This is certainly the first time I’ve seen anything on Canadian politics in New Scientist online: According to a new computer algorithm, Prime Minister Paul Martin, of the Liberal Party, spins the subject matter of his speeches dramatically more than Conservative Party leader, Stephen Harper, and the New Democratic Party leader, Jack Layton. Spin, in …
Category: Blog
More on the Weyburn Mental Hospital
Via BoingBoing, I found this collection of photos from a recent visitor to the Weyburn Mental Hospital, which I mentioned in an earlier post due to its connection to LSD experiments in the 1950s. I suppose the place is a bit creepy (I always thought the driveway to the hospital in the above photo should …
Back in the saddle–er, office chair
I got back from Saskatoon yesterday about this time, but I had to hit the ground running and haven’t had time to blog–I had to prepare for last night’s Net.talk (the phone-in computer show I host on Access Communication’s community TV channel), then go to rehearsal for Regina Lyric Light Opera’s upcoming musical brunch, featuring …
Blogging from the Bessborough
Here I am, sitting in the lobby lounge of the Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon, going over my plans for tonight’s Genetics Demystified reading and reception…and, since I have my Audiovox Harrier with me, and since I recently signed up for an unlimited data plan, I figured I might as well blog. We had a pretty …
Off to Saskatoon to promote Genetics Demystified
Well, I’m off to Saskatoon tomor–er, later today (gee, how did it get to be so late?) to promoted Genetics Demystified with a reading and signing at McNally Robinson Book Store. If you happen to be in the area, drop by at 7 p.m.! I might blog some more before I leave (around noon), but …
A body at rest tends to remain at rest
When I roll out of bed in the morning and stagger to the bathroom, normally stationary walls leap out at me, and an errant slipper becomes a deadly obstacle. Rather than having just awakened from a good night’s sleep, I look like I just came in from a good all-night party. There’s a word—two, actually—for …
Look! Up in the sky! It’s a giant airship!
Defense Tech points to a story about an entry in the race to build a giant blimp–something that caught my eye, since I love airships and since I’m currently reading Skybreaker, Kenneth Opel’s sequel to his tons-o’-fun Skyborn.
From sweet-and-sour to sweet-and-sweet
Tablets made from “miracle fruit” have gone on sale in Japan. After you take one, anything sour you eat for the next couple of hours tastes sweet. No, honest, that’s what the story says: One pink-colored tablet is made of three miracle fruit berries, Shimamura said. When people eat or lick the fruit’s red berries, …
Geordi LaForge, call your opthamologist
Your first visor has come in.
Using algae to clean power plant exhaust
“Bioreactors” filled with algae can clean smokestack exhaust on power plants–and then be processed to produce biodiesel fuel. For his part, Berzin calculates that just one 1,000 megawatt power plant using his system could produce more than 40 million gallons of biodiesel and 50 million gallons of ethanol a year. That would require a 2,000-acre …
Tatooine could be out there somewhere…
Two new studies suggest that planets can more easily form in multiple-star systems than previously thought–which is good news, because it’s estimated that two out of every three stars in the Milky Way galaxy are part of multiple-star systems, many of them binary. Not only that, the studies indicate that once gas-giants have finished forming …
Aw, come on, have a heart! I just printed it…
Scientists have, for the first time, used a form of ink-jet printer to create jets of living cells. Suwan Jayasinghe of University College London and colleagues at Kings College London say their technique, which does not destroy the cells, could be used to grow biological tissue or even human organs. Boy, and you thought your …
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