OK, just one more: “Patent Barley ‘in powder form’” is not something widely available today, but Robinson’s still exists, after a fashion. Apparently one mixed this stuff with hot water to make a drink. I’ll stick to coffee.
"Is the universe expanding or contracting?"
The science fiction universe, that is: Publisher’s Weekly has a cover story on the state of SF and fantasy publishing. My publisher, DAW, gets a mention although, alas, my book is not the “hot title” from them that gets mentioned.
Universal blood
Blood is always in demand, and not just by vampires. Blood transfusions mean the difference between life and death when people suffer traumatic injuries, or undergo major surgery. But there’s always been a problem with transfusions: people don’t all have the same blood type, and giving someone the wrong blood type is worse than giving …
Sour things taste sweet…
…thanks to this miraculous berry: People who eat the berry say that lemon juice tastes like lemonade and stout beer seems more like a milkshake. They add that after consuming Synsepalum dulcificum, rhubarb tastes like a sugar stick and strawberries taste like candy.Work is underway to commercialize the “miraculin” protein that causes this effect, so …
Mrs. Beeton’s Ad of the Day
Here’s a product you don’t see in grocery stores any more: shredded suet, supplanted, I guess, by lard and Crisco, even though shreeded Atora was “fresh beef suet, thoroughly refined after the skin and impurities” had been removed (well, that’s a relief) and was “the most wholesome and digestible of all fats,” which did not …
Another review of Lost in Translation…
…this time at SF Site, and, alas, rather lukewarm. But at least she thought it was “capably written,” “brisk-paced”, had a “neatly-constructed plot,” and that “many readers will enjoy it.” So it isn’t all bad.
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management…
…is one of many interesting things I’ve found in my mother-in-law’s house, now my house. This 1915 housewives’ hanbook, which belonged to my wife’s grandmother, is (as you can see from the title page) “A Guide to Cookery in All Branches,” plus “Daily Duties, Mistress & Servant, Hostess & Guest, Marketing, Trussing & Carving, Menu …
Universal red blood cells?
This sounds promising: An international team of academic and industry scientists has come up with a feasible way of making universal red blood cells that are stripped of their blood type. The hope is that it can be developed into a viable way of relieving blood bank shortages.(Via Austin Bay Blog.)
Neil Gaiman one step closer to sainthood…
…and other April Fool’s “stories” are at Locus Online. Apparently it is not an April Fool’s story, however, that here has been a correction to the Hugo Award nominees I listed recently: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest has been replaced on the long-form dramatic presentation ballot by Pan’s Labyrinth.
Another Edward Willett
I just discovered that I share a name with one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen (you have to register with the Dayton Daily News to follow that first link, by the way; if you do, you’ll see Edward Willett of Yellow Springs, Ohio, is mentioned as one of the other pilots from the Dayton area …
BIblical illiteracy at the CBC
From a story about a controversial new Victoria production of the George Frederic Handel oratorio Samson that casts Samson as a suicide bomber in 1946 Jerusalem, we get this nugget about the original story: He (Samson) is chained in the temple by the Philistines and forced to witness a sacreligious act. He pulls down the …
Hugo Award nominees announced
The Hugo Awards, for those who don’t know, are roughly equivalent to science fiction’s People’s Choice Awards. Nominees are nominated and voted on by members of the World Science Fiction Convention, and the Hugo Awards Ceremony is always a centrepiece of said convention, which this year is being held in Yokohama, Japan. Here are this …
My latest live walk and vlog
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