My mask collection - wooden, steel, leather, ceramic, tin, and bone

By Jack Brummet

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Images of the Plague Doctors

By Mona Goldwater, Social Mores Ed.

A plague doctor was a special medical physician who treated those who had the Plague (a/k/a/ The Black Death).   "In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, some doctors wore a beak-like mask which was filled with aromatic items. The masks were designed to protect them from putrid air, which (according to the miasmatic theory of disease) was seen as the cause of infection. Thus:

"The nose half a foot long, shaped like a beak, filled with perfume with only two holes, one on each side near the nostrils, but that can suffice to breathe and to carry along with the air one breathes the impression of the drugs enclosed further along in the beak. Under the coat we wear boots made in Moroccan leather (goat leather) from the front of the breaches in smooth skin that are attached to said boots and a short-sleeved blouse in smooth skin, the bottom of which is tucked into the breaches. The hat and gloves are also made of the same skin… with spectacles over the eyes."

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Photographs from Bogota's Museo del Oro

By Jack Brummet, Precious Metals Ed.

Bogota's Museo del Oro contains more gold than all the other museums I've seen across the world put together.  Gold is so interlinked with the history and destiny of Colombia that it's inevitable they have this museum.  It ranges from fascinating to amusing.  

My love of museums most often focuses on those that contain paintings (portraits in particular, and sculptures), but this was a glorious exception.  Naturally, I was most fascinated with the faces and masks, but I also include some other pieces here.  Even a couple that are not made of gold, like the carved stone diorama immediately below:

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A 3D copy of you

By Mona Goldwater, Technology Editor

Real-F is offering an amazingly detailed 3D face mask of you for $3,920.  A copy of your entire head will run you $5,875.  But after the first one, discounts come in...additional faces and heads cost $780 and $1,960.

Real-F's "Three -Dimension Photo form (3DPF)" technique allows them to duplicate pores, eye's blood vessels and iris exactly like the original, the original being you.

I would love to have a bunch of these and walk the streets with my platoon of clones. . .

You can find them here, on Facebook, or at their Website.  Only four grand: what have you got to lose?

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