Renaissance Shooting The Bogen/Manfrotto 501HDV tripod head is an elegant and useful update to the well-known 501 series.

The 501HDV tripod head is an elegant and useful update to the well-known Bogen/Manfrotto tripod 501 series.

The greatest inventions tend to go unnoticed. It's not so much that they are frivolous or dispensable; rather, they are so essential that they merge instantly into the fabric of daily life while their discoverers go unremarked. Sometimes a discovery transforms a landscape, sometimes it's just a phrase, but the world is never quite the same afterward. Herewith a gallery of inventors we lost in 1994, quirky visionaries whose cry of "Eureka" would change Americans' lives. MARCEL BICH...

Epic Therapeutics Inc receives patent for new technology that may reduce number of injections needed for patients taking bioengineered medications; Dr Maurice Fox and Stanley Selman receive patent for Teflon sock that they say will end blisters and calluses that plague athletes; International Business Machines Corp received most American patents in 1996, for fourth consecutive year; it received total of 1,867 patents in 1996 (M)...

Today we add Angry Toxicologist to our blogroll. Angry Toxicologist is "focused on public health and the science behind it . . . written for the non-scientist without dumbing anything down." Four days a week, Angry Toxicologist explores a diverse array of topics, from media coverage of science to how regulations work. Friday is reserved for a non-science post, such as Idiot of the Week or this entry, which wanders from gender identity to French politics to songs with the best beginnings.

Angry Toxicologist is another important voice in the same vein as Effect Measure and The Pump Handle. Like the authors of those two must-reads, AT is a scientist in the public health sector who blogs anonymously to protect his professional affiliations.

Full Disclosure: I had already drafted this promotion of Angry Toxicologist before reading the post today which cites EWG's extensive work on the Teflon chemical, PFOA.