not exactly what the doctor might have ordered. Adherence to its tagline — "A Remedy for Tedium" — ensures the medicine goes down well. Submissions are welcome, provided you know how to take the cure.

Dr. Hurley on  Twitter

✦ If you've ever wondered about the effect of your charitable donations, you'll find some excellent information to make informed donor decisions at Good Intentions. 

Good Intentions on FaceBook and Twitter

Good Intentions Blog

✦ The world's largest Qur'an — measuring 2.28 meters by 1.55 meters (approximately 7.5 feet by 5.1 feet) and weighing 500 kilograms (approximately 1,100 pounds) — recently was unveiled. Comprising 218 pages, with an embossed leather cover made from the skins of 21 goats, this Qur'an is a masterpiece of calligraphy, which took five years to complete. A Guardian article with an image of the extraordinary holy book is here.

✦ Looking for a source to feed your need for poetry? Try the flying object store, a nonprofit bookstore, letterpress, and gallery where you'll find an uncommon selection of poetry collections. (My thanks to the PEN blog for this link.)

flying object on FaceBook and Twitter

✦ My friend Joyce Wycoff at Imagine Joy Art shared the link to a site featuring the microphotography of Dr. Gary Greenberg, whose images are too good not to share. Photographer and filmmaker Greenberg, who holds a doctore in biomedical research and is the inventor of high-definition 3-D light microscopes, focuses his camera's eye on sand grains, flowers, and food and then magnifies the objects hundreds of times. What he produces is, in a word, awesome. Don't miss Greenberg's body gallery and 3-D gallery comprising laser prints on paper.

✦ Here's a fascinating new technology: touchable holograms, created by Japanese scientists at Tokyo University. The software, which uses ultrasonic waves to create pressure on the user's hand, has wide application, as the video illustrates.